Summary
It’s hard to imagine trying to get through all ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntin a timely fashion, let alone exploring all the content this game has to offer. So, it’s even more difficult to imagine that players might voluntarily choose to go through the entirety ofthis already difficult gamea second time on New Game+.
Granted,it’s a fantastic open-world title, but it’s also a massive investment of time as well. Still, NG+ inThe Witcher 3is often a pretty unique playthrough compared to a player’s first run of the game, for various reasons. So, let’s go over all the reasons why a second run of Geralt’s journey to find Ciri is arguably more fun than his first run.
Updated September 21st, 2024 by Jacob Buchalter:With The Witcher 3 now even more accessible than ever as part of PlayStation Plus, it seemed like a good time to look back on the game.The next Witcher gameas well as the next Cyberpunk game are apparently well into development at CD Projekt Red, and thankfully the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 have enough content in them for players to enjoy until their sequels come out. New Game+ is a feature that’s available in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and while NG+ doesn’t really add a lot to some games, that’s not the case with The Witcher 3. So, let’s take an in-depth look at all the reasons why players should at the very least consider a NG+ run of this game, and why.
15Re-Experiencing The Game With All Sorts Of Mods
Visual Mods, Content Mods, Or Even Costume Mods Are Now All Much Easier To Implement
When people do their first playthrough of a game or even their second, they’re typically against using mods of any sort. Mods, for the most part, are things players mess around with once they’ve experienced most of the main content a game has to offer. Thankfully, the developers at CDProjekt released an updatethat made modding even easier than before.It’s calledThe Witcher 3Redkitand it’s an actual modding tool, not just a modding platform or something similar.
After experiencing all the base content, players will often decide it’s finally time tomess around with fan-made contentthrough player-made visual mods, mechanical mods, or mods that add new content to the game altogether. And,The Witcher 3: Wild Huntactually has a lot of fantastic mods to offer such as mods that make some of the more ‘complex’ systems a bit easier, mods thatadd new skills for Geralt to invest in, and much more. So, NG+ is the perfect place to start messing around with these.
14Having All Your Tools Right There From The Start
Potions, Concoctions, Bombs, Signs, & More Available Right Away
When a player first starts out inThe Witcher 3, they don’t have a lot to their name, outside of Geralt’s iconic Steel and Silver swords. But,as they progress through the game, they’ll acquire various formulae and recipes that allow them to craft all sorts of bombs, projectiles, potions,and decoctions. And, it’s the ability to stack potions, bombs, sword combat, decoctions, and more all on top of each other that really separates their build from all the other players.
But, in New Game+, Geralt starts out with a lot of the tools that took him so long to collect originally in the first playthrough. So, even from White Orchard, the tutorial area, he can use bombs in combat, even the playing field with potions, or rely on his Signs more. Being able to mess around with all this from the start completely changes the way players will handle the early game ofThe Witcher 3, which plays a part in why a NG+ playthrough feels so different.
13You’re A Lot Stronger By Default The Second Time Around
Which Makes It Easier To Clean Up That 100 Percent Steam Achievements Trophy
There’s already a mind-boggling number of different things to do at any moment inThe Witcher 3, and including unlocking all the Steam/Console achievements in that list of options only makes that number even more unbelievable. Some of these achievements can take some real time and heavy investment to unlock, such as the Master Marksman, Humpty Dumpty, or Overkill achievement.
12Being Able To Wear The Best-Looking Gear Right Away
Skips the Short Period of Time Where Geralt Only Has Access to Dorky-Looking Armor Sets
Early on inThe Witcher 3’scampaign, Geralt doesn’t have much good-looking armor to choose from, at least by the standard definition of ‘good-looking’. Most of the armor he’s able to wear early on is more for high-society parties than they are for fighting monsters. And, it isn’t until Geralt finds/crafts his first Witcher School armor set that the White Wolf can actually wear something not covered in frills.
But, in NG+, players get to bring all their armor with them (even the ones in their stash), and while it will quickly become obsolete after the first ten or so levels, at least they won’t be fighting knee-deep in swamp water dressed head to toe in frills and ruffled cloth.
11Roach Will Carry Over Into NG+
You Can Ride a Fully-Geared Roach From the Start
This is an aspect of the gear transferring over that people don’t really think about much, but yes, all of the saddles, blinders, and saddlebags that Geralt unlocked/earnedfor his mount, Roach, over the course of his adventures will come with him into NG+.
This means that Roach will be able to run for longer, won’t get scared as easily,and can carry a lot more of Geralt’s excess items. Having all this available from the beginning of the game makes it so much more fun to go around exploring the map and hoarding items, whereas it can be a bit tedious to deal with Roach’s stamina and fear meter early on in the first playthrough.
10Exploring Different Important Choices
The Alternate Decisions & The Entirely New Paths They Create
There is a lot of variability inThe Witcher 3in terms of the choices the player can make,even in the smaller side quests. Almost every single quest in the game has some point where Geralt will have the ability to choose between multiple options or at the very least multiple dialog trees. And, unlike other games where “difficult decisions” only give the illusion of actually having consequences/benefits, choices inTW3can lead to completely different results as well as rewards.
Also, because a lot of the benefits/consequences from choices players make don’t actually take effect until later on, it’s pretty difficult to use to ‘save-scumming’ method to see all the alternate paths for a decision in one run. This is where NG+ comes in, as players can spend their second run trying out all the other decisions they avoided the first time around.
9Going For A Whole New Build
More Time to Get Used to a New Style of Combat
On the surface, the builds inThe Witcher 3may look like they don’t have much variability. But, once the player puts some time into mastering the combat and mechanics of the game such as the Signs, Skill system, and Alchemy system, they’ll quickly realize there are actually a lot of different ways to build Geralt. In particular, Decoctions and Combat Skills and how they’re combined can vastly change how a player approaches combat encounters.
Starting over in NG+ means that a player can spend the tutorial and early game getting used to an entirely new build, and then once more systems become available to them (again) such as Runes, they can add even more layers to their new builds.
8Switching Up Your Gwent Loyalty
Trying Out a Different Deck or Faction
Gwent is such a fun card game. When it was first ‘tutorialized’ early on inTW3, a lot of players fell off of it or disregarded it as some small mini-game. But, by their second or third game of Gwent, they became hooked. That said, players need to gather a lot of different cards from all over the map bycompleting a lot of different questsin order to build a truly powerful Gwent deck.
And, since the ability to gain new cards was a bit more spread out than one might expect, most players adapted to this by just picking one of the four ‘types’ of Decks and sticking to it all the way through their first playthrough. Well, since Gwent cards are one of the few things that actually don’t come with Geralt into NG+, players can use this opportunity to try out a Monster Deck or Nilfgaardian Deck instead and stick with that for their entire second playthrough.
7The Freedom To Switch Your Build Whenever You Want
Adapt to Any Situation On-The-Fly
Oddly enough, one of the things players would expect not to transfer over to NG+ actually does, asGeralt brings all his Skill Points with himinto a second playthrough. That means that every Skill Geralt had unlocked and equipped when they finished the campaign is still there and ready to go in NG+.
The game also gives Geralt a Potion of Clearance to reset everything when he starts his second run, but depending on Geralt’s level, it might just be easier to switch which Skills are ‘equipped’ on the fly. After a certain point in NG+, most players will have so many excess Skill Points that they can just unlock everything anyway. After that point, it’s more beneficial to actually just re-adjust their build based on their current predicament. It’s a lot of menu management to be sure, but there are a lot of people out there who enjoy the min-maxing aspect of every combat encounter.
6100 Percent Exploration
See Both Maps in Their Entirety
There’s been a real emphasis on ‘bigger map, better game’ in the industry for a long time now. But, a lot of these games tend to have so much open space, with very little to do in it, just look at the reviews for games such asForspokenorAtlas Fallen.
Luckily, that isn’t the case inThe Witcher 3. It feels like Geralt is stumbling across some new enemy encampment or random encounter every 50 feet, which is why most people recommend notrelying too heavily on the Fast Travel systemin the game. Frankly, it can be pretty overwhelming to players unfamiliar with these types of games, especially since it’s not just one gigantic map, but two. Thankfully, as long as players know ahead of time that NG+ exists, they can worry about exploring every corner of both maps in their NG+ run instead of burning out before even finishing the story first.
