Today we had the privilege to talk to Pater Jakob, the current world best The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt speedrunner. Check out the interview below and feel free to leave some questions for him in the comments, maybe we will do another interview in the future.
NOTE: Keep in mind that there might be some parts that spoil some of the games story so enjoy on your own risk.
GLPC: How did you discover The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and when did you start playing?
Pater Jakob: There definitely was not a moment that could be distinguished as THE moment I decided to try out the game. It was more like a constant confrontation with it over Youtube and over social medias, mentioned in context of “great games” or “games of the decade” etc. I don’t actually know exactly when I first bought the game, but it probably was sometime in 2019. That said I could not really get into the it on my first and even second attempted play-throughs, which only lasted about 5 hours. It was almost 5 years after the games release, at the start of the pandemic, when I got really hooked. On my third time trying I got completely addicted, played through it doing almost everything, completing all the achievements and yet I still could not get enough.
GLPC: Was that the moment you decided to speedrunt the game or did you discover the possibility somewhere else? Do you remember what or who got you into speedrunning witcher 3?
Pater Jakob: I still remember the first time I got in contact with Witcher 3 Speedruns. I was already familiar with the concept of Speedrunning and following other popular games I played like Zelda: Breath of the Wild. So one evening I was curious if someone had done a 100% run of this game, and to my complete surprise there actually was one, done very recently by a runner called Aliatus_Aquilan. I was so impressed by that 19 hour run that I followed him on Twitch and checked out the leaderboards on the Website of speedrun.com. There I found other active runners who were streaming, like Trig, who’s run of the Blood and Wine DLC inspired me to do a run of my own.
GLPC: Whats your favourite questline in the game? What moment or place do you enjoy a lot?
Pater Jakob: My favourite questline must be the ending of the Hearts of Stone Main Quest, the last 2 quests to be more precise. They are dark, sad and scary at the same time. They mix being relatable and the fantastical elements of the world perfectly, all the while using the gameplay in a super unique way for the story telling.
My favorite moment is 100% killing Imlerith, the sheer brutality and satisfaction you get from avenging Vesemir immediately is just unmatched. It has a perfect build-up in the form of the Bald Mountain too. An honorable mention would definitely be the empress-ending, specifically the final moments you spend with Ciri in the snowy white Orchard.
The best place in the game for me is the Fairytale-World in the Blood and Wine DLC. I’ve always loved fairytales as a child, so seeing an entire area filled to the brink with easter eggs and references to them, all while being visually gorgeous and having a great quest with unique enemies, is just perfect.
GLPC: How are you motivated to keep playing the same game over and over again?
Pater Jakob: As I said before, I really can’t get enough of this game. And speedrunning is a way of playing it that is very different from the casual experience. It is not like the most speedgames out there, consisting of lots of cutscenes and not containing any crazy glitches or sequence breaks. I think my main motivation for comes from my love for this game and my obsession with optimizing every small movement and fighting sequence.
For not losing this motivation I think there are 2 key reasons. Firstly, Witcher 3 is just a great game, which has so much content you can just spend a lot of time without repetitiveness, in case of a 100% run. And secondly, taking longer breaks. When you speedrun for a World Record you need to grind, you need to play a lot to gain muscle memory and learn the perfect movements down to the smallest details. Obviously you can’t do that forever without getting burned out, so longer, even months long breaks after achieving your goal are necessary.
GLPC: How do you physically and mentally prepare for an multiple hours long speedrun, I imagine it can be quite hard to maintain focus.
Pater Jakob: Really depends on the run. For the any% classic runs, which are about 3 hours you don’t need much prep at all, I usually start sessions in the evening, after dinner. You just need to keep the time in mind, so that you don’t finish a run at 1am on workdays. For Blood and Wine 100% runs, which are roughly 4 hours, just keep enough water near you, and maybe plan an afternoon around it. You can obviously do it in the evening too, if you get started early enough. The full 100% run is where it gets really interesting. For a 20 hour run, you need to plan a whole day just for that, and you need to start early in the morning to keep your sleep schedule at least somewhat alive. I also searched for natural breaks during the run where you can go to the toilet, get food, etc. I also prepared lots of food to eat and water to drink, obviously. Luckily I did not have many issues getting mentally ready for the run, maybe you are a bit nervous at the start, but once the first major hurdles are gone it gets easy to keep going. It’s very important to have good practise and knowledge of the route, so you don’t get lost in the middle of the run or lose motivation after something does not work out. I also think, although I am not a psychologist or something, that you need to have some sort of aptitude to be able to play, keep calm and concentrate to do the most optimal decisions for such a long period of time.
To be honest the game is pretty generous when it comes to keeping you concentrated, it gives you a lot of breaks. Gwent for example takes up a good deal of the run and does not require you full attention. Then there is sailing, which if you tried to get all the Points of Interest you know what I am talking about, that takes a chunk of time too, and, with the calming music of Skellige, is pretty relaxing. Outside of 100% I don’t do oversized sessions, if I don’t get a run going in a reasonable amount of time I take a break or continue the next day. That helps with not getting frustrated, there is no point playing if you are.
GLPC: What do you think about Gwent, the card game integrated in the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?
Pater Jakob: Gwent is great casually, and I loved it during my first playthrough. But in my opinion it gets pretty boring and repetitive after that. Once you saw every card, the simplicity of the AI really shows, even on the hardest difficulty it is very easy to manipulate. The card dynamics and interactions also get repetitive. When speedrunning its especially blunt. It has very little possibility in terms of strategies to go fast, and is purely RNG (luck-based). You can’t influence the hand of your opponent obviously, which makes runs that contain gwent extremely dependent on luck. Even if you win you can lose upwards of 30 seconds just from bad luck and the AI stalling the game. Add all the general problems on top and it gets pretty bad. In the 100% run though it can be quite a welcome break, it is easy to play with just your mouse hand and you can take the time to eat and drink.
GLPC: How has speedrunning the witcher 3 impacted your overall experience and enjoyment of the game?
Pater Jakob: When I first started speedrunning I thought that I could never enjoy the game casually again, I just could not enjoy sitting back and playing the “intended way”, or watching all the cutscenes, going for less optimal builds, etc. But that feeling went away once I started with the 100% run. Completing everything in the game as fast as possible makes you appreciate the game way more than doing just the main story. I studied it so intensely, like never before during my casual playthrough, really learning everything there is about the game and learning the most optimal routes and obscure little quests. I think that made me fall in love all over again, nowadays I can definitely enjoy both ways of playing the game.
GLPC: With all that playtime under your belt what is your favourite questline in the game? What moment or place do you enjoy a lot?
Pater Jakob: My favourite questline must be the ending of the Hearts of Stone Main Quest, the last 2 quests to be more precise. They are dark, sad and scary at the same time. They mix being relatable and the fantastical elements of the world perfectly, all the while using the gameplay in a super unique way for the story telling.
My favorite moment is 100% killing Imlerith, the sheer brutality and satisfaction you get from avenging Vesemir immediately is just unmatched. It has a perfect build-up in the form of the Bald Mountain too. An honorable mention would definitely be the empress-ending, specifically the final moments you spend with Ciri in the snowy white Orchard.
The best place in the game for me is the Fairytale-World in the Blood and Wine DLC. I’ve always loved fairytales as a child, so seeing an entire area filled to the brink with easter eggs and references to them, all while being visually gorgeous and having a great quest with unique enemies, is just perfect.
GLPC: Did you ever think about speedrunning other games than Witcher 3 or did you already tried some?
Pater Jakob: One obvious future goal would be to do a 100% run including the DLC’s in under 24h, that would be a huge milestone. Another thing would be an anthology run of Witcher 1, 2 and 3 in one go. Other games I tried out running were Witcher 1 and Far Cry 5, but I stuck with Witcher 3 as my main game. I definitely want to speedrun every witcher game at some point.
GLPC: Do you have any tips for our readers that want to get start speedrunning Witcher 3?
Pater Jakob: If you feel like speedrunning would be fun for you, make sure to join our discord community. There you will find resources that make your life easier and lots of people willing to help you, if you have any problems.
On the In-Game side of things, starting out running is actually very easy, and a lot of fun. Just expect the occasional bug, glitch or CDPR-jank (CD Projekt Red) that can happen in their games. This is usually pretty entertaining though.
And obviously don’t be disheartened if your first attempts are much slower than the top runs, improving in this game comes a lot from skill in movement and combat, and that takes time to master. It sure as heck is a fun journey though!
Thanks for reading to the end! If you have more questions for Pater Jakob leave them in the comments and we’ll maybe ask him for another interview.
