Oh, snap! It's yet another PCG Q&A, where every Saturday we ask the panel of PC Gamer writers a question about PC gaming. You're also very welcome to share your thoughts in the comments below. This week: which game actually lived up to the hype?

Jody Macgregor: The Witcher 3

I hated the first Witcher game, and although the second one's an improvement in a lot of ways I still thought most of it was dull—apart from the bit where you get drunk and wake up with a tattoo, obviously. So when glowing reviews came out for The Witcher 3 I ignored them. There was plenty of other stuff to play in 2015: Tales From the Borderlands, Rocket League, Life is Strange, Pillars of Eternity, Devil Daggers, Her Story. I was busy.

It took a solid year's worth of articles about how incredible every aspect of The Witcher 3 was, from the side quests to the potion-making to the characters to the wind in the goddamn trees, before I finally caved and tried it. Everyone was right, it's now on my "best games of all time" list, and I've become one of those people who says you should turn the music down so you can hear the wind in Velen. There's an entire subreddit devoted to whinging about games journalism's never-ending love affair with writing about The Witcher 3, but without that constant praise I wouldn't have pushed past my disinterest to give it the chance it deserved. And now I've become one of those people who won't shut up about The Witcher 3.

Samuel Roberts: Metal Gear Solid V

Not everyone will agree with this one, but I've lived through multiple Metal Gear hype cycles (MGS2 and MGS4 most memorably), and this is the one game that really deserved it. While this Metal Gear has the worst story in the series by far, it's also a superior stealth game. With its suite of upgrades and repeatable missions, I easily played MGSV for over 100 hours, and I have no doubt I'll reinstall it someday. 

Chris Livingston: Portal 2

I think the original Portal was a near-perfect experience. You learned to play as you played and each test chamber increased in complexity at a rate that was challenging but never frustrating. It was funny and surprising and satisfying, and short enough that it didn't have time to wear out its welcome. When trailers for Portal 2 began appearing, I was just as excited as anyone else, though I wasn't really expecting to love it in the same way. More complex, more characters, more story, more puzzles, more more more. I just couldn't imagine it matching the original, which proved (to me at least) that less is more.

It definitely lived up to the hype, though. Portal 2 is amazing, funny, challenging, surprising, and every bit as brilliant as the first. Maybe it's still true that less is more, but that doesn't mean more is less.

Jarred Walton: Half-Life 2

Piggybacking off Chris here, Half-Life 2 was an incredible follow-up to one of the best (if not the best) games of the '90s. The original Half-Life surprised the hell out of me with ways it changed the first-person shooter. After playing a ton of Quake and Quake 2, story seemed to be an afterthought, but Half-Life revolutionized the genre. Okay, the Xen levels at the end almost ruined it, but I still wanted more.

And then I waited, waited, and waited some more. Daikatana proved that games too long in development could suck, and HL2 felt like it might be doomed to the same fate. But with the addition of the gravity gun and physics, plus a great setting and story that made you care about the characters, it exceeded its source material in every way. I'm still holding out hope for HL3, naturally, but those are some massive shoes to fill.

Tom Senior: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

I was dangerously excited when a new Deus Ex was announced. I was hyped to the extent that it would have really stung if a new Deus Ex fell well short of expectations. Human Revolution had a few problems, but it was exactly the atmospheric cyberpunk playground I wanted and the art direction added a new dimension to the Deus Ex universe. Due to the technological limitations of the era the old Deus Ex games struggled to show art or architecture (apart from that silly Earth-in-a-giant-claw statue at the start). Human Revolution decided that everything would be gold, and full of triangles, and its depiction of futuristic augments was gorgeous. I would quite like a pair of Jensen arms.

Human Revolution really got Deus Ex. It had hacking, vents, and intricate levels. But it also had something else, something new: retractable arm-swords. Not many people would look at the groundbreaking masterpiece of Deus Ex and think 'this needs retractable arm-swords', but Eidos Montreal had the vision to make retractable arm-swords happen. I will always respect them for that. 

Andy Kelly: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

I remember the buzz around Vice City vividly. Every time I saw that stylish advert on TV, the one with 'I Ran' by Flock of Seagulls, I got a tingle of excitement. Magazines were full of gushing previews, treating every morsel of information like it was the biggest scoop since Watergate. And then when it came out, it was everything I dreamed it would be. A bigger, more detailed city. An incredible soundtrack. More fun and varied missions. A better story. An all-star cast. HELICOPTERS. Being able to fly around a city of that size back then was a genuine thrill.

GTA III was great, but it felt like an experiment in places; a concept for what a 3D Grand Theft Auto game could be. But Vice City was the first time Rockstar really nailed it, and laid a solid foundation for the 3D era of their world-conquering series. The '80s (or at least some exaggerated, romanticised version of it) has begun to saturate pop culture to an annoying degree lately, so I can't see Rockstar returning to that setting. It's too obvious. But I would like to see Vice City again in a different, more contemporary era, perhaps showing the bleak, faded aftermath of its hedonistic '80s heyday.

Andy Chalk: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

The first time I saw this teaser I made a noise like a ten-year-old opening the latest issue of Tiger Beat. Then I saw this teaser, and I pretty much hyperventilated and passed out. I knew in my heart that DX: Human Revolution couldn't be that good, because Deus Ex was lightning in a bottle: Ugly, clunky, with terrible voice acting and a ridiculous, incoherent story, all of which somehow got smushed together into basically the best game ever made. How do you fall down a flight of stairs and land in a bed of roses twice? 

But then Human Revolution came out, and it was that good. Not perfect, and I will never not be mad about those boss fights. But Adam Jensen is the perfect successor (predecessor, I suppose) to JC Denton, I loved the visual style (including the piss filter) and the music (because it's not Deus Ex without a great soundtrack), and the whole thing just felt right: Not as off-the-conspiracy-theory-hook as the original, but big and sprawling and unpredictable—a legitimate point of entry into that world. It took more than a decade to get from Deus Ex to Human Revolution, and it was worth the wait. 

There is a long history of religion in games, and RPGs provide a good space for conversations about faith that could have felt flippant in other genres. In The Witcher 3, religion is more than just window dressing. Set in a world outgrowing magic, the game depicts religion in varied ways: tackling philosophy, corruption and misconception, while allowing room for players to interact with gods, decide peoples' fate and support or condemn religious practices.

Geralt's own beliefs, or lack thereof, are notable, as he must regularly interact with religious characters. Geralt is magical, yet likely wouldn't describe himself as a magic user, and has a distaste for certain elements of the practice. Despite this, Geralt can be played as a supporter of religion (and his aversion to magic isn't so strong that he wouldn't date a sorceress or two). 

Magic is often used as a way of portraying seemingly religious rituals within games. Think of Yuna's summoning of the spirits of the dead in Final Fantasy X, or the magic used to resurrect characters in World of Warcraft. Magic rituals are performed repeatedly in Skyrim, another game that, similar to The Witcher 3, uses standing stones as a source of power. The Witcher 3's own Places of Power are quite similar to those we see today at Stonehenge or Avebury.

Also of note is that Geralt recharges himself by meditating. While meditation today does not have to be directly linked to religion or belief, meditation has been a core aspect of multiple religions, from Buddhism to Christianity, since ancient times. Geralt's relationship with religion and faith is a constant foil to his character, a reflecting point that the game repeatedly dwells on. The Witcher 3 repeatedly asks us what we believe by challenging Geralt's own beliefs. 

Matters of faith

The Witcher 3 presents us with many different forms of belief. The Church of the Eternal Fire, for instance, is depicted as civilised but corrupt, operating with near-medieval cruelty. For the Church of the Eternal Fire, religion is all about appearances. Sitting at the highest peak of the city of Novigrad, in a wealthy neighbourhood, the church is ever-so-subtly painted gold. You can't go into the building yourself, so there's no way to know what kind of rituals go on in there. By separating the church itself from the player, the organisation gives off a feeling of inaccessibility. It's clear that Geralt isn't welcome, and if the multiple scenes of people burning at the stake for being magical don't get the point across, the sneering remarks of the rich churchgoers do. 

It’s telling that the majority of quests in which you interact with members of the Church of Eternal Fire are negative. There's corruption, fanaticism and racially-motivated murder, not unlike the Crusades carried out by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.

A roadside priest tasks Geralt with burning the bodies of dead soldiers in one of the first quests to include the Church. On the surface, this seems like a standard 'go here, do this, come back for a reward' quest. However, when one of the bodies turns out to be not quite dead, it's revealed that the priest is actually getting you to burn the evidence of his illegal fisstech trade. If you confront the priest and refuse to accept his bribe to look the other way, you're forced into a three-on-one fight, but with a larger reward if you win. Maybe this is the game suggesting this is the ethical choice to make, but the implication is the same: corruption and organised religion go hand in hand in the world of The Witcher 3.Quests that revolve around folklore are more open-ended. In Velen, rituals are common roadside occurrences, frequently featured in quests that ask you to protect people during acts of worship, or participate in them yourself. 

In 'A Greedy God', Geralt comes across a destroyed building which is now the site of worship for a local deity (imaginatively called the Allgod). Villagers are complaining that the Allgod has cursed them for not providing adequate offerings. With a little digging you discover that the assumed deity is actually a sylvan living in a cellar underneath the worship site, greedily scoffing the villagers’ offerings. Sylvans are traditionally woodland spirits or deities—relations to the Roman god of woods and fields, Silvanus (not to be confused with the Blizzard character of a similar name). 

This quest is often described as funny, yet your options for what to do once you've discovered that the deity is a monster scamming his way into obesity aren't great. If you kill the sylvan, you gleefully tell the villagers that you have righted the wrongs against them. They were being fleeced after all, and now they’re free! The villagers react badly to this—they think they’ve been doomed and rush off to organise a group prayer session.

If you tell them to check the cellar below, you'll later discover they followed your advice, confronted the sylvan, and are now all dead. The only way to please both parties is to threaten the sylvan but not kill it, effectively maintaining a lie, but keeping everyone alive. The game doesn’t comment either way, so we're left wondering: is that a positive result? Have you saved anyone or really achieved anything? Does Geralt even care? 

Making a believer

In 'Defender of the Faith', Geralt is asked to fix a series of shrines that have been vandalised. There’s little reason for you to actually do this quest—it doesn’t add to the overall story of the game—but as Geralt is told by the villager who hires him, if he doesn't help out, the local children will grow warts and the dogs will get the mange. 

Geralt doesn't want to go out of his way, and that's understandable for a man with a policy of 'live and let live' when it comes to religious practices. And besides, this isn't strictly Witcher-work—he's not a religious repairman. As it turns out, though, the true villains of this quest are the worst monsters of all… students from Oxenfurt Academy quoting Nietzsche and Marx ("Religion is the opiate of the masses!"). 

It's clear that Geralt thinks this is a waste of his time. "Sheesh, students!" he exclaims, rolling his eyes. Yet he never truly condemns the belief aspect of this quest. Here we get to see both extremes of an argument about faith: from an elderly woman who believes that wooden shrines will ensure good health, to students who think destroying said shrines will force the locals into a life free of superstition. This quest lays the foundation for a conflict that reemerges throughout the entire game: the pagan beliefs of down-on-their-luck villagers, against the more atheistic views of their well-off counterparts.

Despite making a fantasy RPG about magic and belief, at times it feels as if CD Projekt Red thinks the majority of its audience are sceptics. Stories of villagers sending their children to mysterious witches in the middle of a swamp, in the hope it will bring them good fortune, are presented as being wildly superstitious. The Ladies of the Wood are at the heart of one of The Witcher 3's most beloved series of quests, presented as a terrifying reality in the shape of an old wives' tale. The fact that the Ladies are proven to be horribly real, and that they eat children while dancing naked around a cauldron, feels like a smack in a doubter's face. 

The Witcher 3 does this time and time again: showing us something completely fantastical, allowing us to revel in doubt and suspicion, before pulling back the curtain and revealing it all to be true. Geralt is often sceptical of the problems he's brought in to solve—"A ghost is ruining our water supply!" "A villager has turned into a werewolf!" "The witches in the swamp are eating children"—yet they're all real. It's as if we’re being told to look closer into what we assume is the stuff of fairytales. By comparing the natural wildness of pagan belief with the rigid cruelty of organised cults, we're being shown that not everything fantastical is fantasy and not everything reputable is respectable. 

Despite having a sceptic for a protagonist, The Witcher 3 depicts religion in a surprisingly even-handed way. It portrays a medieval church that's clearly meant to resemble historical realities, and pagan belief systems that replicate both fairy tales and real-life rituals. We're never given a clear sense of who or what to believe, which unlike the many RPGs that have come before it, leaves the choice up to us. 

Geralt of Rivia is set to make his first appearance outside of the Witcher universe later this year, according to CD Projekt Red's head of community. Marcin Momot tweeted earlier today that our favourite bathtub dweller could step into another "upcoming game", without hinting at what that game might be.

Fighting game Soulcalibur 6—the first in the series to come to PC—seems to be the favourite. CD Projekt Red already has a relationship with that game's developer Bandai Namco, and the series has a history of pulling in characters from other universes, including Star Wars.

A couple of more left-field suggestions are flying around, including Monster Hunter: World. Developer Capcom is willing to work with other teams to bring in familiar faces, and even though the game is already out it is technically "upcoming" on PC.

Other potential homes for Geralt include Final Fantasy 15, which has shown it's no stranger to crossovers by parachuting in Gordon Freeman and a bunch of weird Sims 4 costumes.

Whatever it is, it may just be the last time we get to see Geralt in the flesh: CD Projekt Red has said it has no plans to pick up his story again, although it may return to the Witcher world some day.

Where would you like to see him pop up? While we wait to find out, check out our roleplay of Geralt in a winery tycoon game.

The Witcher series of books are getting a Netflix adaptation, and back in December we learned that producer and writer Lauren Hissrich will be Geralt's showrunner. Hissrich has previously executive produced Daredevil and The Defenders for Netflix, written episodes for both shows (and for The West Wing, in the early 2000s). Thanks to her Twitter feed, we can put together a few new tidbits about the show, how it's shaping up, and which familiar characters we can expect to see. And yes, we'll get the most important out of the way first: Roach is in.

Hissrich wrote brief descriptions of The Witcher's major characters. Geralt is "stoic" but also "soft-and-squishy-in-a-tiny-place-in-his-heart-that-he'll-never-reveal-until-maybe-the-end-and-even-then-it-will-just-be-a-hint." Yennefer is fiery and proud; Triss Merigold is spunky and idealistic; Ciri resilient and relentless. We can also expect to see Jaskier (who we know as Dandelion in the English adaptations), Geralt's vampire buddy Regis, Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, and some characters who aren't in the games.

Those include Cahir, Vilgefortz, Milva, and witcher-killing bounty hunter Leo Bonhart. That's a pretty full cast.

Hissrich pitched the main storylines of the first season to Netflix on December 13th, and posted an example of just how many revisions it took to get from outline to completed pilot. "On Feb 23rd, I finished the first draft of the pilot," Hissrich tweeted. "It's 78 pages, which is a little too long, but I'm not ready to cut anything else yet!" This is what that writing process looked like:

The Witcher series is obviously still some time away from filming, but it's moving forward. Now we wonder: who's going to play Geralt?

This article was originally published in February 2018.

With a population of 30,000, the free city of Novigrad is the cosmopolitan heart of the Northern Kingdoms. Geralt of Rivia’s search for his adoptive daughter Ciri brings him here during the events of The Witcher 3, and he finds a city plagued by organised crime, religious zealotry, and bitter class division.

The city sits on the northern shore of the Pontar, at the point where the river empties into the Great Sea. While monster attacks are a problem for most settlements in the region, Novigrad is protected by impenetrable stone walls designed by architects from the Oxenfurt Academy. The city has no stationed army, but is watched over by the Temple Guard: a militant arm of the Eternal Fire with a reputation for abusing its power. Those great walls may keep monsters out of Novigrad, but it has plenty of its own.

Like any bustling metropolis, Novigrad is divided into distinct districts. And as you wander its streets, from the slums of Harborside to the mansions of Gildorf, you see a wonderful variety of faces; faces that reflect their surroundings and give the city its character. I recently walked the entire length and breadth of Novigrad, and the following portraits are of the people I met along the way, offering an intimate glimpse of life in the free city.

Located in the eastern part of the city, The Bits is an overcrowded district in the grips of extreme poverty. Ramshackle stacks of dilapidated houses lean over narrow, muddy side-streets, and it’s not uncommon to find yourself being attacked by desperate criminals. You’ll find thugs, beggars, and assorted ne'er-do-wells hiding from the Temple Guard here, but there are also flickers of humanity, including a school for orphaned children.

Putrid Grove is similarly impoverished, but has become a haven for non-humans and magic users, who live under the protection of Francis Bedlam, the King of Beggars. In his sanctuary you’ll see elves, dwarves, and humans living together, and mages plying their forbidden trade. This is the only place in the city where people on the fringes of society can live in peace without being hounded by the Eternal Fire's witch hunters. “They call this place the Putrid Grove,” the King of Beggars tells Geralt. “But it’s the rest of Novigrad that’s putrefied. This here’s the last bastion of normality, sanity, reason.”

Outcasts can also be found in Farcorners, a patch of farmland just outside the city walls. Although not completely safe from the prying eyes of the Eternal Fire, magic users and non-humans can find some safety here. Geralt meets a fugitive mage called Remi Villeroy, who fled with his family after the witch hunts broke out. Novigrad may seem like a shining beacon in war-ravaged Velen, but for some folk, life there is just as tough as anywhere else.

Of course, for others, life in Novigrad is sweet. Gildorf is the city’s most affluent district, elevated above the grimy slums below—both literally and figuratively. Here the wealthiest citizens live in opulent villas, relax in Sigismund’s Bathhouse, and engage in all manner of hedonism at the Passiflora, Novigrad’s finest brothel. There are no beggars or cutthroats here; just strolling nobles clad in fine, colourful clothes and a huge contingent of Temple Guards to keep the riff-raff at bay. Compared to The Bits, it’s like a different city.

Gildorf is also notable for its connection to Temple Isle via St. Gregory’s Bridge. This is the religious heart of the city, home to the Great Temple of the Eternal Fire. At the base of the tower, whose flame can be seen burning for miles around, you’ll find crowds of worshippers praying and priests giving passionate sermons. And, of course, the Temple Guard is out in force, making sure order is kept in this most holy of sites. But that hasn’t stopped Whoreson Junior, one of the city’s crime lords, buying a townhouse on the island.

Not every upper class citizen hides away in prestige districts like Gildorf, however. You’ll find the well-to-do mingling with the mucky rabble in the city centre—particularly around Hierarch Square. This busy marketplace throbs with life, with merchants, craftsmen, conmen, beggars, bankers, thieves, and nobles merrily rubbing shoulders. Just off the square is the famous Kingfisher Inn, a cosy tavern whose resident bard, the beautiful Callonetta, frequently brings patrons to tears with her songs of romance and adventure.

Industry is also an important part of city life, and some areas of Novigrad are devoted to commerce. Harborside is where ships come in from the Great Sea, bringing goods from faraway lands for merchants to sell in town. You can also find captains here who will, providing they have the coin, take travellers to places like the Skellige archipelago. The Golden Sturgeon is a rowdy dockside tavern popular with sailors looking to drink their shore leave away, including fist-fighting champion Georgius ‘The Piledriver’ Georg.

A network of canals runs through Novigrad, where locals will often be found fishing. And they sell their catch in the Fish Market district, a hub of merchants trading in fish and other goods. Traders are also present in Glory Lane, a district where Geralt can meet the master blacksmith Éibhear Hattori. Districts like these keep Novigrad’s economy alive, and provide a wealth of jobs for the common folk, even if the working conditions are often grim.

And all that money has to go somewhere, which is where Novigrad’s many banks come in. The Novigrad branch of the dwarf-owned Vivaldi Bank is on Hierarch Square, where Florens and Orens can be exchanged for Crowns, and loans can be taken out. Vimme Vivaldi runs the branch, who also happens to be one of the city’s most talented gwent players. While many dwarves are outcasts in the city, Vivaldi’s status and wealth protects him: an example of the injustice and hypocrisy that is sadly commonplace in Novigrad.

Novigrad is a remarkable place, with a rich culture and history that videogame cities often struggle to convey. Before I took this tour through its streets, I’d been in the city dozens of times before while playing The Witcher 3, but never really stopped to admire just how much thought and craft has gone into its construction. It’s evident in its design, and the design of its citizens, that CD Projekt RED’s artists and writers thought about the city as a real place, rather than just a cardboard set for the player to run around in.

I’m also impressed by how much personality the people have, even though you only catch a distant glimpse of most of them when playing the game normally. It was only when I made use of NVIDIA’s Ansel screenshot tool to take a closer look that I discovered this hidden world of detail. These faces say as much about the city as the streets and buildings, and I feel like you could write entire stories about every random NPC featured in these portraits.

So the next time you’re in Novigrad, get off your horse, switch off the HUD, and go for a long walk. You’ll be amazed by how much detail you miss when you’re busy questing and fighting, and how real the place feels when you really think about its layout and the people you see around you in each district. It's amazing to think that this hyper-detailed city is just one small corner of The Witcher 3's vast world, and it explains why the game took three and a half years to make. I can't wait to see the futuristic cities CDPR builds for Cyberpunk 2077.