The Witcher 3 it was undoubtedly one of the most loved games of all time, also thanks to its original way of reinterpreting fantasy in a boldly adult key, plausible and dark, in some ways even more iconic than the one in the books of Andrej Sapkowski.
Six years after its release, we are giving you a gift five tips for films and TV series that in a curious way managed to offer more or less the same dark mood, especially if we take into account the folk component of the game.
Are you ready? Let's begin!
Black Death (2010)
Among the main features of The Witcher 3 there is undoubtedly its ability to tell a medieval age dominated by rhetorical figures of fantasy such as imaginary races such as elves and dwarves, but extremely similar to ours, with all its ugliness and violence.
In case what attracted you to The Witcher 3 was its dirty and characterized setting plagues, field wars and brutality, as well as superstitions and dangerous cults, then maybe you should catch up Black death, by Christopher Smith.
England, time of the black plague: a brave knight in the pay of the church (Sean Bean) is commissioned to lead his warriors into a remote forest to try to understand if the rumors about a village that has remained immune to contagion are true.
He is called to lead the expedition Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), a local monk, who actually wants to take advantage of the unexpected thing to escape with his mistress.
Unfortunately, things will not go as hoped and the encounter with a pagan cult will change (for the worse) everyone's plans.
Although Black Death is more of a raw folk horror than a swashbuckling tale (even if the action scenes are not lacking), to be able to make it appreciable by those who loved the CD Projekt Red epic could be the atmosphere: gloomy woods, poor and desolate villages, ceremonies that seem to come out of The Wicker Man (another masterpiece of British folk horror) manage to give a mood very close to that of some of the the most remote and mysterious rural locations among those visited by Geralt (hey, did anyone mention Velen?).
For the rest, if you love action horror or those with a historical setting, Black Death could really give you a lot.
Iron Clad (2011)
England again, still in the late Middle Ages.
1215, King John Landless took power by taking advantage of the absence of King Richard the Lionheart. Gathered in an extreme alliance against his tyrannical overwhelming power, some nobles loyal to the legitimate sovereign take refuge in the Rochester Castle for the last, extreme and ruthless resistance. Among them a Templar, still tormented by the horrors of war.
It is only the beginning of a story made of heroism, courage and rivers of blood.
While Ironclad is not the finest film in the world, and it is a film without a single touch of fantasy, lovers of The Witcher 3 could appreciate the brutal and bloody aesthetics of its fights, the almost documentary staging of the phases of a siege, the reconstruction if not realistic at least not completely stereotyped of weapons and armor.
The result is an epic tale that is very classic in themes (homeland, freedom and justice, things like that), but proudly b-movie in development and style, perfect for those of TW3 who loved sword fighting far from the clichés of the Romantic Middle Ages.
The Witch (2015)
The Witcher 3 is a great adventure tale, but, as Black Death reminded us, too a story at times with folk horror outlines based on witchcraft, mysteries in rural environments that are certainly not pleasant to visit and disturbing figures.
In case you are fascinated by it the fantasy-horror atmosphere, and in case the witch and black magic movies don't tire you and you're looking for some really well done (if a little heavy) horror, then The Witch might be for you.
North America, XNUMXth century.
A settler family is exiled from their village and forced to build an isolated farm in a creepy forest. How do you say? Can't it turn out well? Guessed it: soon the family begins to be tormented by a mysterious presence and a series of disturbing events, that will give rise to paranoia and suspicions based on superstitions that will lead to disastrous results.
As in the case of Black Death, The Witch is not an action story and the links with The Witcher 3 could stop at the "costume" setting.
However, if we contextualize them in the vogue of the "fantastic" of grim and folk derivation, we can say that both stage a well-kept “fantastic-historical” context, in which superstition, social oppression and violence dominate everything.
In short, in case the Swamp of the Crones is still your favorite location of The Witcher 3 today, The Witch might hit you.
Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
If the previous films have more underground links with the mood of The Witcher 3, with Game of Thrones, beloved / hated series that has gone through the decade just ended, the story changes.
The series based on the novels of George R. Martin was according to many a source of inspiration for the final rendition of the third installment of the Geralt saga: realistic in the definition of the setting, full of details taken from the dirtiest and most violent Middle Ages ever seen on television, GoT seems to have anticipated a lot of the mood of The Witcher 3, with its tone suspended between epic and political drama, between epic and historical tale and between fantastic and real.
The series needs little introduction: on the continent of Westeros, on the death of the rightful king the most important families of the realm start a merciless war for the Iron Throne. As in The Witcher 3, destinies will end up intertwining nobles, commoners, soldiers and figures chosen by destiny, in an immense realistic fantasy fresco which still today, two years after the (disputed) final, gathers fans from all over the world.
Berserk
Finally, a small foray into the world of anime and, above all, of the manga.
Although Berserk starts from a mythology of its own, difficult to compare with that of The Witcher (if not for one theme: that of the confrontation between the powerful fighting for their own political survival and the masses prey to war and poverty), Kentaro Miura's work has numerous stylistic analogies with the epic CD Projekt, if only in terms of depiction.
By reconstructing a fantastic Europe inspired by the '400 and' 500, Miura almost anticipates CD Projekt by a few years by inserting its fantasy elements in a fantarealistic setting full of details: from the armor of the soldiers to the appearance of the cities, everything is taken care of to perfection.
However, the fantastic aspect is also extremely close to the mood of The Witcher. Like Geralt, too Gatsu (the huge mercenary protagonist of the series) must face hordes of demons and other nightmare creatures in a scenario where good and evil are often indistinguishable.
Although for Geralt all this sometimes depended on a sort of "professional" choice (at times, we emphasize), for Gatsu is often the result of a terrible curse that devastates his soul and forces him to constantly face his inner ghosts.
Still unfinished, Berserk is undoubtedly one of the most significant works of contemporary Japanese manga and animation, as well as the most famous fantasy epics in the world.
These are the five films that come to our minds when thinking about The Witcher 3.
It is certainly not just fantasy, but sophisticated products that mix different genres and narrative registers to give life to epics in costume with a pulp and dark flavor similar to the masterpiece CD Project Red.
Have you seen them all?
Tell us in the comments and, if the answer is "no", good vision!
