Intro: Diving into The Witcher 3 the Wild Hunt, we saw a brilliant story, diverse characters, and an entire library of monsters that titillated the senses and brought players to their knees in excitement. CD Project Red brought in two DLC’s that expanded the story and its branches even further and made me so excited to the point where I would be hopping in the chair. Hearts Of Stone and Blood And Wine both encompassed a story that is diverse, haunting and one that told life’s truths in vivid colors.
Hearts of Stone: Putting it simply, this DLC showed humanity. It showed the delicacy of a broken heart, turned into a prideful brute. Olgeird, the man whom we take our main contract from, asks us to complete several tasks such as killing a toad, giving his brother one good day which essentially meant that he took over Geralts body and tried to sleep with every woman at a wedding and tried to wooing Shani. But the quest that caught my eye, and is what made me fall in love with this DLC, was Iris Von Everec. Seeing as Olgeird cursed a prince which turned him into a toad, and made a pact with O’Dimm which gave him back in his previous role/stature in society. At the cost of his emotions, Von Everec obtained immortality which gave him his heart of stone and this is the FOCAL POINT of the DLC. I think it puts things into a very human perspective since Geralt is a mediator of sorts that brings Olgeird, his brother, and his dead wife together in a sense that he helped the situation come to an end and peaceful rest. If you have not played this DLC I would highly recommend it, it's short but done right in terms of the story and characters' dialogue.
Blood and Wine: The story of this DLC blood and wine was some of the best writing and voice acting I’ve ever seen in a DLC. With this game, CD Project Red did it the right way. This is the way a DLC is supposed to be done in terms of length, storyline, connection to the original characters of the main campaign, and expansion of the story in a way that makes sense. And, did I mention, the basis of this story is Vampires? I was beyond delighted when I caught on to the fact since vampires are my favorite creatures to learn about in mythology. CD Projekt Red respected the lore of the vampire and added on some new things to it that made the lore shine through even more so than it already did.
There is this discussion of immortality and how it affects the vampire in an emotional and psychological sense of, “where do I go from here, how do I live this life?” it begs the question of, does the vampire know the limits of the life they had as a human and regret the life of a vampire? I have so many thoughts and this DLC is not only fun, but it evokes a lot of heavy thinking that I didn’t know would occur. The DLC then after a bit trails off into this spooky version of different children’s tales. In order to stop chaos reigning in bauclair, we have to save an estranged sister from a book of children’s stories. Hiding one in a book is easy; getting them out is a different story entirely. You go from fighting the old witch that wants to eat kids to the big bad wolf, to seeing the boy who cried wolf and fighting Rapunzel as a wraith. The writers CDPR really took children’s stories and twisted them to make them a little more chaotic and terrifying which I love. By the end of this weird, beautiful, and slightly disturbing fairy tale adventure you make your way back to the city of Bauclair and are greeted by the very Vampire Dettlaff you are searching for. He ends up killing Syanna, the girl who you saved from the fairytale world and you have the choice to fight him or let him go. If you fight him you don’t get prison time, but I chose not to fight him. So I received prison time with a gentleman who looked at me while I picked up the soap. Lovely.
After a few words from the guardsman, you realize that your bail has been paid none other than the lovely Emiel, this is when it gets very human. While Emiel is a vampire, he’s much like Dettlaff to a degree. He knows he’s immortal; he still has his humanity and is very much aware of the curse/gift that was bestowed upon him. A Vampire with a moral conscious if you will. The two, while reminiscing and talking about life have this exchange that I feel could actually happen, the dialogue was so smooth and rich in its uniqueness that set it apart from other games in that you could hear the humanity, you knew that these characters had a voice and weren’t just 3d creations on a screen. They came to life and brought lore, history together in a way that seemed almost unimaginable.
There’s Always More Final Thoughts: These two DLC’s had my head spinning with excitement, some of the stories, and content I thought was even better than the actual campaign. This game will be a favorite of mine, it's rich and shows players how a story expanded in the correct way can do wonders for the story's main campaign. From Hearts of Stone, a mournful piece on love and loss, to Blood and Wine, a story of forgiveness, reflection on one’s self, and a coming to terms with the world as it is both of these DLCs show the many sides to Geralt and the world of The Witcher.
Comments