You’re Geralt of Rivia, a famous Witcher ; a human who has undergone extreme mutations to gain superhuman abilities, and works as a monster slayer for hire. Fortunately your adventure starts you off with a severe case of amnesia, which helps smooth the introduction to the setting, characters and environment for those unfamiliar with the books.

Well… as smooth as can be when in the first hour - the tutorial - you get to deal with an invasion of bandits on your castle. A wizard and infamous assassin teaming up to steal the Witchers’ best kept secret. Your friends being killed or injured. And a Sorceress trying to bed you…

It should be fairly obvious by now that The Witcher isn’t quite your standard fantasy role-playing fare. Within just the first chapter you’re faced with subjects like racism, rape, theft, terrorism, suicide and a lot of tough decisions to make. Do you defend a guilty witch from a potentially even guiltier mob, or do you hand her over?

CDProjekt has crafted an amazingly immersive, raw and eerily recognizable world. There’s no damsel in distress, no knight in shining armor and monsters are far from the worst terror to civilization. No man is innocent and the entire game oozes an atmosphere of unmistakable realism ; well, as realistic as fantasy can get anyway. Meanwhile you roam around as a rough, sarcastic and sorceress-crazy monster slayer. Yikes.

But let’s take a few steps back first and explore the beginning. You’re introduced to the game by means of an impressive opening sequence. Geralt takes on a Striga, and while it’s no grand explanation of the world, setting, story, your character and everything else… it is so suitable to the game, so grim and atmospheric, that you’ll be rushing to click that New Game button the moment the menu pops up.

Only to be greeted by yet another introductory scene… this time showing your arrival at Kaer Morhen, the Witchers’ hideout, as you remember nothing. There’s no time to catch up on old times with your pals though, because before you know it bandits are knocking on the front door, and you’re hacking your way through them to defend the castle and the secrets hidden deep within.

All this hacking and slashing occurs in a rather novel way; requiring precise timing of your mouse clicks to chain devastating combo attacks. This is all controlled in one of three viewmodes, allowing you to either follow Geralt in the Over The Shoulder type camera for a truly immersive experience, or take up arms in the more standard isometric camera modes.

The battle scenes meanwhile are brought to life by a heavily modified Aurora (Neverwinter Nights 1) engine, which paints amongst the prettiest RPG pictures I have ever seen. While visually perhaps not quite as technically impressive as an Oblivion, contrary to such games The Witcher attempts a more stylized approach, and succeeds with flying colors.

Everything about the world breathes atmosphere. Whether it’s the monsters coming out of hiding in the pitch-black night, the villagers ranting as they run for shelter from the rain or the eerily beautiful sight of a sun rising over the water in the morning. This paired with, mostly, stellar voice acting and incredible music makes for the most immersive role playing experience I’ve ever experienced.

Aside from featuring a non-linear storyline, beautiful stylized graphics, engaging combat and great music… The Witcher also offers some good old cRPG gameplay. You’ll find yourself gaining quests from local villagers, without silly exclamation marks floating over their heads. And thinning the local monster-populace, mainly at night or in dark places.

Geralt will level up as you progress, although you can’t actually see his current experience level. As you level you unlock access to new skill coins that allow you to gain new abilities and improve your existing ones. These consist of either base statistics (stamina, strength, endurance, intelligence) related skills, sword style-related skills (normal fast, group, strong and silver fast, group, strong) or magic-related abilities.

These skills can be learned only through meditation, which is done by starting a fire near a fireplace or talking to specific NPCs. In the meditation screen you can also brew alchemical potions or craft powerful bombs. This mode is also particularly useful for swiftly regenerating your vitality and endurance points, or passing through the day on to the night when monsters come to haunt the streets.

Battles in The Witcher are diverse and can require some planning. You’ll gain knowledge on monsters through books and skills, which grants you information on their strengths and weaknesses as well as the ability to harvest ingredients from their bodies. These ingredients can then be used to make potions or bombs, which in turn allow you to temporarily improve your fighting abilities.

During combat you won’t just be using some potions and chaining combo’s, but also frequently switching sword styles. The fast style takes care of nimble opponents, strong style tends to heavily armored targets and the group style is good for anything coming at you in groups. The weapon you use is also important, because Geralt has two different kinds to choose from. The steel sword takes care of human opponents, whereas monsters are more easily dispatched of with the silver sword.

Aside from all this there are also defensive maneuvers to take into consideration. Geralt can dodge opponents, or jump over them - which is frequently necessary when facing opponents in groups, or particularly tough foes. Magic signs can be used to set foes on fire, blow them away or form a defensive shield, amongst others. This combines to make combat in The Witcher very engaging and stylish, albeit less tactical than a classic party-based cRPG.

I should also mention the various mini-games. Drinking contests are fairly basic, only requiring alchohol and a bit of luck in lasting longer than your opponent. Your reward will generally be some useful information or item. Gambling is also present in the form of dice-based poker, and is a nice quick way to make some extra money. You can also engage in fist fights, which are similar to regular combat except your maneuverability is limited and you use your fists. The reward? Money and items.

On the topic of items: storage is unfortunately a bit of a weak point of The Witcher. You can leave your items at your local bartender, but these are automatically alphabetically sorted and can’t be rearranged. This combined with no indication of whether you can browse a potion without meditating tends to turn alchemy into a bit of a chore. That said, this is the only complaint I’ve uncovered thus far, over a dozen hours in.

All in all I’m thoroughly enjoying this Polish cRPG, which certainly offers the best role-playing experience in a long, long, time. Players and reviewers alike are comparing this to games like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape Torment and I can’t blame them: The Witcher looks to be on a similar level of pure brilliance and quality. However, I have only played for roughly a dozen hours and only just got started in Chapter 2. That is why this is not a review. I will write one, but I’ll wait until after playing this game through to the end, at least once.

Don’t let that stop you though! If you have even a remote interest in RPGs then you’ll want to play this game. I’ve talked to cRPG fans and non-RPG players alike and they all love it, just like I do. This is one game you simply must buy. Heck, it’s kept me away from the Unreal Tournament 3 demo for almost a week now, that should say plenty for it’s quality. It’s just one of those games you pick up and don’t drop until you’ve played through it, preferably several times.

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