Why I Was Wrong About The Witcher 1: A 2026 Retrospective

Back in mid-June 2015, I didn't have the luxury of a top-tier gaming rig. I played The Witcher 3 on a Pentium G2030, an AMD HD 6670, and 6 gigs of DDR3 RAM. The experience was a mess of 12 fps cutscenes and audio desync, yet I was hooked. Naturally, I wanted more, so I picked up the original The Witcher on GOG for pennies. I bounced off it immediately. I didn't understand the swamp navigation, the combat felt odd, and I eventually dismissed it as an archaic relic that wasn't worth the time.

Ten years later, I decided it was time to do the entire trilogy back to back, no excuses. With a decade of experience in old-school RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape Torment under my belt, my perspective shifted entirely. It turns out, The Witcher 1 isn't just playable—it’s arguably the best game in the series.

A Deep Dive into RPG Mechanics

The combat in The Witcher 1 is simple, but it becomes surprisingly addictive when you’re managing large groups of enemies. Where the game truly shines, however, is in its systems. Unlike the third entry, this game forces you to actually live like a witcher. Alchemy and leveling up require specific prerequisites—gathering rare herbs and hunting for monster-sourced materials is a necessity that forces you to risk your neck in dangerous areas like the swamps.

The writing is pure peak. While the overarching plot can feel disconnected from the books or the later games, the individual dialogue sequences are phenomenal. There is a weight to your actions here that the sequels often lack. Built on BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights engine, the game excels at a “every choice is wrong” design philosophy. Your decisions echo throughout the world, impacting characters, bystanders, and Geralt himself in ways that feel genuinely consequential.

The Best Romance in the Trilogy

If you're playing for the story, the Shani romance path is the standout of the entire trilogy. It features excellent cutscenes and deep philosophical moments where Geralt ruminates on his place in the world, caught between the Path and the desire to settle down. It’s a compelling look at the character that is arguably more poignant than anything found in the later installments.

Is the game perfect? Far from it. The transitions between scenes are often poor, the plot can be nonsensical, and the constant backtracking on foot is a legitimate drawback. It’s also disappointing that many of the choices you make here—including the Shani romance—are essentially annulled by the sequels. However, the RPG foundation is so strong that the tedious moments fade into the background.

I was wrong to warn people off this game. Its design philosophy—where every choice hits you in the face hours down the line—is something that needs to make a comeback. As we look ahead to The Witcher 4, one can only hope CDPR has looked back at their beginnings to figure out exactly what made this initial entry so special.