We reported over the weekend that more people were simultaneously playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt than were playing it when it first released—which, in case you'd forgotten, was all the way back in 2015. And it's not as if it slouched out the door back then, either: According to Steam Charts, its peak concurrent player count in May 2015 was an impressive 92,268.

That number has continued to climb since the weekend, and today the nearly five-year-old game set another new mark, surpassing 100,000 concurrent players for the first time ever. Breaking into the top five games on Steam is probably out of reach (although I wouldn't count anything out at this point) but muscling past Destiny 2 is impressive enough all on its own.

See for yourself:

This sudden resurgence in popularity, as we noted previously, is almost certainly attributable to the success of The Witcher on Netflix, and curiosity about the game has been easy to indulge thanks to ridiculously good sale prices on The Witcher 3 on Steam and GOG, and free time to sink into it over the holidays. (The fact that it's an outstanding RPG is probably a factor too.)

Those numbers will inevitably decline; even if all the newcomers play it from start to finish, an aged singleplayer RPG isn't going to maintain a player base the way a free-to-play game in active development will. But it's a remarkable testament to how far The Witcher has come since we first encountered it as an oddball RPG in 2007—something Lauren dug into recently with a look at how the series' handling of sex and relationships have evolved from the first game to the last. (Trivia bit: The "romance cards" in the initial Witcher release in North America were censored, while those in European nations were not. The release of the Director's Cut edition made the uncensored cards available everywhere.)

The Witcher 3 is back to its usual price on Steam, but on GOG, the Game of the Year edition is still $15.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt presently has more concurrent players on Steam than it had on launch day in 2015, breaking its own record of 92,000 by several thousand players. At the time of this report more than 94,000 people were playing the game according to SteamDB, Steamcharts, and Valve’s own statistics. That puts it ahead of well-established free games like Path of Exile, Warframe, and Team Fortress 2. Further, the two previous games in the series are both in the top 100 games by player count on Steam, with The Witcher: Enhanced Edition at 12,100 and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings at 6,600.

These figures are for Steam only, and don’t count players from other distribution platforms like Witcher developer CD Projekt’s own GOG. Most highly-anticipated games never again reach their launch day concurrent player counts, especially single-player ones, so this number is particularly impressive for an RPG. This remarkable success follows last week, when The Witcher 3 surpassed Red Dead Redemption 2 in concurrent players.

The burst of interest in The Witcher is likely due to a combination of the new Netflix series, based on the same books, and the current sale discount on the game—the lowest it has ever been at $11.99 for the base game or $14.99 for the game and its expansions. Those two factors, amplified by the holiday break in Europe and the United States, have made for impressive numbers for the nearly five year old game.

Just imagine time traveling back to 2007 and telling someone that the odd Polish game series with the sexy trading cards was going to become the most successful RPG in the world. 

The Witcher TV series is not Game of Thrones. There are too many oversaturated scenes and folk tale monsters. It's not Lord of the Rings. There's too much pointless death with zero lessons learned. It's not quite the books or the games it pulls from, either, but somewhere suspended in between. The first season of The Witcher show is an original interpretation of Andrzej Sapkowski's fantasy epic with a massive Netflix-sized budget, and it's not just a great adaptation, it's one of the best shows I've seen this year.

The Witcher is horrifying at times, cute and sweet at others. It's funny often, with restrained comic timing. It's horny, like, a lot. It's framed by a disorienting and complex political conflict swirling around in a massive cauldron of noun soup, but it's all grounded by Geralt's monster hunting day job. Almost an anthology, we follow Geralt between villages and castles as he takes on dirty jobs for dirty people from every class and background. 

The Witcher's world is a cynical one, perched on a history of brutal colonization, endless wars, and magic that doesn't allude to gods and purpose but is literally chaos itself bent into submission. It's where monsters are often more sympathetic than humans, products of abuse and random cosmic misfires rather than inherently evil morality figures. Here, fairytales end with everyone dying before the big lesson hits. 

The show nails it. 

We've only seen the first five episodes so we can't judge the whole eight-episode season, but what I've seen so far proves showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich knows exactly what makes the Witcher universe so compelling. A second season is already promised, but I hope we get many, many more. (Light spoilers for episodes one and two ahead.)

Cavill is Geralt

For anyone familiar with the games, whether or not the show is any good hinges on how good its Geralt is. No worries there. Henry Cavill immediately sheds his handsome Superman persona and melts into the role of a jaded, sardonic, almost imperceptibly sweet bounty hunter.

Cavill as Geralt is as limber and graceful you'd want, whipping those swords around like a seasoned monster hunter. There's no question why he's called the Butcher of Blaviken in the games, made extremely evident during the first episode. He cuts through 10 men in 20 seconds, kicking off the scene with a defeated, slightly mocking "Fuck".

In one continuous shot, Geralt blocks a crossbow bolt, stabs a guy through the mouth and rips up to split his skull in two, guts a few guys, lops an arm off, uses the aard (basically force push) to knock a bundle of them back, then beheads a dude he already stabbed because fuck that guy in particular. Cavill swings that thing around like he's carried it since the crib.

It's not the only time Geralt gets his man-sword out, and he'll often, thank goodness, interrupt or wrap up fights with a potent one-liner, the timing as perfect and delivery as flat and dead as I hoped for. And don't worry about the voice. It's like Doug Cockle climbed into a Henry mech. 

When he's not cutting down fools, Cavill's sniffing the dirt for signs of monsters, begrudgingly helping snide mages, shooing away Jaskier (Dandelion in the games), or cracking wise to his haters in grimy inns. He loves Roach and Roach doesn't really give a shit. Netflix Geralt presents as a nihilist vagabond just trying to get by, a brooding dude soured on the world but who can't help his nature: he cares. He cares about Jaskier, Yennefer, and even complete strangers tangled up in the messy business of politics and monster hunting. I forgot Cavill was there by the end of the first episode. It's our boy. 

The gang's all here

Geralt steals the show, but he isn't the whole show. This is an ensemble story. Yennefer's origin story plays a huge part, and Anya Chalotra depicts her simmering pain and fury perfectly. 

One of the early climaxes in Yennefer's story is also some of the most disturbing TV I've seen this year, braided in with another equally intense scene happening simultaneously. It was one of those slack-jawed Jesus Christ moments that only come around so often, and I already kinda knew it was coming. Adaptation, baby. A new medium and talented creators completely renewing a familiar story. 

Ciri plays a big part too, though her scenes are largely limited to brief interstitials tying the disparate character stories together. In the books, Ciri's story doesn't really take off until after the two collections of short stories. I'm guessing the show might kickstart that arc, but Freya Allan does well with what she's given, even if most of it is confused panic. I'm curious to see how she handles Ciri's more stubborn and bleak characteristics. 

Jaskier, played by Joey Batey, is a goofy, conceited idiot who plays well off of Geralt's stone cold demeanor like I'd hoped. The show's take on his bard tunes don't always feel appropriate for the setting, a bit too modern for my taste, but I'm still humming his Witcher ditty days later. Anna Shaffer's take on Triss is the most disappointing, but she hasn't had much time in the spotlight. As King Foltest's mage, she's little more than a go-between for Geralt and him, so her performance is as muted as her role so far. 

Overall, the casting, costuming, lavish set design, and mostly great performances imbue the setting with a sense of history and realism, where monsters and magic exist but are treated with fear or dismissed outright rather than looked upon with wonder and awe. Men are at constant war on a continent they colonized through outright slaughter of the native people. Scenes are drained of color or artificially bursting with them, a world out of balance and ready to sigh and deflate from pure exhaustion at any minute. I hate that it's so relatable, more apt than any themes or politics Game of Thrones vaguely waved at. 

Wish granted

The first season largely adapts stories from Sapkowski's collection of short stories, The Last Wish, which serves as an introduction to the universe of The Witcher and its big players.

The effect of adapting short stories that serve an overarching world narrative reminds me of the The X-Files, strangely enough. We get Geralt's monster of the week nearly every episode, see new places in the world, and meet a few new characters. Regular check-ins with Ciri, Cintra, the mages, and Nilfgaard serve as the connective tissue between plotlines that allude to continent-rending wars and cosmic destinies that will eventually bring everything together, but this is a story primarily told while Geralt's on the daily grind. 

I enjoyed the quest-level look at Cavill's Geralt piecing together crime scenes and hunting down the monsters behind them, all of which are genuinely unnerving. The folky horror is alive and well here. The Striga is a highlight of the series so far, a nasty beast with a truly awful origin. Cry-worthy stuff, a twist you'd expect from a good sidequest in The Witcher 3.

All the beasties and spectres are a tasteful mix of CG and practical effects that fit into the postmodern fairytale world naturally.The monster fights are particularly rad—the deft combo of liquid choreography, invisible editing, special effects, and Cavill's performance make for some fun, tense bouts. 

In what might be a necessary side effect of adapting the short stories into a more cohesive whole, the show constantly bounces between a bunch of different perspectives and often between time periods. It's my biggest gripe. The framework can be a touch disorienting—there's no warning when the show jumps between time periods and it leaps around liberally at times, but there's a satisfaction in paying close attention and piecing things together as you go. But hey, giving the viewer a little date on-screen here and there wouldn't have ruined anything. 

The Witcher also spits out new nouns every other minute. Historical figures, old wars, distant kings and countries, political orders, magics, prophecies, and more are referenced in passing and things barely slow down to explain. There's still plenty of exposition, which Jaskier even acknowledges as necessary while doing his thing as the designated fourth-wall-buster, but paying close attention or doing a little wiki homework is almost required. 

But I dig it. Nothing's been terribly simplified to fit the format. This world is as deep and wide as in the books and games, and while the show definitely uses the dramatic and cinematic language of a lot of modern television, it doesn't feel like a focus group got between Hissrich and her team's vision. 

This is an unrelenting fantasy-ass fantasy story, nothing of major import buffed down to make it more palatable to a wider audience. Yes, that's that a hedgehog-man hybrid. And yeah, he's he gonna kiss the princess. Don't worry about it, he's uh, it's a curse or whatever. They're explaining The Law of Surprise now, be quiet. Cast all doubt aside. Netflix's The Witcher is an excellent adaptation and some of the most exuberant fantasy TV out there.

The joy of The Witcher 3 isn't just in its winding story and sweeping landscapes—it's also in the little details, some so small that you might not even notice them on your first playthrough. Considering the size of the open world, you almost certainly will miss most of them. The Continent is full of incidental animations and unexpected interactions, of NPCs behaviour that makes the world feel alive, and subtle in-jokes that will only make sense to seasoned monster hunters. 

We couldn't collect all of them in one space, but here are 30 of our favourites. Go looking for them, the next time you mount up Roach and take Geralt out for a quest. And who knows? Maybe some will even show up in the Witcher Netflix series. And if you're looking for an absurdly detailed list of secrets in The Witcher 3, check out Andreas Schmiedhofer's mammoth guide to hidden quests and locations. 

1. You can stumble on the grave of Leo, a relatively minor character from The Witcher 1 

"A senseless death, could've been avoided."

2. The drunk barber in Novigrad will sometimes give you the wrong haircut

You can protest, but you won't get your money back. 

3. The raindrops on your Quen shield 

Who needs an umbrella? 

4. Your horse, Roach, will seek food and water

If you dismount your faithful companion to visit an inn, or chat to townsfolk, Roach will ensure he's sufficiently fed and watered by seeking out food troughs. If you're lucky, you might see the town drunk join him. 

5. Geralt uses different finger movements for his various magic signs

You'll need to be a contortionist to copy him. 

6. NPCs will cough, sneeze and hiccup

Better out than in... 

7. The Seven Cats Inn has exactly seven cats

And you can use your Axii sign to calm cats and make them follow you.  

8. NPCs seek shelter from the rain

When it starts spitting, some NPCs will run for cover. You'll also see children playing in puddles. 

9. You can find Yen's crystal skull at the start of the game

It's the one from the opening cutscene—find it and give it to her for some unique dialogue. One to remember at the start of your next playthrough. 

10. "One fucking hundred"

Hey, you said count, and they counted.

11. Geralt lifts his scabbard when sheathing his sword

There are tons of incidental animations during combat, too: Watch out for Geralt twirling his sword in his hand between strikes. 

12. The Witcher 3's birds actually behave like birds…

...most of the time. Rather than just fly in a given direction, flocks of birds will swoop and flow realistically. It's wonderful to watch. 

13. The Aard sign can deflect arrows

It's not just for opening doors. 

14. Geralt's Blue Stripes tattoo will carry over from The Witcher 2

In The Witcher 2's Hung Over quest you can wake up, naked and dazed after a heavy drinking session, with a tattoo on your neck. If you keep it, and import your save for The Witcher 3, the tattoo will remain—a constant reminder of a wild night. 

15. The sun rises earlier the further north you go 

And it's beautiful wherever you are. 

16. Geralt's face gets veinier the more potions he drinks

Potions are toxic, and the more you drink, the more purple Geralt's face becomes. If you don't like the effect, here's a mod for you. 

17. The elusive White Whale

Poor Eyvind has been waiting his whole life for a glimpse of a legendary White Whale. Shame you had to show up… 

18. Watch the world go by

In The Witcher 3, windows are actually windows: you can look through them to see what's going on outside. It's a small detail, but it makes the world feel more coherent. 

19. You can actually control the weather

A few shrines hidden across the world let you change the weather with a prayer. The Hemdall shrines can make it storm, snow, or clear up in an instant.

20. A dwarf crime boss sits on pillows to make himself taller 

Cleaver, a fearsome gang leader, can't quite see over the table without them. 

21. You can spot figures in the hills of the Skellige archipelago

Presumably inspired by English hill figures. Keep an eye out for them.

22. Geralt's staring contest with a cat

Meet Nibbles. 

23. This bench, where couples go for romantic dates

Looking over Crane Cape, this spot is one of the most romantic in Novigrad—as the changing musical score will indicate. Each time you return, you can expect to see a different couple canoodling. 

24. The scholar who teaches you Gwent will indeed be killed for his boots

Aldert Geert, in the White Orchard inn, basically acts as your tutorial for Gwent. But he's an ambitious scholar in his own right, and tells Geralt how he wants to document war from the front lines. Geralt warns Aldert that he'll be killed for his boots—and sure enough, later on you find Aldert strung up from a tree, feet bare, a journal beneath him. 

25. Geralt makes horse noises to comfort Roach

The secret best relationship in the Witcher series.

26. The way Aard effects water

Just look at those ripples. 

27. Geralt really hates portals

28. The Witcher 3's ecosystem reacts to your actions

It's fairly minimal, but it's there. If you kill wolves, deer will flourish—if you murder deer, the wolves won't have anything to eat, so they’ll leave the area. Monsters and NPCs will interact with each other from time-to-time, too.

29. Keeping your sword sheathed can stop bloodshed 

For some fights, such as battling the students in the Defender of the Faith quest, if you keep your sword in its scabbard then your enemies will do the same. You'll still punch each other's lights out—but at least nobody's losing a limb.  

30. The body of Birna Bran 

During the King's Gambit quest, former queen of Skellige Birna Bran can be (depending on your choices) sentenced to death, "chained to a rock to perish of hunger and thirst, and seafowl will peck apart your remains." In most RPGs, that'd be that—but if you go hunting, you can actually find Birna's Body, chained to a rock as prescribed.