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Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine Review

Witcher 3 is already a great game. Blood and Wine just adds to the experience and adds more content to the game. Gamers get more of what they love, monster killing quests, treasure hunting and an interesting story. Even if gamers haven't finished the game yet, CD Projekt Red has made sure gamers can enjoy what Blood and Wine has to offer.

Blood and Wine has Geralt visiting Toussaint where he must track down a monster that has been murdering people for the duchess. Things are not always what they seem and Geralt is forced to deal with old acquaintances. Gamers don’t have to finish the game to enjoy this. They can start a new game + where CD Projekt Red will give players all the ability points they need. If gamers want to just visit the new area, they need to be at least level 30.

While the DLC and it's side quests are lengthy, most gamers will probably spend about 30 hours exploring the new area. Blood and Wine does have some new twists on the traditional game. One of these was a new Gwent deck from Skellige. Gamers will be happy to know the new deck will take a little bit to get used to and almost turns the tables on how Gwent is played.

I also enjoyed the knights’ tournament which featured a few events, serving as a good distraction from the main storyline. One of the interesting additions is players can dye their armor. Outside of the changes to Gwent, I really enjoyed the 12 new mutations that can be obtained with the right pre-reqs. Some of these are very useful and I wish I could have had access to them in the original game. One of them includes resurrecting the player when they die, another is that when Geralt gets a critical hit from signs, this causes enemies to explode. My favorite was the ability to freeze enemies; that came in handy in a few boss fights. Speaking of boss battles, some of these, along with the new enemies will require players to think differently from the main game.

Without spoiling the story too much, Geralt has to deal with vampires more in this DLC than he had to deal with before. CD Projekt Red uses this as an opportunity to take the time to spin parts of the lore in a new direction. Players will get to purchase a winery as well. They can outfit their new residence with places to stash armor and weapons. It's more of a place to visit occasionally and gives players a reason to spend cash. By the end of the game, I was very satisfied. There was enough to keep me interested for 20 plus hours. I put aside Doom and Fallout 4's Far Harbor just to visit the Witcher 3 again and once I started I couldn't put the game down. Overall, Blood and Wine is a solid expansion and might be one of the best pieces of DLC I have played. This is well worth gamers’ time and is a must purchase. This last visit to the Witcher's world serves as a good ending point for Geralt's story.

Witcher 3: Blood and Wine is part of the summer steam sale and is on sale for $25. The game can also be found on Amazon. The standard game is $40 and the Blood and Wine is $17.

Final score 5/5

 

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