The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 is a Open world RPG game made by Poland's finest Gaming studio cd projekt red. The Witcher Is set In a magical yet war-torn land Where monsters freely roam the Rotting battlefields and Harass the Decimated villages. But beyond the lore And is a fascinating world That the scheme is set in the which are three excels at one thing above all others. And this trailer gives you a Damn good taste.



I have seen no other game or form of media ever in my life that is question my sense of morality and what is right as much is this game! this world is alive and everything you do, down to the smallest actions has a effect on it. Run into a bunch of bandits harassing a town and stealing their  food and money? well now that You've killed him you find out that they're the Baron's Bandits collecting their "taxes" in the Baron has to make an example by hanging a few of the Filthy peasants you were trying to protect.

Run into a mob Trying to hang a Foreign soldier at a crossroads? well truth be told they are trying to hang A soldier that's invaded their lands but he is screaming that he's a deserter and just trying to get home.... Better make a choice now because they're just about done hanging him! Here you are trying to tell the angry Mob to let the guy go and they draw their swords on Ya! No choice now but to kill the peasants in defence. But was it the right choice? that soldier could've killed and raped his way across this entire country! Really no way of knowing though so you let the man go, Wondering in the back of your head if you made the right decision.

The protagonist is of course a Witcher, an abomination, a filthy mutant created by magic from men long ago to hunt down the beasts that prowl the night. Once Revered and held in high esteem, Now their Spit upon by the Nobles and held in suspicious fear by the religious. they hunt monsters for coin as they've always done. As that is their purpose.



This game for me (and I would say a few thousand other people) Is the game of the year. And though I know most of you won't buy it I Implore you to at least watch Some Videos or maybe even a play through. This is a wonderful place to start if you want a little taste of gameplay :)

A little tidbit to add. I once heard an opinion that this game can be so dark and its morality can be so grey Simply because it's been developed by people who still feel the effects of the Soviets oppression. I've seen a couple videos of people going to Poland and it's certainly not dark or visibly being oppressed but the culture and the attitude of the people show quite a few hints of social Oppression. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the matter!

Hey Seth!

You are too modest when you saw "few thousand people" really like this game. Wikipedia lists it selling 10 million units worldwide, it won 200 awards based on its preview alone, the current list of awards given to Witcher3 has its own Wikipedia page!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_The_Witcher_3:_Wild_Hunt

Witcher3 came across my radar last year when Yahtzee - everyone's favorite foul-mouthed Australian gamer - gave it a good review. Since he's a cynical Gen-Xer a good review is a rare occasion so I took notice.

<This is the Yahtzee review from June 2015 - it is very short, very NSFW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmH_Fai42g8>

Great looking game. I'm stunned by how immersive it looks, so many worlds to explore (I still think about Rimworld and FallOut).

Fantasy Industry Geek Stuff:

The Eastern European/Slavic love for gloominess and 'grim-dark' is a legendary cultural trait and long pre-dates the Soviet Revolution of 1917 -- but I'm sure the horrors that swept this region during the 20th Century encouraged even deeper pessimism about humanity.  While I'm not sure I could do a 'grim-dark' setting these days (between a Goth-filled youth, reading history books and the daily news, my grim-dark meter is often maxed out) I still have a soft spot for the strange appeal of that Slavic gloom. In fact, I just recommended a very grim Twine game about a Slavic goblin being evicted/killed by a Soviet officer - which I think represented the Soviet's secular philosophy replacing older religion and folk-tales:

https://roadtonowhere.forumotion.org/t358-friday-round-up

And some of the very first music selections on this site were melancholy Slavic songs from Poland and Armenia:

https://roadtonowhere.forumotion.org/t19-djivan-gasparian-i-will-not-be-sad-in-this-world
https://roadtonowhere.forumotion.org/t27-zegarmistrz-swiatla-purpurowy-tadeusz-wozniak

I actually did my own translation of Polish lyrics because I liked that song so much. So I have an affinity for the Slavic grim-dark - in controlled doses - and I can see the appeal of a well-done gaming world largely set in the genre. I only wished that the player in the video would have slowed down his high-pitched sarcastic quips during the whole play-through so I could soak in the grimness of ruined villages...

The question the most interests me is about Witcher3's ambiguous morality and what do you take away from it? The examples you give about the tax collector and foreign soldiers seem to be about making choices without enough information but with dire medieval-justice consequences. Going through such choices sound difficult and you say it made you question your "sense of morality and what is right".  That's pretty powerful stuff, so I'm curious about whether you have changed your view on anything or how you emotionally dealt with those choices.

It was not exactly my sense of what is right that was affected but rather the process in which I decide what is right and wrong and what is for the greater good. Although often times the game would give you only a few minutes to make a proper decision, It very much encouraged you to Look at all aspects of the situation. Often times Geralt would talk to himself about his previous actions, sometimes bringing up the possible evil or misfortune his actions could be causing.

This really forced me to look at the big picture instead of the gruesome scene Right before my eyes. Which I must admit does not happen often for me! A good example is that those tax collecting bandits that you killed now make it impossible for you to gain an audience with the barron, And so instead of simply walking into his castle you need to sneak in. I think the big clincher for the game is the main objective. You're trying to find your adopted daughter who is being hunted by the big baddies. And it's up to you on whether you're going to do whatever is necessary To find her and protect her. Even if that means killing a few innocents on the way, or rather leaving a few to die.

It interesting that the violence has longer-term consequences or is being put into a social context. Generally the more abstracted the violence is, the easier it is to perform. Good for Witcher3.

TOP EXCUSES GIVEN BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS WHEN KILLING STRANGERS IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY
1) To protect by own children
2) To protect my buddies in this squad
3) To protect the people of this land from their bad ruler

Here a 'moral choice' plot I sometimes use: you must choose between saving your own kid and saving a village full of childern. How many dead kids is your own child worth? How much is your own child a 'license to kill'?

The initial answer is easy for most modern North Americans, "I'll kill as many as it takes to save my kid!" Then the pile of dead kids and grieving parents start accumulating... eventually the you have to look your kid in the face and explain that he is worth the murder of hundreds (even tens of thousands) of other kids.

At this point in the thought-experiment my class usually get nervous.

I don't fault Witcher3 too badly for relying on this common trope - but it is a widely accepted morality that is ripe for exploring.

"All for the greater good" I say is I push my son off a cliff another example I immediately thought of when you're were giving yours would be a choice between the death of your family and the death of an entire culture! But that might go over the heads of some of your students. I'm currently watching the avatar series again and that focuses a lot on The destruction of an entire culture.

Your utilitarian response is a perfectly valid - if not overly popular - answer. Spock is perhaps one of the few pop-cultural advocates for utilitarianism.



It is easy to imagine the death of a loved one (and the desire for revenge) but the human brain staggers when it tries to grasp what the death of a 'culture' or 'nation' means. As the quote goes: "A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic"

If you are interested in this subject, you could look at the "Trolley problem" ethical question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

The basic question (there are many different versions)


One question: When you talk about the "destruction of an entire culture" in Avatar, do you mean actual physical destruction or the wide-scale loss of cultural traditions like First Nation suffered under church/government policy? I have not seen the series.