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[Mini-Review] The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone, a stellar "short" DLC narrative in The Witcher universe
preview#Hearts of Stone (Spoilers below)
Hearts of Stone is DLC to The Witcher 3, offering a focused narrative that takes place in Velen, and features 3 new main characters: Olgierd Van Everec, Gaunter O'Dimm, and Shani. The narrative focuses on the immortal Olgierd, and his binding contract with the mysterious and powerfully magical O'Dimm, which Geralt finds himself in the middle of. During the journey we meet an old flame of Geralt's, Shani, who assists Geralt in a variety of ways.
The narrative is, quite frankly, brutal. It involves several "impossible" tasks that lead to heartbreaking moments, and ending with a difficult decision that Geralt must make. Specifically, the sequence of events with Olgierd’s wife Iris hit me hard, and I couldn’t help but think about it for a few hours afterwards. It’s a fantastic story that only felt like a chore during the moments involving Vlodimir. The moments involving Vlodimir and Shani were especially difficult to get through, they made me uncomfortable and I was looking forward to the sequence ending.
On the topic of Shani, her introduction feels unnatural and forced. If I hadn’t learned, after-the-fact, that she was in the books and previous games, then I would have assumed that she was created solely to have an attractive woman in the DLC. Geralt and Shani discuss their past, but it felt as if the game was trying to convince me that they had history rather than them having a natural conversation. I genuinely like her as a character though, her demeanor is pleasant and I feel like she would be a really fun character for future quests involving injuries or solving mysteries based on illness.
Lastly, the DLC introduces new weapon and armor enhancements called runewords, which is basically enchanting, except glyphs need to be removed before the runeword can be applied. Unlocking upgrades is expensive, and so are runewords in general. It feels out of place for a short narrative focused DLC, perhaps it fits better in the context of when it was released as a way for hardcore Witcher 3 players to spend money and use glyphs that may have been stockpiled.
There is minimal fluff to get sidetracked by, and I highly encourage fans of Wild Hunt to play if they want more of The Witcher.