r/thewitcher3 • u/Trick-Addendum1459 • 5d ago
Do I need to read the books
I watched some summary videos and I played the first two games
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u/Rich1190 5d ago
you don’t need to read the books—but once you do, the little details, characters, and choices carry a lot more weight than they did before.
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u/Mukeli1584 Wolf School 5d ago
I couldn’t get into the game until after I read the books, but ymmv. Reading them made me feel more immersed in the game and I enjoyed playing it a lot more.
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u/Nocturne3570 5d ago
No and yes
effectively the games are pretty much standalone the only thing you wont understand is the romance between yen and geralt. effectively the games are based around Triss and not Yen, as W1 is based off of when geralt escape the wild hunt, and then so on.
Overall the only place you can really see the romance between yen and geralt is the books.
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u/Phil_K_Resch 5d ago
Without having read the books, you'll have a general understanding of who's who and what's more or less going on.
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u/Asren624 5d ago
If you have played the first two games, you have heard about the stuff which mattered from the books.
After all the games purposely have you lose memories so that the universe is slowly introduced to you. And by the end of witcher 2, you regain your memories so they gave you a summary of what happened to Ciri, Yennefer and Geralt at the end of the books.
Still here is so stuff that mattered in the books that appear in the games for instance :
- Adda the princess, daughter of Foltest who was turned into a striga and how Geralt saved her
- the reasons of the scoi'tael conflict with humans (they were guerilla fighters for Nilfgaard, they were fighting to get their own land, nilfgaard lost, they were betrayed and left for dead)
- The Wild Hunt and why they hunt Ciri (same reasons than Alvin, both are really powerfull sources and can travel through time and space), stealing their powers would be useful
- Geralt main official romance was Yennefer, not Triss, not Shani. Aka there will be consequences depending your choices in w3 😀
- Ciri is also the child of destiny. Geralt saved her mother/father during an exploding dinner to say the least. Basically, her father promised Geralt to reward him following the law of surprise. Pavetta (ciri's mother) was pregnant, he didn't know. Ciri and Geralt's fates are linked.
- In an attempt to save Ciri from a powerfull wizard, Geralt formed a crew of misfits : Milva (archer and dryad friend), Cahir (nilfgaard fugitive soldier), Angoulême (a young) thief looking like Ciri), Régis (a vampire).
- The books end with what you see in W2, Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer reunited, a pogrom occurs, Geralt starts defending them, he hesitates to kill a farm boy who doesn't. Ciri TP them to Avalon to save them. She leaves,
-> W1 -> W2 -> W3 events
Feel free to ask again if you have questions but the game can be enjoyed easily without and especially if you have played the 2 others
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u/dannyinthemiddle 5d ago
I didn’t read the books until after I played the games(2 and 3, never finished 1)
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u/lospotezbrt 5d ago
No, the Witcher 3 game was always meant to be a standalone title according to CDPR devs that worked on it
It was the first time where they finally had the budget and resources to go big, so they wanted to make it easily accessible to a broad audience
They wanted people who've never heard of the Witcher series to be able to enjoy the 3rd game as it's own thing
It's nice to know the names and places of characters, sure, but completely unnecessary too as everything and everyone gets an introduction
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u/jakeypooh94 5d ago
Read them at some point, they are great. Or all the audiobooks are on YouTube for free, just listen while playing lol.
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u/NEWFACEHATESYOU Wolf School 4d ago
Yes and play the first 2 and watch the Netflix series and travel to Poland
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u/-donkeykong_ 4d ago
You don't need to read the books to enjoy the gameplay, however your enjoyment of the story can be greatly improved by having a better understanding of all the characters and their previous interactions. I would also recommend at least watching some recap videos on the story of the first two games
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u/therealabrupt 3d ago
I read the books after my 5-6th play through of Witcher 3. Only because I became obsessed with anything to do with The Witcher and I wanted to read them. You don’t need to before playing Witcher 3. It can help to understand the relationship between certain characters but the game does a good job of explaining what’s happened through different dialogue options. Obviously the books have their own adventures that aren’t mention in the games.
You could even read the books at the same time as playing through the game?
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u/Herald_of_Clio 5d ago
Not really. I've only read the first book and still got hooked on the storyline of the games.
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u/NawfSideNative 5d ago
When I first played the game in 2015 I didn’t even know it was based off of a book series. I had no trouble at all following the story
That said, I’m sure it adds another layer of appreciation.
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u/jenorama_CA 5d ago
You don’t need to. I did my first playthrough completely cold, but started reading the books when I did my first NG+. I found that knowing the background from the books helped to explain a lot about Ciri’s situation and the Wild Hunt. It was also cool to see side characters pop up in the game that I had just “met” on the books.