Alright guys, this game has been super popular for a long time now, and at 70% off, I’m pretty torn on buying it or not. I’m constantly tight on funds, so my game budget is pretty low. So convince me! why should I or shouldn’t I buy the Witcher 3?
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(Zoidberg voice) ‘Mod support maybe?’
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This might not necessarily a convincing statement but:
$14.99 USD (70% off) for GOTY is the lowest price I’ve seen it at by a healthy margin (previously 50%).
On the flipside, this WILL go on sale again, and very likely for the same mark-down based on historical sales.
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The way I’m trying to go about buying any game right now is I first ask myself the following question:
Will I play it immediately after buying?
If not, it’s as @Pylinaer said: it’s likely to go on sale at this price again.
That out of the way, if you have time and the mindset to play an open-world RPG, here are a few recurring pros and cons people usually agree upon when it comes to TW3:
It has an mazingly detailed open-world, which grants several hours of content… and has the potential of becoming overwhelming if you’re not a sidequest junkie – or shallow if you’re strictly doing the main quest.
It tries to add depth even to horseback riding… but fails when it comes to combat.
It has many difficulty settings for you to try out… but for some players even the hardest fails to feel rewardingly challenging.
It features a fantastic card game!.. that will have you sidetracking for cards all the time.
Your choices matter… but sometimes not the way you thought they would based on what the game suggested, which can be frustrating, especially if you’re playing it for the story.
My personal thoughts:
If you check steam, you’ll see I only have ~50 hours in TW3. I’m not a world expert, but personally what took me away from it was my busy life allied to the fact that I just couldn’t seem to be able to focus on the main quests.
It’s not a problem for everyone, it was for me.
Overall, if the question is money, it’s worth it. It’s an ENJOYABLE game. Like… actually fun. The characters are charismatic, Yenn is gorgeous and that just make me lose track of what I was about to type.
Oh yeah. The combat can feel taxing. It doesn’t get more challenging with increased difficulty, just more repetitive and annoying.
If you buy it, give a look at the mods. From the top of my head, map mods, “jump on shallow water” and increasing the duration of the blacksmith sword buff things really helped prevent me from flinging my controller across the room.
Have fun! 
PS: Loads of people idolize this game, which is fine, but all that hype can feel a bit circlejerky at times.
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I honestly don’t see the appeal of the Witcher series. For me, any RPG in which you can’t customize your character is unimmersive and i don’t see any point in it.
However, i fully support the GOG movement so i vote for you to buy it! 
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I’ve started calling RPGs with a set character ‘Imposed role playing games’. You can still ‘Roleplay’ as long as you agree to the games terms! haha
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I’ve been asked so many times, should I buy The Witcher 3? Doesn’t matter who you are, the answer to this question is always: yes.
A friend of mine, that only plays FIFA and CoD, bought TW3 and 100 hours later, he’s into RPGs, God bless him. This game is miraculous.
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A counterpoint about the combat. I understand why some people do not like it, this has been a recurring complaint through all 3 games and the main underlying reason I tend to see is that you can’t play it “your way” you need to embrace the combat system the way it’s designed.
Like with many other aspects of the Witcher you are playing an established characters who does things the way he does things. The combat is designed to fit that character, it’s slow, deliberate and mostly a defensive style waiting for openings to strike. I get that means it wont fall into everyone’s tastes though.
As for the original question. Should you buy it if you’re on a tight budget? I’d say this game can be the best 15€ you’ll ever spend from an entertainment point of view. You can easily put 2-300 hours into this game and enjoy each and every one of them.
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I started playing this game only about a month ago and while I really like it I must say it was overhyped IMO. GOG launcher says I’ve sunk 140 hours into it and I have no regrets. I intend to finish it and beat expansions as well but I have to admit that it’s not perfect.
Witcher 3 is a good game, no doubt about that. It looks amazing, the world is huge, amount of detail is astounding and everything is fully voiced. There are different types of activities, like horse racing, cards, treasure hunts, quests of all types and kinds. I’ve read the books long before even the 1st game was available and I really like the world and the characters, so I don’t mind Geralt making some choices on my behalf. What I really liked about the game is the fact that even the most mundane quests have a bit of character and world building to them. For example a very basic escort mission has a bittersweet backstory about someone slowly losing their loved one to the illness. This mission had no interesting gameplay but character dialog made it memorable for me.
What rubs me the wrong way a bit is that some game systems are in a very weird state - for example underwater combat is basically nonexistent with crossbow being the only option with most level-appropriate enemies dying in 1 hit. Gear progression feels weird as well - I get my witcher armor and do not bother with anything til I get new upgrade but I’m constantly switching swords - as I level up most swords I encounter have slightly better numbers.
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The Witcher 1 was released in 2007 and was given away for free twice in 2018 (not raffles or X number of keys, but actual free-for-everyone-for-a-limited-time giveaways, and on GOG no less). Based on this pattern, we can assume that The Witcher 3, which was released in 2015, will be given away for free in 2026. Even if you don’t have a stereotypically massive Steam backlog, as long as you can keep up with which games are being given away entirely for free like that (or not, since people will make threads about them), you’ll have plenty of games to last you until then, all without risking any of your hard-earned funds.
So yeah, I say wait. I haven’t bought a PC game since 2017.
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To follow on that point of it being an RPG about established characters in an established world, should I start and play the first two Witcher games first? Would that impact my enjoyment much just to jump straight in to number 3?
@KingJamezJr something something Mark of the Ninja?
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There’s very little in the 3rd game requires you to have played any of the others. Some characters will obviously mean more to you as you would have a greater personal backstory with them having played the previous games, even more so if you had read the books. Some things will carry greater importance to you and things like that. I’ve not read the books myself and noticed once or twice the game made a reference to something that happened in them, didn’t ruin anything for me but I had a bit of an “I guess you’d have to have been there”-moment.
But no I would not say they’re required. I will say they are great games as well though and I would recommend playing them never the less. If you can have oversight with the now very dated graphics. They sure have their own collection of flaws of course, no games are perfect. The Witcher series does story telling and world building at a level rarely seen in video games, in human media overall, and in my opinion that made overcoming the flaws easy and worthwhile.
Playing all 3 in a row might exhaust you though so if you have not played any of them and think you might want to start with the 1st one then don’t buy 3rd today because I’d probably recommend you take them on at a slower pace and play other games in between.
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I’ve never played the previous games, Wild Hunt was my entry point into the series and felt like at home. This game has some of the best story telling I came across, with just the right amount of exposure. The best part is that you can delve deeper into the lore, thanks to the in-game glossary that updates the more you progress into the story.
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This!
If you‘re on a budget and you need convincing to buy it, then don‘t. It will be on sale again. It will be bundled at some point. It will be even cheaper, too.
If you really want to play it, and play it right away, then go ahead. 15 bucks will be worth the hours you‘ll get out of it, but don‘t buy it just to add it to the backlog, you‘ll end up regretting that.
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YES!
However, this is from a massive Witcher fanboy who loves the games and novels, and actually managed to enjoy the TV series.
FACT
In game Gwent > full game Gwent.
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Agreed that in game gwent is more fun than the stand alone version, but that’s only because in game gwent is horrendously pay to win. With better ‘rarer’ cards being straight up more powerful in every way with no penalties or costs to play, there’s no way to balance it as a proper competitive card game. You’ll notice that very clearly if you go back to early areas of the game, they will stand no chance what so ever against your fully stacked deck.
I really enjoyed the dice poker game a lot in the previous titles too.
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Bundles have me spoiled for shinies that I don’t have immediate time to play, so I agree with all who said that if you’ll hop into the world post haste, then go for it!
I’ve never tried the Gwent game. Figured it’d end up furiously Pay-to-Win as most of them do. Like Yugioh - loads of fun, but ugh on playing with people who obviously toss a lot of real world coins into the ever deepening well of card packs.
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I kept managing to throw dice of the side of the box 
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Fair point, and because of that I likely will skip it. I’m the patient sort, so waiting for the next sale or that nice 75% off is nothing new.
I would play it right away for sure, but it’s also true that I don’t really want an ever deepening backlog that this could contribute to.
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