The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine Reviews
This is a real treasure and a tribute to all-things Witcher, perfectly captured in the final moment before the credits roll: a close-up of Geralt, who turns to look directly at the player through the screen with a subtle grin, as if giving thanks for the chance to tell one last Witcher story.
In Blood and Wine, things are quite different. Rather than a war ravaged wasteland, or an archipelago on the brink of civil war, famed monster hunter Geralt of Rivia travels to the southern region of Toussaint - a gorgeous unspoilt stretch of countryside. It truly is a wonderful place to be, lush with colour and an ever present orange sun that bathes the landscape in a warm glow. Its vineyards - famed world-over for their iconic wines - dot the landscape, while its beautiful capital of Beauclair sits visible from almost every point in the land, perched atop an elven ruin on a huge hill. After visiting Toussaint, the rest of the Witcher’s world feels unnecessarily depressing - you won’t want to leave.
Blood and Wine is not the epic "save the world" adventure prior Witcher titles were, but that's okay. It's a fond farewell to Geralt of Rivea, ensuring your last adventure with The Witcher leaves a smile on your face.
CD Projekt Red has released three masterpieces within the space of a year. Alongside Hearts of Stone, Blood and Wine ensures that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is, without question, the role-playing game to beat going forward. Toussaint provides a gorgeous new location that's a joy to explore, and the sun-soaked land houses enough engrossing content to put many fully priced retail releases to shame. Geralt's last hurrah is a pleasure to experience; a fitting end to a stunning achievement.
This is an absolutely brilliant adventure, which alone can match the giants of the genre. At the same time, it is also with a certain melancholy that we are now waving goodbye to The Witcher 3.
Review in Swedish | Read full review
To spend my final moments here was quite fitting – the darkness laying just beneath a dazzling surface, the vast threads meeting to create either your happy ending or your bittersweet reminders and the adventures small and large that led there. It has been a life well lived, and if there are to be no more adventures, then a villa in Toussaint doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
The second addition to The Witcher 3 is to say goodbye to the series, at least for a while. The idea of visiting Toussaint turned out to be a hit and an effective way to close a chapter.
Review in Polish | Read full review
I'm not even done with this new content, and there’s that enticing New Game + option, along with the 100 level cap, and plenty of decisions and a different ending I never experienced in the vanilla game, but even so it saddens me to know this is it, for now, with the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf.
It really is incredible what CDPR has achieved here, and I wouldn’t be totally averse to playing something of this size and quality each and every year. This is without doubt the greatest piece of DLC I have ever played, and I think plenty of other developers and publishers should rightly be embarrassed by their efforts after seeing this. Expansion of the year? Almost surely. Game of the year? A real possibility.
Blood and Wine is perfection. It's more than a DLC, more than an expansion. The experience of Toussaint, its characters, and its stories are a testament to CD Projekt RED's caring craft in sending Geralt of Rivia on his last great contract.
If you want a great RPG, here you have it and don't doubt the qualities of the data disc. This is a wine of the highest quality, in which your blood boils.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
A worthy expansion to the great The Witcher 3, Blood and Wine is a fantastic RPG on its own right.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Geralt goes out on a high note. Developer CD Projekt Red, once again, raises the bar for every other company making an expansion pack.
"It’s a heck of an expansion and one that provides a stellar sendoff for a master Witcher."
CD Projekt Red has raised the bar on what it takes to make a high quality story driven RPG. They did not fail to deliver on Geralt’s final tale either. If this is our last hurrah with the White Wolf it was time well spent.
Blood and Wine is a fantastic expansion and has everything you need to get you to blow off the dust of your copy of The Witcher 3. The expansion offers more than twice as many hours of gameplay as Hearts of Stone and stands like a house in terms of gameplay. If you loved Wild Hunt and Hearts of Stone, you'll buy Blood and Wine blindly. Cd Projekt RED Geralt could not have given a more dignified farewell than Blood and Wine!
Review in Dutch | Read full review
In short, CD Projekt RED has surpassed itself with this expansion, it has managed to resemble a complete game in itself, and in fact it can be, since there is a game mode that directly creates a character at the right level, with certain base objects and some money, and allows you to start directly in the plot of Blood and Wine, a good point for the company since it is a totally additional story, which does not depend on what has been done so far.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
We say goodbye to Geralt. For how long? We do not know but for a very short time it will be eternal. Toussaint is the definitive setting for the closing of the saga, a relaxed closing that we enjoy in small sips like a good glass of Sangreal. Blood & Wine closes its last seconds with a calm conversation around a bonfire with a good drink and in the company of a former comrade. A silence of several seconds and a last sentence from Geralt de Rivia "I think we need a little rest", that last look from the witcher says it all.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Blood and Wine, The Witcher 3’s final piece of DLC, could not have given such a remarkable game a more fitting send off. With a beautiful new world to explore, Toussaint is brimming with hours of content, stories, monsters to slay, great characters and a whole new bloody Gwent faction. The best of all is how the writers have been allowed to write some genuinely hilarious little stories -- you can tell that their having a ball and it had me in hysterics on several occasions.