Ahead of its May 19 release, excitement for CD Projekt Red’s “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” continues to build to a fever pitch. In a show of confidence, the very first reviews have already begun to hit and the developer has announced that the game has now exceeded 1M preorders worldwide.

Gamers have waited a long while for the release of “The Witcher 3,” so many will be pleased to hear that the first reviews are very positive indeed. The game has drawn praise for its huge open world, excellent treatment of choice and consequence, fun combat and deep RPG systems.

GameSpot awarded the title a rare perfect 10/10, citing the game as an essential addition to every gamer’s library. The publication praised the gorgeous open world, absorbing story, incredible details, armour design and impressive variety of content. IGN rated “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” a 9.3 out of 10, speaking positively about the titles meticulously detailed world, characters and excellent combat.

Indeed, reviews thus far have been almost unanimously positive, with the only slight knocks against the game being a somewhat lacklustre main story and some minor technical issues, bugs and unoptimised framerate on console. A selection of score across various websites includes the following:

Game Informer - 9.75/10

Kotaku - Yes

Destructoid - 8/10

Game Reactor UK - 9/10

News of the preorder milestone comes via the official Twitter account for “The Witcher.” The news was also shared by CD Projekt Red Co-Founder, Marcin Iwiński on the game’s official website, who heartily thanked fans for their support and patronage. Iwiński added that the team has been able to optimise the game further on all platforms, and has begun work on the paid DLC expansions that add even more content to the already massive game.

“We would like to thank all the gamers for their trust and support. This is the last stretch and we’re pushing hard — over the last two weeks, we’ve increased performance on all platforms and started working full speed on the expansions, ‘Hearts of Stone’ & ‘Blood and Wine,’” he said.

The “Hearts of Stone” and “Blood and Wine” paid expansion packs were announced as as 10-30 hour post-launch downloadable content for the game. This content comes in addition to the 16 pieces of free DLC packs promised by the game’s developers.

(Credit: YouTube/Bethesda Softworks)

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