The Witcher 3 is clearly one of the best role-playing games in years, and has been loved by gamers and reviewers alike, having sold millions of copies to date. And if we take into account that the game is set in a dark medieval fantasy world not unlike the Westeros of Game of Thrones, and that game creators CD Projekt Red have a penchant for dealing with mature themes, then it is logical that The Witcher 3 has been a controversial game. Here follow the top controversies associated with The Witcher 3 to date.
Accusations of sexism by Feminist Frequency
If one thing is clear, is that Anita Saarkesian has become famous regarding her feminist media criticism, especially concerning video games – as a matter of fact she recently made the Time 100 most influential people list for this. Her website Feminist Frequency took aim at role-playing blockbuster The Witcher 3, which is not surprising considering that Polish developer CD Projekt’s games have been accused of sexism before. In the original game, for instance, players would receive sex cards featuring protagonist Geralt’s sexual conquests after he got intimate with the woman in question…
And in The Witcher 3, Saarkesian complained in a tweet, Geralt’s adoptive daughter Ciri receives all sorts of insults like “b*tch” and is sexually harassed during the game. Never mind the fact that Ciri is actually a strong and independent woman who can handle herself with a sword and teach grizzled male warriors a thing or two (and she is also a playable character in the game to boot).
And also consider that similar series like Game of Thrones have featured rape not because they are sexist, but to reflect the dark and gritty reality of their medieval fantasy worlds.
The graphics downgrade
Last year, Ubisoft’s blockbuster game Watchdogs was hyped to death and had gamers waiting with a baited breath for its release after those stunning demos shown at the E3 show. But the game turned out to be a disappointment, as it was obvious that the game’s graphics were downgraded from what was shown at E3. And to a lesser extent this is also the case with The Witcher 3 from CD Projekt Red – a game that looks good but not great on consoles, and for which we saw some absolutely stunning reveal trailers.
Although the character models, monsters and animations are some of the best seen in recent times, some were disappointed that the final product is not the best looking game ever made (and definitely not better-looking than some of its competitors like Dragon Age: Inquisition), but at least those running the game on high-end PCs can make it look gorgeously good thanks to the game’s fancy 4K resolution mode.