One of the most interesting things about The Witcher 3 is how it subverts so many common genre and video game tropes, "bad guys" have motivations and there goals make sense, monsters might not all be so evil or have to be dealt with through combat, you aren't an all powerful hero righting all the wrongs of the world and making easy black and white (or in some cases nice guy/violent unhinged consequences be damned guy) decisions. You have moments where you can just enjoy the world or interacting with characters in normal or amusing events like getting drunk to lure out a vampire, going on a romantic dinner date with a sorceress, putting on plays, having a snowball fight, a hilarious drinking scene with other Witchers, navigating a maze of smelly cheese, painting soldier company emblems with a singing troll, etc. You get to spend time with almost every one of Geralts friends just engaging in amusing distractions rather than having a focus on combat or progressing the story. Moments like these not only makes the world feel like a more fleshed out alive place and allow us to get to know the characters that inhabit it, but it makes your character who is barely even supposed to have emotions feel so much more relatable and emotive than the terrible power fantasy, nearly invincible, one liner spouting heroes that video games (and often fantasy in general) usually give us. Character facial expressions and subtle movements do an excellent job of adding emotion to the excellent performances given by the voice actors, this is especially true for Geralt and Yennefer.
The most obvious thing that it manages to do so much better than other open world games, outside of characterization, is to have almost (chasing down trails in Witcher vision can get old) nothing but quality and interesting content in a game that will end up taking so much longer to finish than something like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, or Dragon Age which go out of their way to throw busywork and time wasting events at you so they can pretend to have a long and detailed game. Many quests can even branch based on your decisions or when you do them leading to very different scenes, events, objectives, and possibly allowing you to see the effect your choices had later on. Many larger games tend to have one interesting and different quest, Dragon Age 3 for example has you trying to prevent an assassination while mingling with party guests, The Witcher 3 has more interesting quests like that then most other games like it combined. Conversation options are handled much better than other games, in many scenes a certain choice can lead to a very different conversation happening, possibly even with additional choices, it could be humorous or more informative but it tends to be much more memorable than other games where it almost always leads back to the same dialogue path. Many of the game's scenes have excellent small touches that add a lot to the world and character such as guard stopping to look through a window as a bard performs, a doppler turning into Ciri and seeing Geralt's reaction of seeing her as an adult, Geralt eating an apple during an autopsy, etc.
In addition to the main quests, which there are many of, you can find a variety of monster contracts, treasure hunts that will get you unique recipes for witcher gear you can then craft, and smaller but often entertaining side missions. The treasure hunts aren't usually very exciting, often taking you to places you will already go for other quest and just requiring you to pick up an item, these can also be annoying as you can't track multiple objectives and might have to go back to an old area if you missed it, but some of them will take you to different areas or places where puzzles need to be solved or where extra game lore can be found. The map is also full of bandit camps, guarded treasures, monster lairs, underwater chests, prisoners to save, places of power, and areas that you kill enemies at so people and merchants can move back in. Unfortunately, many of these "treasure quests" that don't involve Witcher recipes end up being some weak or common equipment that you will likely have little use for. Completing the main story, all monster contracts, all side quests, Witcher gear treasure hunts, and traveling to many of the areas on the map (I didn't go to every monster lair or hidden/guarded treasure location) on the hard difficulty took about 90 hours, this is without adding in the time I will spend with the game's two expansions.
The game's economy is handled better than other open world games, money is more scarce and merchants won't pay that much for equipment you are selling. You will really want to haggle for your contracts because the cost to repair your gear will likely take most of the reward away in the early game and while you might start to amass a large amount of money you will likely spend it all once you are able to craft and upgrade your Witcher gear. As you continue to play the game money will be much less of a concern but just being something to worry about at all is a big step for the genre, even more so when the early game of the Witcher 3 might take over 30 hours of playtime.
Voice lines are frequently repeated by people, which is often fine, but it can be odd when you go back to a location to see that some things have changed and some characters have new dialogue but the unnamed NPCs are still complaining about a monster you killed for them last time you were there as if it has been alive a week later. Also hurting some of the world immersion is that you can just go around looting everything unless guards see you, which frequently leads to strange events like you walking into a poor or abandoned peasant's home and taking a lot of rare materials that they have no reason to have, things like bars of silver, crafting recipes, books, expensive alcohol, or stealing all of their food without them caring or saying anything. What makes this even stranger is that the owners don't care but random, extremely overpowered, guards will attack you if they see you stealing. If they catch you they will likely bring down all of your health in one hit but instead of killing you you will wake up with half of your money gone, nothing about this makes sense for the game and feels like an afterthought that it was left in.
Combat is typically enjoyable, with a lot of different ways to build your character when it comes to the use of your weapons, magic, potions, oils, and bombs. You can even fight while riding a horse or fight enemies who ride them, which is a feature that a lot of games don't have even though they also include horses. There are problems though, hit detection doesn't always work well, spells are easily abused (mostly your shield and the ability to confuse enemies and make them fight for you), there are problems with the AI, and detection range has a lot of issues. The controls aren't always as responsive as they should be, with Geralt not using his spells or rolling when he should, replacing the ability to jump with the ability to roll during combat can also be awkward when you are fighting in an area where you should be able to jump over or climb something. The game's poor detection range for enemies can cause problems where you move slightly out of an area in a normal fight while dodging only to move out of the enemies set area causing them to all run back to where they started and go back to what they were doing, it might also cause some enemies to attack you while others don't, sometimes Geralt won't go into his combat mode until enemies are almost already hitting him, and sometimes Geralt will just end his combat mode while in a fight. While you are in combat locking on doesn't always work well if you make use of the feature and the camera can make odd movements, I ended up just never using the lock on feature. The game is also fond of starting fights with you already getting hit or enemies in mid swing as soon as cutscenes end. A crossbow was added to the game, which is a very poor weapon, to make it useful you would need to fill many of your ability slots with crossbow buffs, and even then aiming it is very difficult both because it requires you to hold down the middle mouse button by default and because the reticle constantly jerks around making accurate shooting extremely difficult. The crossbow is really just to instant kill enemies that are underwater when you are swimming, to knock flying enemies out of the sky by tapping the button for a quick shot, or shooting enemies off your boat while piloting it, it is useful in those situations but it kind of makes it seem like an afterthought inclusion. Mounted combat can be fun but the games poor control, Geralts odd tendency to aim his sword on the wrong side of the horse, inability to use spells, and Geralt randomly swinging his sword while you are holding down the button to wait make it an impractical choice. CD Projekt struggles so much with control that even the menu you can open in combat to switch between spells and items is so unwieldy that it makes selecting what you want difficult, even though opening it slows down time to a crawl, I ended up just ignoring it and using the mouse wheel while rolling around to avoid attacks to change spells. Another issue with combat is that the open world nature of the game will frequently have you fighting enemies far stronger than you (possibly too strong to even attempt fighting without using the mind control spell) or you will be far stronger than your opponents and can kill them easily while mashing fast attack. Sometimes you will be fighting level 3-9 enemies then you will take a few more steps and run into a group of level 20-35s. It is definitely an improvement over the combat of the previous game though, where you needed a very late game upgrade to even allow your sword to hit multiple enemies in one swing and where you almost had to focus on only one area of abilities to upgrade. Outside of combat everything usually works well but accurate movement in cramped areas can be difficult with the way Geralt controls or with all the things you or your horse can become stuck on.
The crafting system works very well with you only needing to craft oils, which allow you to do more damage to certain types of enemies, and their upgrades once and gaining constant access to them. Bombs and potions have limited uses but are all refilled whenever you meditate as long as you have one of two different kinds of strong alcohol, allowing you to quickly and easily replenish your supply, allowing you to make full use of them and the skills that increase their effectiveness. Weapons, armor, and items can be broken down into crafting components, or they can be bought or found, which can then be used to craft better gear or to upgrade the gear you already have. It's a good system and one where you don't have to constantly be picking up every single thing you find and the game allows you to keep the same equipment for some time without a big need to upgrade, meaning you aren't always wasting time going around collecting everything like you were in a game like Dragon Age Inquisition. Picking up items is also easy as there is no time wasting animations, just go over it and hit two buttons to grab everything from the pile, it would have been nice if they let you just loot everything in the area rather than having to walk to each lootable body after a fight.
While the game does do a much better job with the genre, it is still plagued by common problems such as poor AI, control issues, tons of worthless equipment (literally everything that isn't Witcher gear schematics, alchemy items, or stuff to craft Witcher equipment) because your crafted items will always be better, and the annoyance of being attacked frequently by low level wolves, harpies, and sirens almost everywhere you go while exploring. Those problems aside The Witcher 3 has made excellent use of being an open world game, has some of the best quest design, has some of the strongest characters and writing I've seen, and some of the most realistic portrayals of people. A new game plus mode allows you to keep your levels and the equipment that you have and that you have crafted while also making the game more difficult, a new playthrough can also allow you to focus on a different method of combat.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrAXMDNS9ng
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/751873457546080256
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/755212662389125120
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753422762975211521
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753431584821223424
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757850420135862274
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757849163975450625
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757846371437121536
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757173973662650369
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/756689070185517057
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/755881498285256704
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754790218486517761
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754809791382368256
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753777045528686592
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754790706288349184
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754139842930364416
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754140175593189376
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753303847548747776
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/752667070190399488
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757874815738916864
The most obvious thing that it manages to do so much better than other open world games, outside of characterization, is to have almost (chasing down trails in Witcher vision can get old) nothing but quality and interesting content in a game that will end up taking so much longer to finish than something like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, or Dragon Age which go out of their way to throw busywork and time wasting events at you so they can pretend to have a long and detailed game. Many quests can even branch based on your decisions or when you do them leading to very different scenes, events, objectives, and possibly allowing you to see the effect your choices had later on. Many larger games tend to have one interesting and different quest, Dragon Age 3 for example has you trying to prevent an assassination while mingling with party guests, The Witcher 3 has more interesting quests like that then most other games like it combined. Conversation options are handled much better than other games, in many scenes a certain choice can lead to a very different conversation happening, possibly even with additional choices, it could be humorous or more informative but it tends to be much more memorable than other games where it almost always leads back to the same dialogue path. Many of the game's scenes have excellent small touches that add a lot to the world and character such as guard stopping to look through a window as a bard performs, a doppler turning into Ciri and seeing Geralt's reaction of seeing her as an adult, Geralt eating an apple during an autopsy, etc.
In addition to the main quests, which there are many of, you can find a variety of monster contracts, treasure hunts that will get you unique recipes for witcher gear you can then craft, and smaller but often entertaining side missions. The treasure hunts aren't usually very exciting, often taking you to places you will already go for other quest and just requiring you to pick up an item, these can also be annoying as you can't track multiple objectives and might have to go back to an old area if you missed it, but some of them will take you to different areas or places where puzzles need to be solved or where extra game lore can be found. The map is also full of bandit camps, guarded treasures, monster lairs, underwater chests, prisoners to save, places of power, and areas that you kill enemies at so people and merchants can move back in. Unfortunately, many of these "treasure quests" that don't involve Witcher recipes end up being some weak or common equipment that you will likely have little use for. Completing the main story, all monster contracts, all side quests, Witcher gear treasure hunts, and traveling to many of the areas on the map (I didn't go to every monster lair or hidden/guarded treasure location) on the hard difficulty took about 90 hours, this is without adding in the time I will spend with the game's two expansions.
The game's economy is handled better than other open world games, money is more scarce and merchants won't pay that much for equipment you are selling. You will really want to haggle for your contracts because the cost to repair your gear will likely take most of the reward away in the early game and while you might start to amass a large amount of money you will likely spend it all once you are able to craft and upgrade your Witcher gear. As you continue to play the game money will be much less of a concern but just being something to worry about at all is a big step for the genre, even more so when the early game of the Witcher 3 might take over 30 hours of playtime.
Voice lines are frequently repeated by people, which is often fine, but it can be odd when you go back to a location to see that some things have changed and some characters have new dialogue but the unnamed NPCs are still complaining about a monster you killed for them last time you were there as if it has been alive a week later. Also hurting some of the world immersion is that you can just go around looting everything unless guards see you, which frequently leads to strange events like you walking into a poor or abandoned peasant's home and taking a lot of rare materials that they have no reason to have, things like bars of silver, crafting recipes, books, expensive alcohol, or stealing all of their food without them caring or saying anything. What makes this even stranger is that the owners don't care but random, extremely overpowered, guards will attack you if they see you stealing. If they catch you they will likely bring down all of your health in one hit but instead of killing you you will wake up with half of your money gone, nothing about this makes sense for the game and feels like an afterthought that it was left in.
Combat is typically enjoyable, with a lot of different ways to build your character when it comes to the use of your weapons, magic, potions, oils, and bombs. You can even fight while riding a horse or fight enemies who ride them, which is a feature that a lot of games don't have even though they also include horses. There are problems though, hit detection doesn't always work well, spells are easily abused (mostly your shield and the ability to confuse enemies and make them fight for you), there are problems with the AI, and detection range has a lot of issues. The controls aren't always as responsive as they should be, with Geralt not using his spells or rolling when he should, replacing the ability to jump with the ability to roll during combat can also be awkward when you are fighting in an area where you should be able to jump over or climb something. The game's poor detection range for enemies can cause problems where you move slightly out of an area in a normal fight while dodging only to move out of the enemies set area causing them to all run back to where they started and go back to what they were doing, it might also cause some enemies to attack you while others don't, sometimes Geralt won't go into his combat mode until enemies are almost already hitting him, and sometimes Geralt will just end his combat mode while in a fight. While you are in combat locking on doesn't always work well if you make use of the feature and the camera can make odd movements, I ended up just never using the lock on feature. The game is also fond of starting fights with you already getting hit or enemies in mid swing as soon as cutscenes end. A crossbow was added to the game, which is a very poor weapon, to make it useful you would need to fill many of your ability slots with crossbow buffs, and even then aiming it is very difficult both because it requires you to hold down the middle mouse button by default and because the reticle constantly jerks around making accurate shooting extremely difficult. The crossbow is really just to instant kill enemies that are underwater when you are swimming, to knock flying enemies out of the sky by tapping the button for a quick shot, or shooting enemies off your boat while piloting it, it is useful in those situations but it kind of makes it seem like an afterthought inclusion. Mounted combat can be fun but the games poor control, Geralts odd tendency to aim his sword on the wrong side of the horse, inability to use spells, and Geralt randomly swinging his sword while you are holding down the button to wait make it an impractical choice. CD Projekt struggles so much with control that even the menu you can open in combat to switch between spells and items is so unwieldy that it makes selecting what you want difficult, even though opening it slows down time to a crawl, I ended up just ignoring it and using the mouse wheel while rolling around to avoid attacks to change spells. Another issue with combat is that the open world nature of the game will frequently have you fighting enemies far stronger than you (possibly too strong to even attempt fighting without using the mind control spell) or you will be far stronger than your opponents and can kill them easily while mashing fast attack. Sometimes you will be fighting level 3-9 enemies then you will take a few more steps and run into a group of level 20-35s. It is definitely an improvement over the combat of the previous game though, where you needed a very late game upgrade to even allow your sword to hit multiple enemies in one swing and where you almost had to focus on only one area of abilities to upgrade. Outside of combat everything usually works well but accurate movement in cramped areas can be difficult with the way Geralt controls or with all the things you or your horse can become stuck on.
The crafting system works very well with you only needing to craft oils, which allow you to do more damage to certain types of enemies, and their upgrades once and gaining constant access to them. Bombs and potions have limited uses but are all refilled whenever you meditate as long as you have one of two different kinds of strong alcohol, allowing you to quickly and easily replenish your supply, allowing you to make full use of them and the skills that increase their effectiveness. Weapons, armor, and items can be broken down into crafting components, or they can be bought or found, which can then be used to craft better gear or to upgrade the gear you already have. It's a good system and one where you don't have to constantly be picking up every single thing you find and the game allows you to keep the same equipment for some time without a big need to upgrade, meaning you aren't always wasting time going around collecting everything like you were in a game like Dragon Age Inquisition. Picking up items is also easy as there is no time wasting animations, just go over it and hit two buttons to grab everything from the pile, it would have been nice if they let you just loot everything in the area rather than having to walk to each lootable body after a fight.
While the game does do a much better job with the genre, it is still plagued by common problems such as poor AI, control issues, tons of worthless equipment (literally everything that isn't Witcher gear schematics, alchemy items, or stuff to craft Witcher equipment) because your crafted items will always be better, and the annoyance of being attacked frequently by low level wolves, harpies, and sirens almost everywhere you go while exploring. Those problems aside The Witcher 3 has made excellent use of being an open world game, has some of the best quest design, has some of the strongest characters and writing I've seen, and some of the most realistic portrayals of people. A new game plus mode allows you to keep your levels and the equipment that you have and that you have crafted while also making the game more difficult, a new playthrough can also allow you to focus on a different method of combat.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrAXMDNS9ng
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/751873457546080256
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/755212662389125120
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753422762975211521
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753431584821223424
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757850420135862274
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757849163975450625
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757846371437121536
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757173973662650369
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/756689070185517057
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/755881498285256704
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754790218486517761
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754809791382368256
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753777045528686592
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754790706288349184
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754139842930364416
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/754140175593189376
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/753303847548747776
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/752667070190399488
https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/757874815738916864