If the names don’t ring a bell, you didn’t play the two prior Witcher games (or read the half-dozen Polish novels on which they’re based), and that’s fine. She’s the closest thing Geralt has to a daughter (despite our hero’s raging libido, witchers are infertile), and she’s being hunted by a group of deadly, otherworldly knights. You once again play as the titular witcher, Geralt of Rivia, a white-haired monster-hunter tasked to track not a beast but his powerful protégé, Ciri. The Witcher 3 is one of the best role-playing games in years. A massive, open-world game with a great story? Believe it.

What makes The Witcher 3 most remarkable, however, isn’t its potential to derail your marriage it’s how the game manages to be both intimate and vast at the same time. It requires time, patience, and more than a few reminders to your spouse that when she said she would love you unconditionally, it was letting you play The Witcher 3 every night until the crack of dawn for a month that you had in mind. It’s The Lord of the Rings by way of A Game of Thrones, an immense, mature, character-driven fantasy that balances its ridiculously long script with plenty of sword-swinging, spell-flinging action. The problem with trying to review The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is that it requires you to stop playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt long enough to write a review.

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