The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

Author: Carlos G. Gurpegui

Date: 2020-03-02 23:59:00

About a year ago (May 19 was the full year) since The Witcher 3 arrived on our consoles and computers. The titanic work of CD Projekt RED was backed by a second installment very dear and a first attempt at a fairly dignified approach. The fame of Andrzej Sapkowski's novels, the European GRR Martin (because of his physical resemblance more than anything else), have only grown in our country since the second installment of the CD Projekt franchise saw the light. The fame of video games seems to have eaten ground to the author's work. You may see that his work as a writer has been displaced because of the magnificent adaptation that the Tomaszkiewicz team has made but the truth is that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has brought its saga of books closer to the general public. However, the sagas end and Sapkowski himself has given Geralt a well-deserved vacation and next May 31 it is time to let Geralt rest on our consoles but not before embarking on a final adventure. After Hearts of Stone comes Blood & Wine to close the saga and find readers and players.

The saga of books of the Warlock (Geralt for friends or The Butcher of Blaviken for the not so friends) extends for seven books (eight if we include in them Storm Station translated into Spanish in 2015). Along its way Geralt has traveled numerous countries: Redania, Nilfgaard, Temeria, Skellige ... However, there is a country, a small region very dear to readers who had not appeared so far in video games. The small county of Toussaint is the scenario of Blood & Wine and we can visit one of the most remembered scenes of the novels during the approximately 30 hours of play that this third expansion offers us.

Toussaint County is a very peculiar small country within the universe created by Sapkwoski . Toussaint is a region ruled by Countess Anna Henrietta that is located near the Nilfgaardian Empire but has managed to stay out of war. Toussaint is a county without its own army and governed by traditions and commerce as immovable laws. Wine is the blood of the region and wandering knights are its protectors. Toussaint was during the novels a small haven of peace for the peculiar company of Geralt. However, Geralt's return to the land of love and wine will not be as peaceful as the last time.

Anna Henrietta herself signs a strange exclusive contract for the sorcerer Geralt. A strange beast seems to terrorize its citizens , several corpses have appeared dismembered by Toussaint and the wandering knights do not seem to find the beast. We, in the skin of the monster hunter ash, move to the new Toussaint region to clarify the murders. This is the initial premise for Blood & Wine.

The first thing we have to say about Blood & Wine is the new artistic summit reached by the CD Projekt RED team . Toussaint County is a small rare bird in the Geralt universe of Rivia. While Novigrado is devastated by the war we find in Toussaint a region that has remained apart from the military conflicts that have ravaged the world for years. Life has remained permanently in a strange impasse where tradition and wine are the only truly important things. The scenarios surrounding Beauclair, the county's capital, seem to have been extracted from the French countryside : extensive green fields, olive trees and vineyards cover the hills as far as the eye can see, the people of Toussaint seem to live in a constant small party and Appearances are the norm. The artistic work differs greatly from what was shown in the previous installments and presents us with a very vivid, colorful and even happy world despite what is happening around it. However, appearances can be deceiving and if we walk quietly through the villages surrounding Beauclair we find that the colorful houses of the countryside that seem so cheerful to us from a distance lose their tone and we find them chipped as we approach. People, as happy as they seem, walk in fear of an invasion, fear of the terrible beast or plunged into a strange permanent ethyl state. T oussaint is a great fanfare that tries to hide the serious problems that we will encounter during our journey .

The team of scriptwriters of CD Projekt has surpassed the time to transfer the peculiarities of Toussaint to the game. The small region is a quixotic state where the rules of cavalry govern even the absurdity of the day-to-day life of its inhabitants. Exaggerated rules of cavalry and with so much show that they glimpse the falsehood of the knights themselves, more concerned about appearances and being more virtuous than others than anything else. To show a button: the first kinematics as soon as they reach Toussaint shows us a knight carrying a sword in hand against a terrible enemy who is not shown to us because he is hiding behind a mill, then the mill is destroyed and we see a giant that knocks down the unfortunate gentleman. Toussaint is the land of cavalry, the representation of the collective subconscious of what the fairytale lands would be like and it is a joy to walk among its vineyards.