The Witcher series tops many a gamer’s favorite RPGs list. And it’s not difficult to see why, with its rich and expansive world, a fantasy story that treats you like an adult, and a set of memorable characters. Now that The Witcher 3 is releasing soon, anticipation among fans is at an all-time high as CD Projekt Red aims to deliver a satisfying conclusion to what has been an absolutely outstanding trilogy.

We had a chance to try The Witcher 3 at a recent press event in Dubai, where we got to explore a part of the game’s ridiculously gorgeous world, set off on a couple of quests, and slowly peel the many layers of The Witcher 3’s story. Read on for our hands-on impression, and stay tuned as we bring you more The Witcher 3 goodness including an interview with the game’s senior writer, and more details on the Arabic localization of the game!

The Game That Changed My Perspective - Ali El Sayed

If you’ve been following IGN Zero Ping podcast, you’d have probably heard me saying more than once that I’m not a fan of RPG/Open World games. I feel guilty saying I’ve never played any of the Witcher games that came out before. But after trying out the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt last Thursday, I just might reconsider my perspective towards RPGs.

I decided to test the game out on PC with Arabic language enabled just to be able to see if it will be easy for me to adapt to the game.

Since it’s my first time playing a Witcher game, I chose to start from the beginning and go through the tutorial just to get the hang of the controls. I was surprised to see how short and easy the tutorial was. And before I knew it, I was dragged into the game slaying monsters and progressing with the story. With the Arabic language enabled, I felt that none of the game elements or original terms were lost in translation which made me get more comfortable with game.

For a demo, the graphics were absolutely breathtaking. The more you progress with the story and start discovering different parts of the map, the more you realize how well the visuals were crafted to deliver the ideal quality that an open world game should have.

Now I didn’t go far enough in the game to be able to talk about the story, but from my experience the story was off to a good start and it makes me look forward to playing the full game to know what’s going to happen next.

So overall, my experience with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt helped me develop a different perspective towards RPG/open world games and I’ll be looking forward to playing the full game when it comes out in May.

What Next-Gen Games Should Be Like - Lynn Jisr

I had been waiting to play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt since the first trailer came out. So last Thursday, when I finally got the chance, I was worried that the game would not match my insanely high expectations. I sat down in front of the PS4, grabbed the controller, and plunged into the world of the Witcher.

The part I played was later in the game when Geralt was already at level 15. I had not played the prologue nor gone through the tutorial, and the only thing guiding me in terms of controls was a little sheet of paper telling me what the buttons do. The beasts were already slightly more difficult and Geralt had already learned a few abilities that I had no experience with. Even with all of that, I managed to get around the controls easily and after about 4 minutes of blundering I was comfortable with the gameplay.

Let’s start with the combat style. Combat is extremely intuitive and familiar. It’s simple to get your head around the controls and in no time I was dodging hits, casting spells, and hacking away at everything with my awesome sword. Geralt sometimes moves a bit too slowly for my taste and can at times be too clunky for quick melee action, but his witcher abilities make up for that. Used at the right time, these abilities can quickly turn the fight to your favor and add an extra element to the mix.

Moving on to the story, while I don’t want to say anything that will spoil the game, I do want to comment on how dynamic and lively the characters are. Each person you meet has their own personality and agenda, backed very well by fantastic voice acting, offering a nice relief from the 2 dimensional side characters you find in most RPG games.

Onto localization, the entirety of my playtime was with the Arabic localized version. Everything has been localized from onscreen menus, to dialogue subtitles, to tutorials, to descriptions, to journal entries, and more. The translation was spot on and a lot less mild than I thought it would be. There was a lot of gore and cursing going on and it was nice to see the CD Projekt Red had not sacrificed the game’s personality with it’s localization attempt.

Regarding the text itself visually, there were areas for improvement. The choice of font was poor and coupled with the text size, it was often hard to read, especially in longer paragraphs. At points I saw a couple of overlapping dialogues when people in the distance were talking at once. These problems were pointed out to the CDPR representatives and they said they will work on making improvements.

Graphically, the game is stunning. We watched one of the CD Projekt Red representatives play a part on a 4K display and it was beautiful. So much detail went into crafting this world that often you feel like just walking about, taking in all the scenery.

As a first impression, The Witcher 3 met my expectations. I’ll be holding my final verdict until I get a chance to play the full game, but testing it out made me even more excited about the release.

The Witcher 3 releases on May 19 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. To know more about the game's localization process, head over here.