Ten Years Later, The Witcher 3 Is Still Unbelievably Good

Ten years ago, my 16-year-old self played The Witcher 3 for the very first time, and it was fantastic. At that point, I had never had so much fun with the story of a game. But once I finished my playthrough, I felt done with it. Because of that, I never played the DLCs. Now, in 2025, I’ve returned to finally experience them, and my god, I’m glad I did.

Story And Choices: The Heart Of The Witcher 3

The story of The Witcher 3 is simply something special. Not just because it’s incredibly atmospheric to chase after Ciri across the game’s world, but also because the smaller stories you encounter along the way are just as fascinating. When I mention the Bloody Baron quest, absolutely everyone who’s played the game knows exactly what I mean. It’s one of those quests that’s so good it basically became part of the collective RPG memory.

But why this quest in particular? In my opinion, it’s the perfect example of what The Witcher 3 truly excels at: the constant feeling that the choices you make actually matter, that they genuinely affect the story and not just change a single line of dialogue from an NPC. The Bloody Baron quest demonstrates this perfectly.

When I returned to the game, I talked to a friend who had played it several times by now. He told me what had happened in his playthroughs of this quest, and I couldn’t understand how he managed to get those outcomes because my ending looked completely different. And that’s where two things become very clear: first, the game constantly makes you choose, and some of these choices seem trivial but still have noticeable consequences, while others feel incredibly important but don’t end up reshaping the entire story. The second point, and maybe the even more important one, is that the game actually trusts you with making really difficult decisions. Almost never are you asked to simply pick the “good” or the “evil” option. The game confronts you with morally grey, and therefore challenging, choices. And even if the outcomes can sometimes be frustrating because it feels like there was no truly “right” answer, that is exactly what makes such a big part of the game’s appeal.

Another major strength of the story is the characters themselves. Sure, the most important question in every run is whether you want to romance Triss or Yennefer, but the story offers way more well-written characters than just those two. A perfect example is Dijkstra. The former spy who is now one of the bosses of Novigrad’s underworld is such a great character because of his dynamic with Geralt. You can tell they don’t like each other, yet they still end up working together, at least in my playthrough. The two of them keep taking shots at each other the entire time, and as a player, it is just incredibly fun to listen to their conversations.

A completely different example would be Radovid. The king of Redania is paranoid, almost outright insane, and the NPCs around him react accordingly, which in turn forces you into some difficult decisions.

To bring it full circle, we come back to the Bloody Baron, because his character is a prime example of the moral grey areas in this game. On one hand, he is a man who has without a doubt made serious mistakes, to put it very mildly. He is a drunk who became violent toward his wife. It must have been bad enough that his wife and daughter eventually fled from him.

On the other hand, he is not portrayed as a completely evil person either. Over the course of the quest, he shows remorse and promises to change. That does not mean you should simply forgive him, but rather that making the right choice in this quest is not easy at all, if a “right” choice even exists. And of course, you also want to make a decision that is good for his wife and daughter, since both of them have built their own lives by now.

This shows just how incredible the characters in this game are. But the major faces of the main story are not the only thing that makes this game something special.

Why The Open World Is The Game’s True Star

The true star of The Witcher 3 isn’t any of the characters mentioned before, and it isn’t Geralt himself either. It is the open world and the countless small stories hidden within it. This world is overflowing with side content. Sure, clearing all the little question marks on the map can get a bit tiring, but even there you occasionally stumble into a small treasure hunt with a note that tells a tiny story. And that is only the bare minimum.

The side quests in this game are probably the best storytelling I have ever experienced in a video game. The only thing that even comes close for me is Baldur’s Gate 3. Every single NPC, no matter how minor, has a personality. The characters tell you what their motivations are, where they come from, or why they are standing in front of you in the first place. Because of that, the entire world feels uniquely atmospheric. The quests range from doing small favors for regular townsfolk all the way to planning the assassination of a king. The crazy part is that both are exciting, because the dialogue and even the most insignificant characters are simply interesting.

The witcher contracts are also an element that adds a ton of atmosphere to the game. You genuinely feel like a witcher when you enter a town or a village and head straight to the notice board to check if there are any contracts posted. Then the clients tell you a little story about what happened, which usually already gives Geralt enough information to figure out what kind of monster he is dealing with, or they tell you outright what it is. After that you can negotiate your pay, unless you want to be the absolute good guy and let people hire you for free. In many cases that is completely possible, and that freedom to play the way you want and shape the small experiences in the world gives the game a feeling that is still unique to me today. All these little stories add up to an open world that is fantastic and still unmatched to this day.

The Witcher 3 Is Charmingly Imperfect

Even if the previous parts might make it seem that way, The Witcher 3 is far from perfect. I absolutely believe that the game still holds up today, but its combat system definitely does not. It is solid, and there are far worse combat systems in other games, but a highlight? Certainly not. The same goes for the buildcrafting. It is not a milestone, but it is solid enough.

There are also plenty of things in this game that can be annoying. In general, the movement feels a bit clunky. Riding your horse and the imprecise controls can also get on your nerves. On top of that, Roach infamously loves to spawn on random rooftops. Most of the time it is funny, but sometimes it is just irritating. Another example of annoying moments are the dialogue options where you choose something and Geralt ends up saying something completely different from what you intended. That can really pull you out of the immersion. Of course, you also have to admit that the next-gen update helped a lot. If the game still looked the way it did in 2015, I would have had a much harder time losing myself in it again.

All of this shows that the game is not perfect, but it comes pretty close. And I haven’t even mentioned the DLCs, which were the reason I returned to the game in the first place. Spoiler: they are fantastic. This game is overflowing with character and soul, and in my opinion, you can’t give a game like this a bigger compliment. And that is exactly why The Witcher 3 is still such a unbelievably good game.

But what do you think? Is The Witcher 3 overhyped or is it finally time for you to pick it up again, too? Let us know in the comments!