Why is this noteworthy? As he explained on Twitter, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, achieved attach rates of 22 and 24 percent in their first three months. Phantom Liberty achieving 23 percent in the same time frame is already good, but unlike those expansions, it launched more than 2.5 years after the base game.

Nowakowski expressed that the decision to release an expansion long after the base game’s launch was “a bit counterintuitive.” However, “What happened is proof to us that solid content that people are happy with is the way to go.” Of course, the free updates for Cyberpunk 2077, the latest adding a metro system, certainly helped sustain interest.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Check out our review of the expansion here. You can also read our re-review for the base game.

@PaulTassi I can help with the att rate for The Witcher 3 expansions you mention in your article. Three months after the release of Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine we were at 22% and 24% att rate. We landed between these values with Phantom Liberty in a similar timeframe. (1/2) https://t.co/x3NEO9eTu0

— Michał Nowakowski (@michalnowakow) January 8, 2024

TBH, the decision to go through with the expansion so long after launch of the single player game was a bit counterintuitive. But what happened is a proof to us that solid content that people are happy with is the way to go. (2/2)

— Michał Nowakowski (@michalnowakow) January 8, 2024

Babel Fish – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy isn’t the most straightforward adventure, which is saying something given the book it’s based on. But suffering its idiosyncrasies is required for getting the Babel Fish, which then leads to the atomic vector plotter. Not having it means game over. Furthermore, when acquiring it, you also have to make sure to pick up your towel (don’t ask), failing which can lead to another death. Long story short, don’t panic and don’t forget your towel.

What a special game The Witcher 3 is. It is a game that delivers on multiple fronts, and delivers strongly, and perhaps rightly so, it’s been called by many not only among the best games of this generation, but one of the greatest video games to have been ever made. And we certainly agree with that notion. In this feature, we’re going to take a look at what made The Witcher 3 as great as it was- it’s greatest strengths, the things that stand out the most, the things that it could do that so many other big budget AAA RPGs these days simply fail to do.

Of course, we’re not claiming that The Witcher 3 is the greatest RPG of all time – well, it’s certainly up there – but there are just so many things that it does so well that other games in the same genre fail to recreate. Which is what we’re going to be talking about in this feature. With all that out of the way, let’s jump right in.

BALANCING NARRATIVE AND OPEN WORLD

The problem with most open world games you play is that in order to provide players with a sandbox to mess about it and give them complete freedom to go wherever they want and do whatever they want, they have to sacrifice in the narrative in storytelling department. The Witcher 3 is one of the few exceptions to that rule, because not only does it provide players with a large, beautiful open world to explore to their heart’s content, it also tells a riveting tale. Granted it’s main story doesn’t have the best pacing, but even when you’re taking on side quests or dabbling in random activities around the game world, mostly everything you do somehow contributes to the game’s larger narrative. The Witcher 3 manages to expertly tell a driven and cohesive narrative inside of a massive open world, and it does it all wonderfully.

The Witcher 3 may not have a modding scene as active as, say, Skyrim, but there are still a fair few mods for it released. A lot of them target the game’s graphical performance (which, I mean, come on- the game is already stunning), including the Turbo Lighting Mod.

The Turbo Lighting Mod 2.3 will see a release within the next week or two, its maker confirmed on Twitter. This mod essentially makes the game look closer to what it did in the trailers before its infamous downgrade, by introducing a new lighting system. You can actually check out a screenshot from the game running with the mod activated above. The new lighting system, however, will not be applicable to the Toussaint region, from the latest expansion for the game.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and its expansions Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine are now all available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC worldwide.

Almost a year since its launch, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt continues to sell and engage players, pulling in the big numbers and making the developer loads of money. According to the financial statements that CD Projekt, the parent company of CD PRojekt RED, posted, in the three month quarter from January to March of 2016, CD Projekt RED pulled in PLN 68.1 million ($17.6 million) of profit, while the studio’s profit was PLN 34.1 million ($8.8 million).

This money is all directly attributable to The Witcher 3 and its expansion Hearts of Stone, of course- which is impressive, because The Witcher 3 is now almost a year old on the market. But according to CD Projekt, that is immaterial- good RPGs sell over a long period.

“Results achieved in the recent quarters prove that the release of The Witcher 3 was a quantum leap for us in terms of business activity,” CD Projekt VP Piotr Nielubowicz said in a statement. “The first quarter of the current year is the third consecutive period of continuing strong sales of The Witcher, and of record-breaking revenues for the whole Capital Group.”

“Good RPGs continue to sell for years and we know how to animate sales and pique gamers’ interest,” CD Projekt’s Adam Kicinski added.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The final expansion for the game, Blood and Wine, will launch later this month.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt may have released almost a year ago, but CD Projekt RED have consistently continued to support the game since launch, not just with DLC, but also with updates that keep fixing the game, and make it far better to play. Update 1.12 is available now for the game on all platforms, and it is a pretty big one.

It comes in at 1.4GB, and includes a whole lot of changes, including some aimed specifically at the new Witcher 3 expansion, Hearts of Stone. The full list of changes the expansion brings with it follows:

Gameplay

• Fixes issue whereby some toxic gas clouds failed to poison or deal damage to player
• Fixes issue whereby scabbard meshes were missing from witchers other than Geralt
• Fixes rare issue whereby attacks performed near friendly NPCs resulted in unintended regeneration of Stamina
• Fixes exploit involving Alchemy skill titled Tissue Transmutation
• Fixes issue whereby quickslots could disappear if game difficulty level was changed
• during combat
• Fixes exploit involving Superior White Raffard’s Decoction and skill named Delayed recovery
• Fixes rare issue whereby skill named Flood of Anger incorrectly enabled Signs Tree and enhanced Sign Intensity permanently
• Introduces fix whereby special bonus granted by Superior Blizzard will take effect only when slow-motion is triggered
• Fixes a number of issues affecting potion called Chort decoction
• Fixes rare issue whereby some mini-bosses could become immortal under certain circumstances
• Fixes misleading message displayed when players attempted to cast Signs in combat, while enveloped by a cloud resulting from the detonation of a Dimeritium Bomb

UI

• Fixes issue whereby items in merchants’ stores could not be compared to currently equipped items
• Fixes exploit whereby some items (runes, glyphs) could be upgraded infinitely
• Introduces UI enhancement whereby herb name is now displayed above available interaction
• Fixes issue whereby keys/controls (mouse and keyboard) were not unbound from current setting when attempted
• Fixes issue whereby Toggle HUD button would not always work correctly during set scenes
• Introduces enhancement whereby ingredients required for a pinned formula and in possession of a merchant are now highlighted in said merchant’s Shop screen
• Improves quest tracking by enabling tracking of objectives across different game regions
• Fixes issue whereby Witcher Medallion and statistics bar could disappear if game difficulty level was changed during combat
• Introduces enhancement on PC systems whereby weapon and armour repair kits can now be applied via drag and drop
• Fixes issue on PC systems whereby toggling HUD did not work correctly on QWERTZ and AZERTY keyboard configurations

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and its expansion Hearts of Stone, is available now on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, which is the first expansion to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which launched for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC earlier this year, is now out, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to learn more about it. Especially where a studio like CD Projekt RED is concerned, we always want to learn more about the behind the scenes development process of a game.

This brand new video for the expansion does just take- it takes us behind the scenes on its development. Listen to Len De Gracia, Senior Environment Artist, Jose Teixeira, Senior VFX Artist, and Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, English Adaptation Director, talk about working on The Witcher, the studio’s DLC philosophy and, of course, Hearts of Stone itself.

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone is out now on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. It is the first of two planned expansions to the base game. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more information and coverage.

The Witcher 3 had some excellent, excellent music- so it follows that the first expansion for the game, Hearts of Stone, will have some similarly great music as well. In a new tweet, we got a hint as to just what that would be like. The tweet, from the game’s composer Marcin Przybylowicz, featured the leader of the popular Polish band Percival Mikołaj Rybacki playing the Saz for a new track for the expansion.

This is not just all the awesome Witcher 3 news that came today- if you purchase the physical version of the game, you get a GoG code for the game. That’s all well and good, but what if you have the game on Steam or Origin? Never fear! In their infinite player friendliness, CD Projekt RED confirmed they would set up a site where players would be allowed to swap out their GoG codes for Steam or Origin ones, if necessary.

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone launches October 13.