The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Hearts of Stone

I am shocked by how good this expansion is, after the mediocre main story of The Witcher 3. I would say that this is the first time that the Witcher games match the quality of the short stories by Sapkowski, which is honestly quite a high bar. Immediately, the dialogue has a more literary style than that of the base game, and the story is more thematically resonant. It's also much more concise, really giving you the good stuff quickly. Each mission encompasses a different mood and shows you a different side to the main characters of the story, and it's a real joy to experience. I could talk more specifically about the successes of individual moments, and how they coalesce into a greater whole, but this would probably be tantamount to spoiling the story. The gameplay remains the weakest link, but CDPR are clearly trying their best with what they have. These missions do not ask you to run across the open world, investigating tracks with Geralt Vision and fighting trash mobs. You instead get many more inventive boss fights than the base game, with little to no fluff. This expansion is probably the first time I actually had some fun *playing* a Witcher game, as opposed to simply watching/reading the dialogue, which is quite an achievement for this series. Overall, my abilities as a critic fail me once more, as I have much more trouble writing about why I like something than why I dislike it. All I can say is that this expansion is a massive step up from the base game and is the sort of thing that could have elevated The Witcher 3 into GoAT territory if it was extended into a full game. Here's hoping that Blood and Wine, being a much lengthier excursion, can maintain this level of quality without getting bogged down in the base game's open-world, gameplay-centric design.

Phenomenal DLC. The extra content is tight but of high quality, the saga between Olgierd and O'Dimm is one of the best written arcs in The Witcher series and tops almost any other game's DLC stories. I recommend to play and finish Hearts of Stone before the final Arc of the Wild Hunt as it provides hidden dialogue and clues on how to achieve the best ending of the base game.

Hearts of Stone. Truly up there as one of the best expansions ever. Others struggle to put into words why this is amazing due to the superb nature of this DLC, so I'll attempt to nail down what makes this one of the best. Having gone into this expansion beating the game to the fullest extent that I could, I was ready to jump into more Witcher action. Now it is key to note that CD Projekt Red is known for creating side-quests of such quality, that they rival the main quests of other games. So whether this expansion felt like a side-quest or not didn't matter much to me, as I knew I was in for a treat either way. But when I tell you that I never expected it to hit as incredibly as it did, I meant it. Sure, it isn't the longest stretch of content ever, but I'm convinced that this could of been it's own game. It would have sold many copies mind you. The intriguing story of meeting Oglierd von Everec to query about a sewer contract that turned into so much more. Meeting Shani made me feel at ease, as I realised that I wouldn't be trekking through this story alone. The challenging boss fight with the Frog Prince, the slaughter of the Fallen Knights, the battle with the Caretaker, the tactical bout with Iris' Greatest Fear. All of it gripped me, forcing me to play more. The reappearance of Gaunter O'Dimm sealed together the fact that CDPR knew what they were doing. This expansion only took me about 7 hours to complete, but it left a mark that even some games fail to leave. I've never felt so happy knowing that I still had Blood and Wine to play, as I knew that I was in good hands. The Hearts of Stone Expansion Pack for The Witcher 3 truly deserves it's Overwhelmingly Positive Steam stats. A 10/10 without second thought.