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One of the first encounters comes in the game’s prologue, and it’s with a particularly angry Griffin. For us, the half-lion, half-eagle chimera is a well-known remnant of Greek literature, but for Geralt, it’s a terrifying creature and a pest, whose origin can possibly be traced back to the Conjunction, a cataclysmic event in which such unnatural creations where trapped in his reality. Some dispute this, believing Griffins to be indigenous creatures, but I think this idea of the Conjunction in the fiction of The Witcher is such a brilliant one. There’s a book in the original game which contains a description of this event:"A cataclysm which occurred 1,500 years ago, trapping in our dimension many unnatural creatures, including ghouls, graveirs and vampires. These beasts have no ecological niches of their own and are merely relics of bygone times.”What better conceit to have when building a bestiary? Of course, the lands of Northern Kingdoms are home to plenty of native monsters, but the idea of it being a refuge for beasts without a home is brilliant. I played the game recently for around six or so hours, and the Griffin is the first formidable creature you come up against. It’s bothering a local village, the inhabitants of which employ your services to track it down and kill it. As I went about this task, I realised just how much the Griffin felt a part of this world, rather than simply an obstacle within it and an enemy to kill. To refer back to the quote above, the Griffin exists within the ecology of the Northern Lands. When you track down its nest, you realise its mate has been slaughtered and by reading the land, foliage, and rocks around it you make other inferences about its well-being and mental state. And to kill it, you must also take advantage of the nature, harvest a particular aquatic plant that, when plucked, exudes a potent smell that is rather good at attracting Griffins. It’s one of those moments that makes you realise how intricate this world could be, with an unseen interdependency between the land and the monsters it plays home to.But The Witcher also recognises the metaphorical power of monsters. After all, these are creations of the imagination which is well-known for housing all manner of repressed thoughts and impulses. So often our monsters are incarnations of what is unsaid and unseen. During the first six hours of the game, I came across one that definitely stood out and it was the Botchling. This is really weird. I don’t want to dwell on too many specifics, but there’s a character you meet early on known as the Bloody Baron and you soon uncover a secret concerning his wife; she had a stillbirth, and to hide this perceived shame the foetus was buried without ceremony in an unmarked grave. The problem is this results in some rather weird stuff happening during the night in the Baron’s stronghold. Geralt investigates, and realises part of the problem is to do with a Botchling, which is a small, deformed monster that has grown from the disregarded child.Part of this quest involves you returning to the burial site – on a rainy, moonlit night of course – to exhume the child’s body. The Botchling appears, and it’s delightfully grotesque, bizarre; it’s small, with huge eyes and it’s body is purple, as if engorged with blood. It’s a sad and miserable sight to behold, and part of the ritual involves the Baron embracing his disfigured child close, holding it close to his chest. If he does, the Botchling is pacified, but should the Baron once again refuse to acknowledge his offspring, the Botchling will take on a more hideous and ferocious form. Guilt and blood mix to create something much stranger than your average beast.There's so many diverse creatures in Wild Hunt – they populate the land, the air, and the seas. There are ghouls, vicious insects, giant crab-like critters, and swamp hags. There's classical mythology, Eastern European legend, and more esoteric choices, too. It's clear that even though The Witcher focusses on a man who makes a living from killing monsters, it's made by people who are love with them.

Daniel is IGN's Games Editor over in London. He writes about movies, too. You can be part of the world's most embarrassing cult by following him on IGN and Twitter