Love it or hate it, Bethesda’s seminal The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim completely changed the landscape of the games industry forever when it launched back in 2011. Selling 20 million copies, the game demonstrated that there was, in fact, a market for role playing games in the mainstream, and similar to Call of Duty, forever changed the face of the genre in its wake.
Since Skyrim, multiple games and developers have admitted to using its philosophy as the blueprint for their games- Square Enix with Final Fantasy, Capcom with Dragon’s Dogma, Bioware and EA with Dragon Age Inquisition, Nintendo with The Legend of Zelda, and yes, CD Projekt RED with the upcoming Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
On CD Projekt RED’s part, they have included a silent tribute to Skyrim within Witcher 3, while also poking silent fun at it. In the card game minigame included in the title, one of the card has a description that reads ‘I aim for the knee. Always,’ which is a clear and knowing nod to the popular ‘Arrow to the Knee’ line from the game, that spawned an entire meme around it.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launches on Xbox One, PS4, and PC May 19. Stay tuned.