Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock these last few weeks and months it has become quite clear that next week there will be a tremendous battle for gamers time with a couple of big releases hitting shelves or digital stores. Namely The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt (Bandai Namco Games) and Destiny House of Wolves DLC (Activision). Cleverly, Bandai Namco Games released its eagerly anticipated racing game Project CARS last week to much critical acclaim so it deftly avoided any competition during its launch, thus leaving the two games to go head to head on May 19th uninterrupted.
It’s obvious both action fuelled games cater to very different audiences yet at the same time share a similar open world role playing element. On one hand The Witcher 3 opts for mysticism, magic and traditional fantasy lore whereas House of Wolves goes for the science fiction route with big guns and an even greater attitude.
It’s perhaps easy to dismiss House of Wolves in comparison to the all new Witcher game, but looking at the reality there are still masses of players diving into Destiny’s charms every second of the day or night and have been since it launched last year. Whilst exact details for more recent times are sketchy, there are simply a potential pool of millions of players. Having been a while since the last DLC The Dark Below was unleashed, House of Wolves comes as a breath of fresh air, and when you consider the numbers who may have purchased a season pass, or are looking to dive in at the relatively low price (in comparison to buying a new game at least) it’s easy to see why it’s such an attractive prospect. There’s also the consideration that Destiny is available across last gen systems such as the PS3 and Xbox 360 which are excluded from The Witcher 3 release.
On the other hand though, it’s been a long four years since the original PC game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings released (on May 17th 2011 to be exact) and not only are PC gamers hungry for something new here but legions of fans from the Xbox 360 re-release who might have upgraded to an Xbox One or PS4 are also out for new blood. Let’s face it, in terms of this open style of game there’s nothing quite like it that appears on both consoles in the absence of a Skyrim re-master. Anyone keen on finding their feet with such a game without playing the first two entries will no doubt be pleasantly surprised given the recent spate of positive reviews and considering playing past glories isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying this third outing. Remember, the game has also been delayed for extra polishing which should translate to a better experience for all, including the many newcomers into the fold given the series history of fairly difficult gameplay.
While both games clearly sit well within their respective genres – that’s western RPG for The Witcher 3 and MMOG for House of Wolves – there’s obviously going to be an element of both experiences taking up the precious time of gamers bearing in mind not everyone likes the third person actions of an open world RPG or the constant shooting up of enemies in a first person shooter. It’s inevitable that many won’t rush out on day one to buy either game, or will simply play both within time, but those that are poised and ready will surely be well versed in what they are jumping into. Either way, regardless of what game is played first, the question asked is, which one is it going to be. The Witcher 3 or Destiny House of Wolves? An especially hard choice if you’re a fan of both games.
