Why we're still playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 10 years later

Ten years! How many times in the last decade have we fetched that frying pan, whistled for Roach to give us a lift, sliced drowners in half, and used our Witcher senses to track a blood trail to a monster's lair, only to find a tragic story at the end of what seemed like a simple hunt?

The Witcher 3 was a shoo-in for the canon of all-time PC RPGs as soon as it released in May 2015. A decade flew by in an instant, and not just because the passage of time is a haunting reminder of mortality for those of us without witcher mutagens keeping us spry for centuries.

It's hard to believe The Witcher 3 is 10 years old becuase it feels like few games have bested it since. The writing, voice acting, and world still rival games being released in 2025.

As part of our Why We Play video series, we're revisiting The Witcher 3's greatest strengths and some of our favorite moments, from the Bloody Baron's questline to the beautiful sunsets and wild winds of Velen.

You can also watch The Witcher 3 10 Years On: What Made It A Masterpiece? on YouTube. Keep an eye on PC Gamer all week for more celebration of The Witcher 3's anniversary.

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Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

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