Witcher 2 to Witcher 3

[Derah]

Long story short, several years ago, I heard all this fuzz about The Witcher, a game everyone who played it swore it was awesome, but when I played it, it had horrible combat, boring-ass story, and a semi-passable music. Overall I barely finished the first town before I decided to call it quits.

Fastforward a few years, The Witcher 2 came out. Once again, everyone and their mother swore this one was even better than the first one. Angry Joe gave it a 10/10 (So far he's only done that for like four games total in almost 10 years reviewing). I played it, once again just couldn't get into the combat, and didn't really get invested in the story. I finished the prologue and the prison escape, but about an hour after arriving to the first town, I called it quits.

Fastforward to today, a friend of mine gifted me Witcher 3 Game of the Year Edition, a game that has received so much jizz-spewing praise from EVERYONE on the internet, one would think this is better than skyrim, sex, and sex while playing skyrim. I saw a few videos on the combat and it looks much better than the previous two, the story looks a bit more interesting, and I am considering giving it a try. But I dunno if I should really play the other two in order to understand or enjoy the story of the third game. Some games are like that (Try to jump into Mass Effect 3 without playing the other two, and you won't know what the fuck is going on, or who is everyone, and 90% of all the jokes and references will fly over your head), while other games are not (I began playing Saints Row 4 first without having played any of the previous ones, and despite not knowing everyone, I still had a blast, the story was perfectly understood even if all the callbacks and references to previous games missed their mark on me. The jokes were still funny to a newcomer to the series).

So my question is: Which category does The Witcher belongs to? Is it absolutely necessary to play the first or second game in order to understand what's going on? or can I just jump in on the third one without worries?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If you didn't enjoy the Witcher 1 or 2, then just go ahead and jump to '3. Don't force yourself through a 100 hour long slog if you're not going to enjoy it. The third game makes some vast improvements to it's gameplay, and you will understand it's story just fine without having played the first two games. I'd say the only thing you'd miss would be the emotional impact of having been with the characters for another hundred hours, but once again don't force yourself through something you won't enjoy.

[Ergar]

Was pretty much in the exact same boat as you before i played Witcher 3. I just downloaded a mod for Witcher 2 that gave me the best armor in the game at level 1 and played it on easy mode. Literally one shot almost everything and just speed ran it for the story. Obviously it wasn't the most exiting thing to do, but it only took like 8-10 hours to see the whole main story. It was easily worth it since you meet so many characters from that game.

Obviously doesn't work if you don't have the pc version.

[Malothere]

You can play the 3d game without having gone through the first 2. You can probably watch a video on the lore of the first 2 games if you feel like youd might miss something. Would save you about 80-120 hours worth of gameplay.

[endersblade]

I myself never got very far in either 1 or 2. Granted, I never did in 3 either. But I enjoyed playing 3. The story seems to do a well enough job of at least hinting at what you need to know from the previous games, at most giving you actual flashbacks. I'd definitely recommend just skipping 1 and 2 and just starting with 3, it is by far the superior game.

I'm still trying to figure out if it's easier to play with KB and Mouse or Controller though...

[Derah]

Was pretty much in the exact same boat as you before i played Witcher 3. I just downloaded a mod for Witcher 2 that gave me the best armor in the game at level 1 and played it on easy mode. Literally one shot almost everything and just speed ran it for the story. Obviously it wasn't the most exiting thing to do, but it only took like 8-10 hours to see the whole main story. It was easily worth it since you meet so many characters from that game.

Obviously doesn't work if you don't have the pc version.

hey now, there's an idea I can get behind.

[glowpipe]

Witcher 3 is one of the most overrated games to date. The story is decent and it looks pretty. But at the end of the day. Its a game, not a movie. The combat in withcer 3 is mediocre at best. It doesn't really change much from the start of the game to the end of the game. Really no sense of progression. Then to top it off. These super fancy moveset which basically would get you killed in any real sword fight.

Loot system in that game is utter shit. You can craft the best gear without effort and all drops in the game are useless. I spent a decent amount of time killing a chest guardian. Way underleveled. I was lvl 15 and killed a lvl 28 badass monster. Took me close to 30 min killing the thing. And what do i get in the chest ? a lvl 10 sword.. Oh glorious days. So rewarding, much wow.

The world looks big and daunting and screams go explore me up you naughty boy. But when you do. You soon realize how empty it actually is. How little incentives there are to actually explore the world.

So overall. Its a 6/10 game at best. far from a 11/10 as everyone praise it to be.
And don't take my word for it. Go on a google round and search up the combat, the loot system and so on. There is plenty of posts about it.

[Saladbar]

You don't need to play the first 2 to enjoy the 3rd.

If you didn't like the combat in 1 and 2, there is a good chance you won't like it in 3. People talk about it being much improved, but it is essentially the same type of combat. For my tastes, the combat is the worst aspect of the game, with the leveling system being a close second. Some people will say it needs to be played on the highest difficulty; I've played it through on both 'Just the Story' (easiest) and and 'Death March' (hardest) and didn't really enjoy one more than the other.

The narrative and exploration are the best parts of the game, so if you want to play for those and minimize combat, play on story mode. You can also use mods to trivialize combat further, or even use some of the combat overhaul mods to significantly change the combat system to something you might like more.

[Baconeggcheese]

I had the same issue you had with witcher 1 and 2 picking up just witcher 3. I didn't buy it until it was heavily discounted on a steam sale because I was fairly confident I wouldn't enjoy the combat. When I finally got around to playing it I still think the combat is really mediocre. There's like a million side quests a things on the map to run up to and do but they're pretty repetitive and with the combat being meh it gets a bit harder to want to get rid of X monster messing up Y villagers place. I basically got through the first area doing everything there and just haven't found the motivation to launch the game again yet.

I'll probably revisit it at some point but I'll more than likely end up putting it on the lowest difficulty setting and just playing through it for the main story and potentially skip a lot of the side things. Definitely liked it more than skyrim though, I think I got about 30-40 minutes into skyrim before I was just done with absolutely no desire to ever touch it again.

[XDurionX]

There are som references, but it really isn't necessary to play the first ones. W1 is a terrible game, W2 is better and W3 is overrated, but quite okay.

[Super Kami Dende]

Skip to 3, there are a few Youtube Videos called like "Witcher: the Story so Far" and such that are like an hour long but catches you up to everything storywise (for the "canon" storyline at least).

Witcher 3 is one of my top 5 games ever played. Loved the Combat, loved the Storylines, loved the choices you could make.

[Santti]

I absolutely loved Witcher 3, and have never touched the previous installations.

I don't know about mods in 1 and 2, but the latest one has many. Never felt the need to use them yet, but they might spice things up a notch.

The only time I felt like I was at a loss when it comes down to the lore was after the prologue. Basically, after the prologue, you are given a few choices on what happened in Witcher 2, that will have an affect on Witcher 3. I ended up googling it, but it wasn't really necessary. You can pretty much skip that part, as you can choose, if I remember correctly, to not to emulate certain choices you might have made in Witcher 2.

[Aeula]

Witcher 2 had a great story, it really picks up in the second act. That said it’s story is mostly irrelevant to Witcher 3, there’s a few flashbacks and events in Witcher 2 that tie into Witcher 3 but Witcher 3 will let you know all that anyway.

Unlike the previous two games the combat of 3 is very good imo.

Read the books they’re based on if you really want to understand everything but even they’re not needed.

[Enfilade]

Unpopular opinion, but I loved Witcher 2 over 3.

[Sixnalia]

Witcher 3 has far more tie ins to the novels than it does the games. Especially the Blood and Wine DLC.

If you'd like to know the references that get made often, read them. But you don't -need- to know them, which is good.

[Zephyr Storm]

Unpopular opinion, but I loved Witcher 2 over 3.

To each their own, but Witcher 3 is vastly superior to 2 in more ways than one. Some of them being objective points that can’t really be refuted.

[MyndZero]

I didn't like witcher 2, but loved 3.

[Linneth]

Witcher 3 has far more tie ins to the novels than it does the games. Especially the Blood and Wine DLC.

If you'd like to know the references that get made often, read them. But you don't -need- to know them, which is good.

Basically this, Witcher 3 has more in common with the books than with the previous games; they used an amnesiac Geralt in order to make more or less standalone stories, while Witcher 3 acts as a sequel to the books.

[Owncksd]

The third game is good at making sure players new to the franchise have a general idea of what's going on. You may not know the histories of the different characters right away but you'll get a feel for their relationship with Geralt almost immediately.

Geralt's storylines in each game are somewhat self-contained. They all occur within a year or so of each other, and there are characters that are with Geralt for each (Triss, Dandelion, Zoltan), but his fight against the Salamdra in TW1 doesn't bleed into his hunt for the assassin in TW2 doesn't bleed into his mission in TW3.

The only thing that's really continuous throughout is the progression of the state of the world, but TW3 does a good job of establishing how the world ended up the way it is.

[Cattleya]

Witcher 3 is better than 2, but personally I never felt like it was *much* better, especially in the combat department I saw nothing resembling a big improvement, apparently unlike other people who hated 2 but loved 3.

Basically, I loved both games but think the combat in 3 is just as mediocre as the combat in 2. Apparently YMMV because there are people who hated 2 but loved 3.