Review by Gianluca “DottorKillex” Arena
After the extraordinary story told in Hearts of Stone, Cd Projekt Red puts a further exclamation point to the story of Geralt of Rivia, one of the most loved and charismatic heroes of recent years: how else to define an expansion that adds twenty to thirty hours of game for all Strigo fans?
Only time will tell us if Blood and wine will really represent the farewell to the White Wolf or just a goodbye, but, in both cases, it would be an exit from the scene with a bang, more than worthy for one of the most popular sagas both by critics and by the public.
If you are curious to know what the verdant plains of Touissant hide, you just have to keep reading.
Fairy-tale realms
Contrary to what has been done so far in the videogame transpositions of the books of the writer Andrzej Sapkowski, Cd Projekt takes the player into a fantasy realm in line with all the classic stereotypes of the genre, from knights without blemish or fear to courtesans of shining beauty, passing through the knightly tournaments, lavish parties and rivers of wine to accompany them.
Geralt himself seems like a fish out of water: he does not share the plastic ideals that seem to move Touissant's society, he finds the obligatory fuss and curmudgeons at the court of the Duchess Henrietta excessive, and is not too surprised to find, under the patina of honor and loyalty, a rot that has corrupted the foundations of society, which someone is trying to clean up with murders.
Borrowing some ideas from David Fincher's never forgotten Seven, and populating the Duchy of Touissant with three hundred and sixty-degree characters, seasoning everything with pregnant and beautifully dubbed dialogues, the Polish team manages to immerse the player in a credible context, where every character (including the antagonists) follows a very specific moral line of conduct, which, shared or not, characterizes the behavior and attitudes towards our hero.
As often happened to us in the CD Projekt titles (and not with many others, unfortunately) we have rediscovered the pleasure of exploring every single selectable voice in the dialogues, having conversations for the simple pleasure of doing so, deepening unsuspected personalities: memorable, in that case. sense, the chat at the first light of dawn with an old friend, passing a bottle of alcohol sitting on two graves inside the cemetery of the duchy.
The narrative of Blood and wine is all here: dialogues and characters written in an excellent way, a plot that is slowly revealed and that, once again, enjoys playing with the conception of good and evil and with the previous beliefs of the player , too used to movies, books and video games, to clearly distinguish between good and evil.
Light but effective lifting
The game structure and dynamics that led to the success of both the base game and the first expansion did not need heavy revisions to entertain, even a full year after its release, and in fact the development team preferred to focus on certain aspects, leaving most of the mechanics unchanged, from combat to exploring the splendid views of Touissant.
First of all, the update that accompanies this substantial expansion redesigns the interface and the game menus, offering a generally improved experience when navigating between submenus: the font is more readable, the organization of spaces and the quest log more orderly and on the world map it is now possible to pin dozens of tokens of various kinds to help remember places of interest and secondary missions.
Already upstream of the first two missions of Blood and wine, the player finds himself managing the two most revealing innovations, namely the renewed system of mutations and the management of Corvo Bianco, a wonderful fallen estate that you will have the opportunity to bring back to glories of the past.
As for the first, this will be unlocked upon completion of a quest called "Facing the unknown", and will allow you to access a further menu where you can manage high-level mutagens, which, spent together with the skill points obtained at leveling up , allow access to deadly new fighting techniques.
There is something for all tastes: from those suitable for the more dedicated to hand-to-hand combat, to those for those who prefer the use of signs, without neglecting even those who have tried to develop a balanced character.
Given the good level of challenge that the monsters of Touissant offer, the new abilities greatly help the player during his stay in his verdant locations.
Corvo Bianco, for its part, follows, in broad terms, what was seen with the Monteriggioni of the second, unforgettable chapter of Assassin's Creed: it is possible to modernize every aspect of the structure, add racks for weapons, a better stable for Rutilia, an alchemical laboratory , and many of the applicable improvements grant temporary buffs to our Geralt, thus making the mansion the ideal starting point before each new mission.
If we add to this a new deck of cards for the Gwent, dedicated to the Skellige, a handful of new enemies, exclusive sets of witcher armor to be found on the map, and a total of secondary missions that touch the three figures, it appears evident how, Beyond mere quality, the amount of content and to-dos exceeds that of many triple A products sold at full price by several notches.
Inspiration
Although the rather long uploads (at least in the PS4 version we tested) remain, as the only defect of the entire production, even the technical and artistic side of Blood and wine has undergone a refresh compared to the good that had already been seen in the recent past: Touissant enjoys lighting effects, surface textures and dedicated animations for the vegetation that were not present in the previous expansion or in the base game, but more of these bevels to the technical sector, it is the inspiration of the artistic one that strikes the eye.
The new region consists of lush fields of vegetation, a handful of unprecedented enemies, buildings that follow the Mediterranean style (imagine the south of France or the wineries of the Tuscan hills) but also of houses shrouded in mist, cursed cemeteries and unhealthy lake areas: the variety of settings is remarkable, and even after hundreds of hours spent in the company of the title, we never felt that unpleasant feeling of deja vu that certain downloadable contents carry with them.
In addition to an impeccable soundtrack, then, the quality / price ratio of this latest adventure by Geralt is simply unattainable: the most hasty of gamers could take "only" about ten hours to complete the main quest, but, playing the title as the development team would have predicted, you can get over thirty hours of fun from Blood and wine, which nevertheless never go through trivial quests and characters.
In practice, three times the average duration of a complete title, paid for around seventy euros: if this is not the best way to package an expansion, then we do not know what it is.
Final comment
In the gaming field, as in all other fields of life, we are convinced that perfection does not exist, but this time Cd Projekt came damn close: Blood and wine is probably the best expansion of all time, for ambition, extension of the map , number of missions available and last but not least, value for money.
Everything that was good in the base game (which was already not cheap) has been expanded and refined, from the new interface to the additions to the mutagen system, and the narrative side, which has always been the flagship of the Polish team's productions. , does not disappoint, proposing settings and characters of great depth, of which you will not want to miss even a line of dialogue.
A must for all Strigo lovers, Blood and wine is another reason to enjoy the base game too, if you haven't done so yet.
