10 Subtle Ways The Witcher 3's Story Is One Of The Very Best

8. Lore & Myths

The key to truly believable storytelling is having a fully fleshed-out world. The history, the religions, the legends, the politics… it all needs to be there. The challenge is giving all this information to the player without sending them to sleep. Whilst some might favour the Kojima-style 10 minute long FMV sequence, The Witcher hides its lore in the hundreds of books and thousands of random NPC conversations.

This ‘show, don’t tell’ approach enables the casual gamer more bent on progressing the plot, whilst the purist can take their time and read every Elven rune and decipher every poet’s sonnet. Whilst sometimes opening a book in The Witcher 3 can feel like an intimidating wall of text, the stories and histories, many taken from previous games and books in the series, expand on the characters, the races, the countries and the history of the world.

Whilst this extra info is world-building and not needed to progress, I am personally happy that I learned about the ‘Conjunction of the Spheres’ event, and how it brought the monsters into the world, before embarking on the mission that took Geralt across multiple worlds and realities. Mostly because it meant I at least had half an idea what the hell was going on.