Sound design is very good, and, while the bleak music may not be very appealing to listen to outside the game (unless you are trying to fuel your depression), it complements the game's setting perfectly.

The world created by Andrzej Sapkowski is a place where happy endings are very few and far between. Its inhabitants are usually savvy enough to understand this, and try to cope using (often dark) sense of humour and cynical attitude, only emphasised by the fact that almost nobody in the world cares about religion. This creates an interesting mix of classic fantasy and mature themes with a semi-serious approach – even if CD Projekt failed to avoid the trap of “mature equals sex, violence and profanity”.

This is a world where monsters roam the countryside, with most people helpless against them. Human dominance has forced elves and dwarves exist to live in ghettos or take up arms as guerrillas (or terrorists, depending who you ask). Mages reserve their miracle-working magic for elites, who can afford their services, while human and inhuman life is valued highly only by a select few.

Geralt is one of those people, as much as he wishes he was not. He tries to be a cold professional, but more often than not he ends up helping people, because nobody else will or can. He repeatedly tries to remain neutral in the affairs of the world and just do his job. In the novels he usually fails, in the game the player decides which path is the right one – or rather, the least wrong one.

While The Witcher is not an open-world game, each chapter puts Geralt, in a fairly large area, which he can explore, and interact with its various inhabitants. Character progression is hand-waved as Geralt regaining his skills and knowledge lost due to a near-death experience and subsequent amnesia.