The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I started playing The Witcher 3 in 2015 around the time it came out. I've played the previous games, and really enjoyed them as they were releasing. The Witcher 1 had some novelty to it with its bizarre combat system and old-school feeling, European RPG jank. The Witcher 2 improved on everything the first did, throwing the old combat system out the window and replacing it with something challenging and involved with the actual business of being a Witcher. But in both of these games, the narrative elements were the obvious draw. Between W2 and W3 I even read one of the books, and I think fantasy books are for nerds.

When I started The Witcher 3 in 2015, I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me. Many quests, many markers, many things to craft, much world to sop up and marinate in. I didn't think it would take me three years to finish, but here I am now with a save file that attests as much.

Looking back at my experience playing The Witcher 3, I can say that I only barely enjoyed it. In 2015 I was wowed by the scale of it and the astounding feat of presentation that the same people who made W1 had accomplished. I wanted to pat them on the back. But after hitting all the markers in White Orchard over 10 hours, I didn't want to play their game. If I recall correctly, at some point in late 2015 I came back to try out Velen, but after blowing up a few nests and rolling and swinging to death some soldiers, I put it aside until 2016 where I ceased to believe everything in the game was really worth seeing, or every engagement worth having to put up with the combat.

Between 2016 and yesterday, my taste in games changed. I began to recognize how important it was for me that systems act as player expression in meaningful, broad ways; and I came to believe that if a game had to have a story, it better be a story that I influence or take part in through intuitive game mechanics, and not dialogue trees or button prompts. The model of the board game, or the pen-and-paper RPG became the ultimate form which video games ought to emulate, instead of something immersive and unbelievably, but superficially, pretty, i.e. an amazing filmic experience, or OASIS from Ready Player One. By the time I made my way back to Witcher 3 for my last real push to complete it, I had already been sufficiently brainwashed by ludo-games to sort of despise any time I spent with it.

All that really dragged me through The Witcher 3's final quests was its writing and world-building. The combat, progression, the way which the game offered three moods of responses to me as some cheap CYAstory, everything seemed so shallow and unengaging, actualizing a game's ultimate failure. The towns and world-building had the appearance of a dynamic, systems-driven world which a better game would have exploited and made reactive in small but meaningful ways, but by the 60th hour all I wanted to do was connect sign-post to sign-post and get the fuck out. Three games into the series, The Witcher 3 stands as a bitter compromise that has garnered praise which spells spooky things for triple-A games. If no one seems to care that the combat is boring, the world is mostly without mechanics, that progression literally stops having any purpose by a pretty early point, what are these people going to do when writers learn how to merely sound like The Witcher 3, and everyone is too dumb to realize it's just an appearance? This will happen. Eventually.

This isn't a terrible game, but as everyone has launched it so high to hang in the video games cosmos as some shining example of a modern-day RPG (...yuck), criticism against it needs to be harsh and iconoclastic.

want a compelling story with beautiful graphics and badass weapons? here you go.
prefer playing solitaire on your computer? become a professional gwent player.
like something less dead-serious? play hide and seek with kids while wearing ass ears.
the only thing I might change is trading some of the fetch-quests and redundant environmental tasks that might slow you down for more high-quality side quests.

Let me preface by saying that The Witcher 3 is by no means overrated. It was and most certainly is an incredible game. With that being said, I think it's a bit of a stretch to call it a masterpiece.
I've played through the game and both DLCs once and I've returned to the game twice since then. The story is still exceptional, the combat is simple but still fun, and the exploration is exciting the second or third time around. However, the game has failed to keep me around until the end on my second and third playthrough. I would attribute that to the dull skill trees, slow pacing of the first act, and the repetitiveness of the combat. The combat is fun and I still stand by that, but it got old for me fairly quick.
While The Witcher 3 lacks replay value, don't let that stop you from playing it, if you have not already done so. I wish I could go back to my first playthrough once again and experience the Bloody Baron's thrilling story arc, Skellige Isles, Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine for the first time. I'm actually jealous of anyone that has not played this yet and is considering picking it up. It has aged fairly well and still looks really good. If you like story dense games with decision making and open worlds, this is for you. Go ahead and give this one a try if it goes on sale.

The first time I played this game I was overwhelmed with excitement. The grand scale of the game aswell as it story is phenomenal. The combat however does get sort of boring after a while, however this isnt really an issue as I was so invested in the story and character that I just wanted to rush through all combat etc. to advance the story. After my first playthrough, this was my favourite game of all time. The worldbuilding is also near perfect, everything is stunning and it really encourages exploring.

However, replaying it (about of halfway through at the time of writing). I am a little bit Dissapointed. The game feels clumpsy, some of the combat is worthless ( battling the sirens at sea is just awful) and I have also run across some annoying and immerse breaking bugs.

Overall, the combat is atleast playable although there is some annoyance. The story however really improves this game. Of course you also have to mention gwent, which is the best mini-game I have ever come across while playing videogames

Gameplay: 3/5
Story: 5/5
Final Score: 4/5

The Witcher 3 is a great game. The story, the quests, the characters, the enemies, in short everything can be fantastic. But only at times. It seems that three quarters of the game were made by someone who understands every problem with open world rpgs, and the rest was made by someone who also did, but wanted to make every error possible. I was amazed by how great some quests were, how they avoided fetching, following npcs, but then there were quests who seemed to try their hardest to do everything wrong possible. While I had much fun playing the game and I would gladly recommend it, it's hard to look over the many annyoing parts of the game.

THe Witcher 3 proved to be a high quality and visually appealing story that hooked many gamers into its fantastic world through the last generation, specially if compared to its supposed competitor, Fallout 4. I'd even say that Fallout 4 's mixed reception as an RPG was a good catalyst for this game's success. The multiple outcomes based on the elections you could take and the realistic and well thoughtfull writing made an impact that made Bethesda's game look like a toy, with its dumbed down mechanics and shallow world. Sadly, this advantage is diminished by many big flaws. Witcher 3's Achilles' heel is definitely the gameplay. Walking, riding Roach (the horse), fighting... everything feels so unnatural and weirdly sluggish. The menus are unconvincing and the loot is cluttery and full of useless items. The magic abilities are boring and the gameplay loop has an excess of walking to one side to the other and registering random stuff with Witcher senses. The worst is that there isn't enough variety to make the whole thing bearable. It's not as you could make an stealthy archer role and transform the way you play. The whole gameplay remains in a dull plateau of repetiveness and lack of satisfaction that barely gets spiced up during some boss fights. Then, the whole experience becomes a chore and the slowness of the realistic writing becomes itself a big obstacle. There are segments of the main game on which i barely could play it anymore. The arc of rescuing Dandelion is particularly long and unsufferable. This is why i had so much more enjoyment during some of the side missions, on which there was some motivation going on in the shape of a not so dragging narrative and more interesting situations. The expansions, particularly, offered to me a better paced experience from which i can recall better the characters and stories told due to being more compelling. Overall, i'm mixed on The Witcher 3.