The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

Blood and Wine is the second and last commercial story downloadable content for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt which follows the Hearts of Stone and advises players to have Geralt be around level 35-40 before undertaking the new adventure. While the mission starts near Novigrad and Oxenfurt, it soon moves to a whole new place on the world map, the southern region of Toussaint, a complete new realm, untouched by war, modelled after the wine regions of southern France.

In this new region, the primary quest is focused on catching an unknown beast that is plaguing the area and killing noble knights. Nobody knows exactly what the beast looks like or even what type of a beast it is, just that it's swift, deadly, and very powerful. Still adhering to the main game, Geralt can complete the main quest or venture on the optional various side quests. While the base game had side quests and missions marked with yellow exclamation mark, Hearts of Stone used blue color, and this add-on uses red exclamation mark to mark its own unique quests and items.

This DLC introduces great many new characters, as well as some that Geralt has crossed paths with in his earlier adventures, both in predecessor games, such as Lady of the Lake, as well as those outside the scope of Witcher games released thus far. That said, there are plenty of new monsters and beastiary as well. Some being more deadly variations of existing ones, the other being completely new and local to the region of Toussaint. As this region will require higher character level and tougher weapons and armor, there are many new swords, crossbows and protective armor available, even the next level of long lost witcher gear diagrams which allows manufacturing of some of the most powerful equipment so far. The new thing introduced in this DLC are dye colors which allow Geralt to give certain color to his armor, however, it only works on witcher gear, not on any other armor.

Many of the quests and missions are rather original in content and type to what was shown in the base game thus far, and while it may be expected for an add-on to add more of the same in a different manner, there are great many original contents in this region, from vineyards and mediterranean building types to folks' outfits and actions, plethora of new inventory items, flora and fauna, monsters, characters, and even new soundtrack, instrumental and vocal, tailored to fit the new setting.

Very soon in this sub-story Geralt will be given a plot of land with a house and vineyard as a form of payment for the task he is undertaking, following by an optional quest of renovating his house, the barn and the lands around it. By renovating and building new things, Geralt will be able to peruse them for temporary skill boost. Sleeping in his own bed may give him boost in vitality or his horse ability to carry more things for a given time. Renovating the vineyard and gardens will give him access to various herbs for brewing potions. And buying weapon racks and such will let him put his swords and armor in the lobby for display.

This add-on also provides further upgrades for the character skill tree. Although presented as a secondary quest, Geralt will be able to inspect a laboratory of a scientist who tried to suppress Witcher mutations only to find out he instead increased their strength. Undergoing the same process will give Geralt access to additional skill tree which will act as a an enhancement on top of existing one.