The Witcher (2007)
The Witcher is an Action Role Playing Game developed by CD Projekt RED and is based on the book "The Last Wish" by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. An Enhanced Edition was released in September, 2008. A director's cut version was released for North America on July 31, 2009.
First released
Oct 26, 2007
Aliases
The Witcher, Witcher
Franchises
The Witcher
Developed by
CD Projekt Red, CD Projekt SA, The Farm 51, Outsource Media (OMUK)
Published by
Atari SA
Platforms
Mac, PC
Genres
Role-Playing, Action-Adventure
Themes
Fantasy
Rating
BBFC: 18, ESRB: M, PEGI: 18+
Releases
- PC - The Witcher United Kingdom
- PC - The Witcher United States
- PC - The Witcher: Enhanced Edition United States
- PC - The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf United Kingdom
- PC - The Witcher Japan
- PC - The Witcher: Ehanced Edition (Platinum Edition) United Kingdom
- PC - The Witcher: Enhanced Edition United Kingdom
- PC - The Witcher (Limited Edition) United Kingdom
Community reviews
The original Witcher has all the hallmarks of the series
For context, I previously played The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360 when it was still fairly new, but this is my first time playing the original game. I played the Enhanced Edition Director's Cut on a Windows PC, which is the best version of the game but still quite old when I played it (in 2016).
The game holds up very well in terms of story, character, and (surprisingly) even graphics. All the hallmarks of the series are there. It definitely feels like a Witcher game, and offers an interesting backstory to put the events of the later games into context. The visuals are pretty good in this edition. On high settings, it looks similar to an early Xbox 360 game.
Pros:
- Good story, characters, and setting. Well-developed universe.
- Good graphics for its time.
- Surprisingly bug-free, even on Windows 10.
Negatives:
- No controller support. Not a problem if you're a dedicated PC gamer who plays at a desk. But I prefer sitting on a couch and playing on a big screen. I used the free app Joy2Key to map various keys to an Xbox controller, and that worked pretty well. I also had to adjust the camera view (to "over the shoulder") and play around with mouse sensativity until it felt right.
- No fast travel. This was the biggest drawback to me. It led to a LOT of backtracking through the same areas again and again, and inflated my playtime to maybe double what it ought to have been. This would have been a great game at 40 hours, but at 83 it felt way too long.
- Lots of repetive "kill x number of y monster" type quests. These were mostly optional, though.
Overall, it's worth playing for fans of the series.
The game holds up very well in terms of story, character, and (surprisingly) even graphics. All the hallmarks of the series are there. It definitely feels like a Witcher game, and offers an interesting backstory to put the events of the later games into context. The visuals are pretty good in this edition. On high settings, it looks similar to an early Xbox 360 game.
Pros:
- Good story, characters, and setting. Well-developed universe.
- Good graphics for its time.
- Surprisingly bug-free, even on Windows 10.
Negatives:
- No controller support. Not a problem if you're a dedicated PC gamer who plays at a desk. But I prefer sitting on a couch and playing on a big screen. I used the free app Joy2Key to map various keys to an Xbox controller, and that worked pretty well. I also had to adjust the camera view (to "over the shoulder") and play around with mouse sensativity until it felt right.
- No fast travel. This was the biggest drawback to me. It led to a LOT of backtracking through the same areas again and again, and inflated my playtime to maybe double what it ought to have been. This would have been a great game at 40 hours, but at 83 it felt way too long.
- Lots of repetive "kill x number of y monster" type quests. These were mostly optional, though.
Overall, it's worth playing for fans of the series.