Is it possible to play the witcher (2 or) 3 without having played the previous games? Or will i be overwhelmed by lore?

Is it possible to play the witcher (2 or) 3 without having played the previous games? Or will i be overwhelmed by lore?

>is it better to play the inferior sequels instead of the original?

Gee, I don't know.

its possible, in fact, everybody i know who played witcher 3 didn't bother with the prequels so yeah.. possible. but you're missing out.

I see a lot of people that claim to love the W3 without having played the previous games. But to me that's kind of like jumping into ME3 from the get go. You meet loads of chars you don't know that your char has a history with and you had no hand in the state of the world.

yes

Go ahead and start with TW3

These games shine the most in their sidequests (which is where you see lots of interesting lore and characterization) the main plots are always kinda meh.

Geralt is quite literally a slice of life character forced into an epic quest.

Play Witcher 2 first and load your save into Witcher 3. You can skip 1.

>playing the worst game first

If you don't start every series with the original, you're a faggot.

Only exception is stand-alone shit.

If you like witcher 3 you'd probably enjoy witcher 2. Witcher 1 is more of an acquired taste, how much do you like old crpgs?

Honestly, if you're anything like me, if you try playing 2 without having at least played the 1st, let alone read the books, you're going to be awfully confused. The pretend politicking in 2 is dense as fuck, and you're gonna need to sit the fuck down to sort it out.

Read the short story anthologies, the first two books. Play through all three games, in order.

Or just play W3, if you want to shortchange yourself a hell of a game.

The combat in the first game is hands down the most terrible combat in any RPG ever, even worse than Morrowind.

Don't be a fucking faggot and start playing from the first one

Either play them all in order or go in a corner and drop fuckin dead

Nah It's really well made, my girlfriend got into 3 out of jizzing over how cute was Geralt, got well into the story and then played 1 and 2 and enjoyed them. Overall it's an excellent series with 3 very different games in it. If you get into the story and setting, you'd like them all.

play 2 and 3 then you'll be fine

You are the worst kind of casual

Don't listen to these dumb cocksuckers. 1 is horse shit, and you can play through 2 without knowing anything about 1 just fine. You work for a king, who gets assassinated. It's pretty straight forward and you really don't need all the back story. If you find any of the politics interesting read up on the factions online or something.

As for Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red really went out of their way to create a down-to-earth experience. Most of the beginning of the game is about just seeing how shitty war is for the commonfolk, and you can tell that Geralt obviously has no love for royalty. The characters all have dialogue options to help fill in back story if you're interested. You won't know who some of the major characters are, but it doesn't really matter.

I wouldn't bother with 1, it's really painful to play today. 2 is ok, but honestly just play 3 it will take you like 150 hours to get through everything anyway.

You don't need to play the first to enjoy the others, but the first is enjoyable if you can get over the aged mechanics.

1 is shit, even cd project said that it wasnt complete.
also i played all of them and 1 isnt that important

Tfw 2 is the only one i didnt play
Tfw its not on PS4

Yare yare

What if I told you, you are completely wrong and just bandwagoning?

its alright. Very linear, but its a good focus on Triss and Letho. No Yennifer at all though
>tfw bandwagoning is legitimately correct.
Shut up fag. I played 1 when it was released and then again this year and it was crap both times

I dont mind linear if it means theres a strong story, thanks for the headsup

Nigga an unfinished unmarketed game by an unknown slavshit game company in 2008 doesn't sell over 2 million units on the PC alone if it's shit. It just doesn't happen.

just push through the long first 1/3rd and steep learning curve.
sales =/= good game

>wasnt complete
I'm 99% certain that 2 and 3 had more cut content to them than 1.
That said, it really isn't that important. The story is just an aimless retelling of the books.

TW1 wasnt really a bad game

The noonwraith chapter was one of the best gaming experiences I ever had

>sales =/= good game
If they have enough for marketing, which they didn't. I remember their E3 presentation in 2005 it looked like fucking highschool book sale, it was that cheap. And I remember how Sup Forums jizzed over it when it was released 9 years ago. So shut the fuck up

>Sup Forums liked it so it must be good!
kill yourself

>Sup Forums dislikes it so it must be bad
likewise motherfucker

Why would you want to skip the first one?
Seriously, why?
If you didn't like that, you won't like the sequels either.

what the shit are you on about
its flawed. Just read the book or wiki if you're lazy

Sadly if you read the thread you'd find out a lot of people liking the friendlier 3rd one and hating on the first two

Im playing witcher 3 for the first time. Most of the stuff is self explanatory or you can always ask NPCs to go more into detail. CD projekt did a really great job with the way they present the witcher universe to new people.

I jumped in no problems and only played the second one for about 5 hours. If you feel lost or want to know more about a character, just read the wiki.

Just finished my first playthough of the Witcher 3 not even a day ago. Took my like 6 months, but worth it none the less. Best thing going for it are the characters and writing. Combat is kind of shit though. Put like 60 hours into it.

When people say the DLCs are better than the main story that kinda tells you everything you need to know.

People also tell you that said DLCs are better than the majority of the AAA releases in the past year

I dont doubt it. I'm just implying that release order for TW3 isn't necessarily a big deal when the main story isnt even the big sell.

It is, but you're better off playing them in order.

Witcher 1 is an excellent game with a hit or miss combat system (I like it a lot but some people hate it with a passion), with a good balance between city intrigues and wilderness monster slaying. The story is very good and the atmosphere is fantastic. The game still looks great but character models have aged pretty badly. The difficulty is pretty steep and the first act is not as easy as it sounds.

Witcher 2 is a great game but not as good as 1. It definitely looks better but it's generally clunkier imhotep, and there is almost no city intrigues in that one. The atmosphere is still very good and the story is pretty great, with tough choices. It's much shorter overall. Combat has been entirely revamped and it plays very differently compared to 1.

Witcher 3 is a masterpiece and the pinnacle of the series. It uses 2's combat system with enhancements and is a worthy challenge on Death March. The mains story is not crazy in this one but the quests are fantastic, the atmosphere is extremely good and immersive and the game has, like the first, a perfect balance between city intrigues and wilderness monster slaying. It is a very complete game that will take you about a hundred hours to fully complete, and then you have the two DLCs that are absolutely amazing and blow most recent games out of the water in terms of content. Hearts of Stone is rather short but greatly expands the area east of Novigrad/Oxenfurt and has a truly killer story, while Blood & Wine adds an entire new region with lots of shit to discover.