The Guardian

Playing a video game gave me a kind of catharsis I didn’t know I needed | Cian Maher

The Witcher 3 is teeming with madcap magic, beasts and an unlikely hero who shines bright among other protagonists
‘Geralt’s growth became mine, and the highs and lows of The Witcher 3 were peaks and valleys in a visceral rollercoaster of raw emotion’ Photograph: PR

Whether they be written in the annals, painted on canvas, or coded into virtual space, fantasy worlds are captivating. It’s as if these stories wield a macrocosmic mirror, consistently challenging us with distorted versions of our own world. Although this distortion is initially confronting, it soon makes it easier to gravitate towards what’s at the core of these realms, and what that means in relation to our own.

I first played The Witcher 3 about a year

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