The Witcher 3

Two feminine figures can be seen, mostly naked but covered. One with silver hair looks to the camera. A dialogue subtitle says 'Oops, well now the milk's spilt... do you fancy Skjall?.' The silver haired woman has three dialogue options, 'He's not half bad,', 'he seems nice' or 'to tell the truth, I prefer women.'
I was ready to accept that I wasn’t going to agree with the hype for this game. It was going to be one of those things that everyone loved that I’d just missed, and I was fine with that. Then I played it, and… wow, I was wrong.

The Witcher 3 is everything everyone ever said it would be. I played the first two games before playing this one, and maybe that was my mistake. They’re not bad games – there are many things that make them great – but the treatment of women is at times questionable and often just downright offensive, so I was always a little skeptical of those who sang the praises of this installment. Ninety hours later, I’m a changed woman. I went on a journey (not one about queer games – I go on a lot of journeys, apparently), I laughed, I cried, I sat in quiet reflection and thought about the choices I’d made. I fell in love with Geralt (who had never really hooked me before), and Yennefer (obviously that was love at first sight), and I felt heartbroken for Triss, and… ugh, Ciri. So many people have written these words about this game that spoke to them, and I never believed it, and if you want someone to sing its praises you could read countless other extended articles. There’s no point in me doing that here. What needs to be said in this space is that when I saw that TW3 was included in QRM’s database, after having played the first two, I was worried. I thought it’d mess it up. I expected to be offended. Instead, I got unexpectedly fuzzy feelings as I was given the option to get a character I’d quickly fallen in love with say seven simple words – “to tell the truth, I prefer women”. Having Ciri say that quite casually and for it to be well-received by the other members of her conversation tugged on my heartstrings in a way I can’t quite express. All I can say is that going in, I didn’t think TW3 would shine in its quiet, understated moments, and I was blown away.

You should play this if…

You have access to it and a whole bunch of hours to spare. You can go pretty deep into the lore, obviously, but I can’t really speak on how attractive it is to someone who didn’t play the first two games. Many have said it’s fine to go into the series without doing so, but it definitely added to my experience. If fantasy RPGs aren’t your thing, this probably won’t appeal to you. It can get a little grotesque at times too – some of the monsters are objectively a bit spooky. But! If you’re like me, and it’s something that concerns you, you’ll be pleased to know that there are no spiders in this game (just some sort of crab-like monsters that are even less spidery than the Rachni in Mass Effect) and at no point does anything drop down on you from the ceiling. I’m pretty easily spooked, and managed to get through without any major concerns. Sadly, I can’t say anything about the expansions, because… well, there are spiders in those. You win some, you lose some.