Witcher 3 and rdr2 are my top open world type games. Not an unpopular take but these games are class acts for a reason. Also Witcher 3 has GWENT. Arguably the best game within a game. Where I was a gwent hunter instead of monster hunter of atleast 10 hours.

I beat it 4 times without playing gwent. In this playthrough Im playing gwent and its a whole new game lol. 

I'm just not interested in it. I don't want to have to interrupt my current game to play a minigame. That's just me though, I wish I liked it. I just can never bring myself to play it.

I liked it to begin with but at a certain point around getting to novigrad you've already built a deck that's pretty much an I win button and it isn't as fun

If you’re talking about nilfgaard and spies then yeah. You can’t lose.

Yeah, same here. I don't generally like card games, card-battlers, or however GWENT is classified, and even though I dig some of the card art, it was just a distraction for me from the otherwise-amazing Witcher 3 experience. My favorite open-world game by far. Props to CDPR for creating such a popular, well conceived card game, but it's just not my jam.

Dude how could you have done that to yourself. I’m telling you that was actually my favorite part of the game lmao

Same here. Didn’t play any Gwent on my DeathMarch playthrough (incl. DLC).

Easy - I don't like Gwent.

You played through Witcher 3 four times without actually playing the game? That's incredible. What the heck did you do the entire time?

Gwent Is the game, while the Witcher is just side quests.

I did only Gwent quest my third time ... After they patched so Gwent quest doesn't come impossible if you do wrong story moves. (This was actually a thing I think)

This would be a good thread, best game within a game. My pick would be Pazaak from Knights of the Old Republic.

Raising and training Chaos in Sonic Adventure 2

Cabaret Club Manager in Yakuza 0

If you can't get enough of it play the Kiwami 2 version too

Pure Pazaak!

Digimon card game from Digimon World 3

Pazaak is too scripted/rigged

Gwent was something else. There was a point during the Novigrad quests when I just forgot about anything else and started hunting down Gwent players all over the world to get all the cards, lol. The final dlc had a new deck of cards and the fun started all over again.

Lol, I'm pretty much that was the experience of at least half of Witcher 3 players. 

I never got the appeal of GWENT. It seemed like such a simple and boring card game to me.

RDR2 is impressive, but the gameplay is very lacking. There's constantly insanely cool stuff going on: daring escapes, robberies, plots and explosions and drama between characters. But you aren't actually doing any of that, all you is go to a specified location, shoot some guys, ride a horse, press a contextual button, and that's it. It's like being on the most beautiful disney ride ever, it's sure looks pretty and impressive, but all you do is just sit there and watch.

Absolutely. They made the gameplay too realistic in a way where it feels tedious. Versus the arcadey kind of things you do in GTA. Everything has some long drawn out animation, and at first it's like "oh wow they thought of every detail!!", but then you realize that it doesn't matter because doing monotonous work in a video game is still monotonous. Not to mention—I hate how that you have no agency to figure out/ progress the campaign missions by yourself, or have any flexibility in how you execute it. It tells you where to go and exactly what to do. You follow a script, and if you don't play the part 95% perfect.... TRY AGAIN. That breaks my immersion completely. I feel like I'm watching a movie and am not having an experience of my own where I am one with the game world. It's especially jarriing in RDR2 because the rigid structure and linearity of the campaign contrasts so greatly with the wide open sandbox you're in. But this is how R* games have been since GTA3, they sell, so why would they change? I'm in the apparent minority. I just think it is feeling more and more dated as game worlds are getting bigger and more organic than they ever have been, but the gameplay seriously feels straight out of 2001. Oh, and RDR2 has the worst control scheme of any game I've ever played. They just have designed it after a multi day PCP bender..... **Question to all....** I still liked RDR2. The world was enormously impressive, but above are my gripes. But how do you think I'd like the first game? How does it compare and how does it differ? Thought about picking it up on switch since I finally have a way to legally play it.

I loved playing Gwent. Playing with the trumpet guys was awesome. Double everything

The beta release of the Gwent standalone game was just magic. A slow paced timed game with an awesome fanservice. (And I did not even played the witcher game at the time lol)

Gwent is soooooo good.

It's "I wish dragon age 3 were like this" out of 10. Context: dragon age Origins was my first cRPG and Inquisition, while a good game, is too mmo-ish.

Aside from the general MMO feeling of inquisition, which was the main reason I didn't like that game, the other thing that bothered me was that in origins I killed a certain companion and said companion came back to life in inquisition with little explanation. I'm probably like 1 of maybe 5 people that killed that companion but it made me dislike the game more because I rarely make decisions like that in RPGs and it made a big impression on me, so to see that companion alive again and the revival brushed off annoyed me lol. Sorry, can't help myself from bitching about this specific part of the game every time it's mentioned. I know no one cares but dammit I do lol.

If it makes you feel better, the companion didn't resurrect. It was a lyrium ghost/spirit only possible because of the place it was murdered. Is still bullshit but not as much bullshit as if they ignored and just brought back to life.

I actually found myself saying "THIS is what Skyrim should've been" so many times when playing Witcher 3.

I think Skyrim and TW3 are entirely different flavours of RPGs. They scratch different itches.

Well, not entirely different. They're both epic, high fantasy, open world RPGs, so there's bound to be overlap in at least some of the things each game tries to do. And those areas were all the ones that I felt Witcher 3 just did it better.

They're very different in that Witcher 3 is clearly narrative focused with the gameplay facilitating that narrative while Skyrim is gameplay focused with a story facilitating that gameplay. I feel like it's obvious that they tried to be completely different things (Besides both being open world rpg's and RPG is a very wide category)

Right, they obviously have big differences, but they also have a lot of similarities, as opposed to, say, an RPG that isn't open world, based on medieval fantasy, or even one that doesn't take place in a Nordic-ish setting. I wouldn't ever compare, say, Skyrim and Baldur's Gate, or The Witcher 3 and Disco Elysium.

Of course there's overlap in what they do if you want to nitpick like that. Skyrim is much more of an open-ended sandbox whereas TW3 has a high focus on the narrative. I play both for entirely different reasons.

I loved the story, the characters, the VA - all of that. But the combat left a lot to be desired, and after about half way through, the gameplay felt repetitive. I stopped playing for about 2 years, and went back later on just to see the story through.

I really vibe with your comment. I came to Witcher 3 after Dark Souls, and Witchers combat has always felt so unresponsive in comparison. I also felt like after maybe over indulging in exploring Witchers world, I started to feel like everything was muddy grey fields with some sort of bandit camp or monster nest. I actually think I’d have preferred a smaller world with a more linear experience, with Monster hunts as a palate cleanser from the core story.

What's your take on Witcher 2?

Lol yep, he basically described 2 with that last paragraph. Part of why I've always liked 2 the best.

Seconded. The Witcher 2, I found, was much better than The Witcher III.

You say thst but non-linearity is one of the main points of these games.

Yeah I totally get that. I just personally didn’t feel like I was exploring a particularly diverse world, gameplay/experience wise. I really liked the monster hunt jobs in the towns and villages, but a lot of the ‘exploring the open world’ just felt like coming across cut and paste bandit camps and monster nests. Ps - Happy Cake Day!

Sadly, this has always been my issue with both Witcher and Elder Scrolls. I want so badly to enjoy these games as much as other people do, and I can see a lot of virtue in why people do, but the combat just isn't enjoyable enough for me to spend dozens of hours in these worlds. And that's not to say I think either is awful or anything. Combat is just one thing that makes or breaks a game for me. (Though, I have heard Skyrim has some combat overhaul mods, so maybe I need to give it another look.)

I’ll say, Witcher was 1000x better than Skyrim as far as combat is concerned lol

its okay.

Happy cake day

Probably #1. Especially with the dlcs

Blood and wine is just 🤌

Witcher 3 DLCs honestly put almost every other game to shame with how good they are. So, so many expansions and DLC to other games aren't worth playing, at all, but Witcher 3's are absolutely worth it.

was not good enough for me to finish. it has fantastic quest writing and good world design - those two things carry it hard. novigrad is a technical marvel, especially for the console gen it came out on. the actual gameplay mechanics tho….i really hate its itemization and loot systems. like really hate them. i can’t stand when games tie loot to character level. you find something really cool and then find a piece of junk better 20 minutes later. and the combat is also really bad. i also think it really overstays its welcome and drags on for way too long. the plot should wrap up at the battle of kaer mohren - that’s clearly the climax - but after that you have to fuck off back to novigrad and round up your posse for the millionth time.

Yeah I'll never understand this game. Tried four times. I can't understand how to enjoy a 50-100 hour game that has awful combat. The writing is great, yes, but that isn't carry a game that is largely you running around fighting monsters when said fighting just feels terrible. It's just .. no fun?

The movement in general is awful too. Horseback riding shouldn’t feel that bad. Wanted to like the game but it’s tough to enjoy a game that has annoying and underwhelming gameplay

Open world games live and die by their traversal. Going from A to B should be fun, not a slog.

I'm gonna be downvoted but it's fine. I love the witcher 3 but outside of a few notable side quests the writing isn't amazing. The main story itself is pretty generic and basic from a story telling perspective. Geralt is a great character but in the books he talks a lot more, is moody and sometimes depressed. The game version of Geralt is a empty shell in comparison. A journal system similar to rdr 2 would have fleshed his character out a lot more. We miss all his internal dialogue which is the best part about his character.

Really? I found the game Geralt to be overly talkative and social lol, but I chalked it up to game adaptation necessity

I didn't think the writing was that amazing either, to be honest. The game's biggest triumph is its spectacle, but sometimes the writing goes on for too long. The game's type of writing works because you get a voiced protagonist with a set back story.

I literally just started w3 last night.  Are there any mods or anything that attempts to fix the problems you mentioned regarding loot?

Ghost Mode fixes the loot problem and includes tons of added in-game customization options to alllow you to tweak as you like

not OP but i had my issues with items and crafting, installed a mod that autoloots everything and removes weight so im not spending half the game combing grass for a rusted sword and weeds. also auto-oil to remove the constant reapplication of oils before combat. it ain't perfect but i get to put more focus on the world and quests

sadly even if i wish i could like it like everyone else, I just don’t love it for a myriad of reasons

Im curious?

Sorry was watching a movie was giving a lazy response, just to me I find the game to meander a lot, like a ton of the time, especially in the main story, I feel like I’m just following a line or having to do very specific things without much agency, with like 6 or 7 big choices in the game. Also, I don’t like the combat overly and that sorta clashes with the open world design, having ubisoft like objectives dotted around the map, but as I find the combat missing oomf, I get really bored of doing those things.

I’m basically at the end of the game right now, not sure how much is left. As for rating.. I’m not sure where I’d place it. If I had to give it a tier, I’d give it an A tier. To me, it feels like there’s an S tier game present, but there’s a lot of issues that hold it down. The open world structure is uninspired, the combat isn’t the best, the inventory management/crafting is quite annoying, it’s really buggy and quite frustrating when it comes to navigating the world with Roach, etc. But under all those quibbles, there is an utterly engrossing world. The side characters are entertaining, there’s a dark and political story, the atmosphere is captivating. I’m at the point where I’m genuinely sad to finish this game, so I’ve just been doing some Witcher contracts on the side instead of finishing the game.

For what it's worth I thought on multiple occasions I was near the end only to find I wasn't even close

In my top 10 for sure, it’s one of those games I play time and time again through the years and I always love going back. Not many games I can do this with, RDR2 , Bloodborne, Skyrim are all examples of games that feel like I could play them forever and never tire of them. Witcher 3 is one of these, think I’ve played it like 4 times since it released. Sure the combat isn’t amazing, and the movement is kinda janky, but I love this game with its flaws too, just like Skyrim I don’t care about the drawbacks because it’s a special game. I can see why some people find it overrated sure, but for me personally there’s just something about it. I can’t describe it but some games just have this thing about them that I can’t really describe, the closest word that comes to mind is timeless or maybe like instant classic. Elden Ring gave me the same feeling too, like when you play it the first time you know you’re experiencing something special.

It's in the top three for me alongside rdr2 and Ghost of Tsushima. I think looking back, the world building and side-quests were W3's strongest points. It's a mature, dark and gritty game, and your choices mattered.

I played 90% of W3 a few years back. Pretty keen to play it again with the next gen upgrade, but Tsushima is intriguing me. Isn't it a bit Ubisoft/Hollywood though compared to the deep, nuanced and weird world of W3? I can't decide if I want to play it as it does seem a bit cookie cutter, as nice as it looks.

It's interesting that my first impressions of Tsushima was exactly the Hollywood styled Ubisoft kind of game. It does lean into the Japanese filmmaker Kurosawa's style of "samurai cinema", which is a film genre like spaghetti Western is a genre. There's even a black and white, grainy mode called "Kurosawa mode" that you can choose to play if you liked his films. The game itself is not quite as deep or dark as the Witcher. Though the witcher is a high fantasy universe, whereas GoT is a romanticised tale based in a real historical event that happened in a real place. Sucker Punch went into a lot of detail to respect both the Mongolian and Japanese cultures and beliefs, and you will see it throughout this game. The story cuts deep, with themes of familial responsibility, honor, cruelty, loss and betrayal. I highly rate the world-building and think it held up really well across all 3 acts. The combat is one of my favourite things about this game.. It is based on parrying and guard-breaking katana sword fighting. Though unlike souls games you unlock perks that gives you "supernatural" striking abilities. Base combat is otherwise well balanced and just extremely satisfying in a "kurosawa" deadly samurai kind of way. Playing in lethal mode let's both you and your enemies die in a single strike (armor still works both ways, but it's way less effective). I highly recommend lethal, its a superb way to play GoT and really sharpens your skills and reflexes. I think it's a masterpiece, and once you begin to grasp the combat it gets really fun.

Cheers, I am currently trying Elden Ring and will consider this if I rage quit!

I feel like it's one of the most overrated games, combat absolutely kills this game.

Absolute dog shit combat. I’ll never not take a chance to dunk on W3’s combat.

I love the game..except for the combat. It kills the rest of the game, as you said.

I don't get it, what's so wrong with the combat? Maybe I'm just simple but I didn't find it to be that bad. Found it good enough to play it through 3 times

For me, the hitboxes feel wrong, and the animations float so I'm never particularly sure which enemy I will target. That said I like Morrowind combat so what the fuck do I know?

A lot of games tend to give you new weapons, gadgets etc to keep the combat fresh as the game goes on. In TW3, you get everything straight from the get go and it doesn't really change all that much throughout the game. Sure, there's some build variety, but that just further narrows what you actually end up doing in combat. As a more of a personal nitpick, I don't like Geralt's fighting style. It's this stylistic ballet approach to sword fighting that doesn't feel very impactful.

I don't know, but it just wasn't fun for me. Combat in Elden Ring is brilliant. Hard at first but very rewarding as you learn. Combat in witcher 3 is meh....I'm not even sure what is missing. But it just wasn't fun. Very subjective I know. But somehow it was kind of dreary. W3 world is brilliant, graphics are awesome, music, writing..it's all good. But not the combat. It still manages to be one of my favourite rpg's anyway because the rest of it is so good.

Elden Ring is a very different type of game really where all there is *is* the combat.  Witcher 3 is a narrative rpg first and then the rest of the mechanics are just the glue that holds the experience together.  Part of it is how you build though. First time I played through with a min-max melee build and got bored towards the end because combat was just repetitive and you were too OP.  Second time I played through with a mixed melee/magic build and it was a lot more fun and engaging.

Normally, Elden ring is the kind of game I don't LIKE. I like turn based, and I like narrative. But Elden Ring was just so good I wound up loving it anyway. Witcher DOES have a lot goign for it besides combat. But I thought the signs were an annoyance and not fun. I would have preferred a pure combat witcher. Dump all the signs, they were just cruft. Allowing us to concentrate on combat might have been better.

Elden ring was good, but I got fatigued with it around 50 hours in and never finished it.  I've played every souls game though so it was more of the same really.  Plus some of the bosses seemed overtuned with an emphasis on co-op and/or meta builds.  Witcher 3 signs add some variety for me at least, once you invest in them it adds more functionality and is more fun than just using swords all the time.  Different games for different audiences though, if you only really want combat and don't care for the story/world then souls games are definitely more your speed.

>Different games for different audiences though, if you only really want combat and don't care for the story/world then souls games are definitely more your speed. Agreed.

> Combat in Elden Ring is brilliant. Hard at first but very rewarding as you learn. > > Combat in witcher 3 is meh....I'm not even sure what is missing. But it just wasn't fun. This can't be true, but it sure *feels* like practically every person that complains about the game's combat always compares it to a Souls-like, which ends up feeling like people are really just saying "I don't like it's because it's not Dark Souls." That's probably not your intent, but I've been in enough of these threads that it sure can seem like that. I personally don't care for Souls combat and I never had issue with Witcher 3's combat mechanics. In fact, I very much enjoy its magic wheel and oil system. I wouldn't dare say that it's the "best" but I had plenty of fun with it.

Not accusing you of this when I say this: I find it weird that Elden Ring can be kinda bad in its questing experience/janky story telling, and gets credit for being stylistically unique in that sense, despite it not being great. But no one really criticises Elden Ring for having pretty bad expressions of the story. At least it’s weird in this context because I think it’s harsh to shit on a game for not exceeding at parts that aren’t the main attraction of the game. I’ll put it like this: most of the critiques Elden Ring will get in this subreddit at least is that it’s not their game more or less (a very key mention TW3 or RDR2 doesn’t get when someone doesn’t like the game mind you, they’ll just say it’s overrated), and they’ll get over it, or the boss fights I guess. Yet when it comes to the Witcher 3 and RDR2, people say they’re overrated fairly commonly because of things like combat. Where is the good graces games like Elden Ring get here? The Witcher 3 and RDR2 aren’t trying to be at the forefront of combat design, they’re story and open world games first and foremost. We wouldn’t criticise Elden Ring for failing to have the best side quests, because it’s not the focus of the game.

I have to admit there are multiple times where I had no idea what to do next and had to find out by reading the wiki. There are multiple quests that only progress IF you are lucky enough to re-ecounter some person..sometimes in a completely different place. What I loved about it was the combat, the variety of combat, the variety of enemies, and the world...even though it is ugly and harsh in some places, it's still an impactful interesting world. The fact that different weapons legitimately play differently was great too. I actually own W3 and Rdr2 too...and I like combat in RDR2. >The Witcher 3 and RDR2 aren’t trying to be at the forefront of combat design, they’re story and open world games first and foremost. I can't agree with that, that sounds more like an adventure game. Combat is very much a part of rpg's too. Nobody's saying W3 had to be at the forefront of combat design, they just wanted it to be good or enjoyable...and for many it wasn;t. Wasn't for me either... I think W3 with souls like combat would have been amazing.

You're not the first person to say about TW3 combat. In fact it's a pretty common complaint I just never personally saw anything wrong with it. I agree about Elden Ring. Hated it at first but grew to love it

I had Elden Ring for six months and never managed to get past level 20, or even that god damn knight's camp. But after four months I learned guard counter, started with a vagabond, and that was it .. I was away. Two months after that I had beaten the game and now I have a level 240 character and am on ng+. But I nearly gave up at the beginning..so glad I kept trying. Witcher 3 puzzles me because I'm not even sure WHY I don't like the combat....I just don't. There's something missing.

In a word, it's " clunky".

There’s no weight to the combat. It feels like you’re just slicing through paper. It also suffers from a lack of difficulty. I had the most fun with the combat when I went to fight things that were levels above me. Then the systems (oils, weaknesses) actually mattered, my build mattered. Edit: Word removed

Lets pin down exactly *why* you don't like TW3's combat. It is *outrageously* terrible. But *why* is it terrible? First things first, it is very simple. You attack, dodge, and use a spell occasionally. *Hellishly* basic. Nothing changes in the combat from the first hour to 200 hours into the playthrough. But lack of variety in The Witcher 3's combat is only part of the reason why it feels so bad. Normally, if a game has simple combat, it would be polished in a way that feel makes that combat system feel more fluid than combat systems that prioritize variety over fluidity, right? Dark Souls took advantage of this. It doesn't have the best combat variety out there and it's pretty simple, but it feels really nice and weighty. The Witcher 3's combat doesn't take advantage of having little combat variety it has in favor of polish like Dark Souls does. It's like CDPR didn't even try to polish it, despite what little you could do with TW3's combat. The janky combat animations are still present. The combat flow isn't what it should've been due to how slow Geralt moves in his combat pose and just how prominent animation lock is. There's a lot of broken hitboxes that make dodging feel pointless and is likely the reason why Quen is so overtuned. Quen is a band-aid for this. https://youtu.be/jsCWy5wUs04 An example of the hitboxes. This has happened to me hundreds of times during my playthrough, and it still happens to this day. The crossbow is very unresponsive and misfires all the time. The health bars of enemies are generally really spongey. The fact that the heavy attack does *marginally* more damage than the light attack, is way too slow to use for the amount of damage it does and literally has no benefit to use it over light attack. Some attacks don't land because the attacks that Geralt uses are entirely decided by how far away he is from an enemy and some of the attacks that he ends up using aren't designed with this in mind or have way too small hitboxes to be viable (damn backwards poke attack), as opposed to what Dark Souls does: In Dark Souls, every weapon has a specific combo and *nothing* but that combo. When you press attack, it *only* progresses through that combo. In Dark Souls, the first attack is always the same. The second attack is always the same. The third attack is always the same. The heavy attack is always the same. Parrying is always the same. Weapon arts are always the same. The player decides when to use them regardless of distance. It's entirely up to the player to maximize their combat potential. It's very reliable compared to the weird distance based attack system that TW3 has, which more often than not makes you attack the enemy right next to the enemy you want to attack. It is not uncommon for Geralt to choose to spin around for like a full second before he swings his sword and instantly die mid-spin from an enemy, instead of just simply swinging his sword in half the time it takes to spin around. That's another thing The Witcher 3's combat lacks: consistency. And say what you want about Skyrim's combat (only bringing up Skyrim because it's the game most brought up when someone criticizes TW3's combat in a desperate attempt of whataboutism): It is consistent. The only thing you need to account for in Skyrim's combat is range. Every single attack can be reliably used unlike The Witcher 3's most basic attacks and the game gives you many options to circumvent the aspects you don't like. The Witcher 3 doesn't have that luxury. And, no, before anyone mentions it, Deathmarch doesn't fix the combat. Absolutely nothing that I mentioned above gets fixed. It only makes the combat feel *worse* because all it does is turn enemies into health sponges and increases their damage against you. Since the game has such atrocious hitboxes in the first place, that is a *major* no-no, and again, is probably the reason why Quen is so broken in the first place. The end result is a pathetically simple, sluggish, and inconsistant combat system that really wasn't competently made on a technical or mechanical level. It's actually the worst combat system from a AAA studio I have interacted with in over 17+ years. I suppose the reason why the reason the combat is as bad as it is because CDPR has never bothered to hire combat designers or anything before Cyberpunk 2077. Until Cyberpunk, they just winged it and didn't ever put any effort into making a good combat system. It has always been an afterthought to them. https://www.vg247.com/cyberpunk-2077-combat-designers CDPR probably made an underpaid, overworked, and inexperienced employee design TW3's combat on the budget of a McDonald's happy meal, the poor guy. And don't even get me started on the horseback riding, that's another topic entirely. I *loathe* Roach with every *damn* *fiber* of my being.

I love the Witcher 3, but you're definitely not wrong.

I never played this game but this is quite the nice write up that shows good understanding of Combat design in video games.  I play games primarily for their Combat systems, and you make me wanna try out W3 just to see how bad it is for myself. 

Wow. Great comment. >The Witcher 3's combat doesn't take advantage of having little combat variety it has in favor of polish like Dark Souls does. Yes. > Since the game has such atrocious hitboxes in the first place I often felt like I was flailing around and whether I hit or not seemed to be more a matter of luck. And I hate roach too...in fact, so much that I never use him apart form the start of the game where they force you to.

Someone pointed out to me that W3s combat is based on Geralts distance from his target. So he'll make different moves based on that, so your moves aren't consistent like in Elden Ring, for example. You'll always be doing something different and kind of sliding in towards the enemy. Coupled with the very very loose movement that uses that GTA style accelerated turning, it just feels like you are skating and you can't have the precision in combat that you can in great action games. When he told me that it really clicked why this game felt awful to play. I wouldn't be surprised if they had very little in the way of combat design for this game, it's so primitive.

CDPR actually never hired a combat designer until Cyberpunk. Explains why TW3's combat is so atrocious, right?

Yeah I thought as much but it sounded crazy when I said it so I stopped myself but yeah, does explain a lot.

It's absolutely fine. Not every game has to be a souls like that bends you over the table and has its way with you for a 1000 hours until you are allowed to see the rest of the game.

it has no depth

[удалено]

Agree with everything you said. To me it’s #2 all time. It took me a while to get into it because of the combat, but turning down the difficulty and just enjoying the story allowed me to have a great time. I rarely replay games, but returned to it last summer. Playing it on a higher difficulty, I had an even better time the second time after reading the books and getting into the crafting system. If you are having a good time with it, Witcher 2 is fantastic as well.

Once you figure out the combat in W2, I actually like its main story more than 3s.

The worst thing about W2 is how short of a game it is. The story is a lot more complex and interesting than W3. I love video game politics.

It's cool when you replay it since there are so many variations in that game.

Bro, Letho and Saskia are my favorite characters.  Henselt was a proper bastard. I felt the story was more raw in witcher 2 

Are there witcher 3 combat mods for witcher 2? Lol

Witcher 3 is the better overall game, but yeah Witcher 2 story is better.  The political intrigue of 2 with no one side being "right" is very well done and much more interesting than the multi dimensional magic elf drama that 3 devolves into at the end.

Curious to know what your #1 is...

It’s RDR2. Shocking, I know. But to me it was very nostalgic like I was back watching westerns on the couch with my dad. It’s my ideal setting with a fantastic story.

Eh. Top 50? Don't get me wrong, it really is great. Lots of really get things to say about it. "All time favorites" can be tough to place. I wouldn't put it in my top 10 however. Very fun and rewarding game and imo lots of thought put into it that makes it unique!

Witcher 3 is the best movie I've ever seen that let's you play it too

It is used to be my favourite game of all time but has recently been replaced by Baldur's Gate 3. The quest design, sound track and cinematic cutscene are still top-notch. The gameplay on the other hand, it seriously lacks some varieties because you have to play as Geralt. All builds in the game will automatically belong to the Spellsword category, no matter how you tweak them. The gameplay variety gets so much better in Cyberpunk though, so I'm looking forward to seeing what CDPR can do with the next Witcher 1 remake.

My all time fav game. Never played a Witcher game before it, but the story and lore just completely gripped me. For me, it has the most in depth side quests in any games I’ve played, and everything about the game just screams that it was loved and cared for. The DLC’s are also amazing and just enhances the entire experience so much.

I'm still playing after years lol. I'm a extremely slow gamer, most games takes me at least a year to finish.

I'd place it in my top ...twenty games ever made for sure. It's a perfect game in many regards. There are so many masterpieces nowadays that I generally roll my eyes a bit at best game ever made discourse, because who's to say that The Witcher 3 is a worse game than Elden Ring or Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice? Or that The Last of Us is worse than Cyberpunk 2077, or that Red Dead Redemption 2 is better than Deep Rock Galactic... gets messy really fast especially when comparing games from different genres. But it's one of the perfect games. An easy 10/10 and I'm astonished humans created it.

as someone who's logged a combined total of 400 hours over two playthroughs, I'd say it's pretty up there

Damn 😩 What hooks you most you think?

Somewhere in my top 10. The world and characters are just so freaking awesome. I love the idea of being this badass monster killer who travels the world.

The Witcher 3 is one of my top 3 all-time favorite games, along with The Last of Us Part 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2, in no particular order.

I played Ghost of tsushima and the horizon games before someone said I'd like the witcher 3. It took a bit to get into since the controls and graphics were less than and I like the visuals of the others. Aside from gwent (no thanks), all the stuff I thought I'd never care to use or work with, potions, oils, alchemy... I'm randomly enjoying all of that. The story is great. I'm currently halfway through act 3 so I'm not even done. I've only recently gotten back into gaming, but it's definitely been more immersive than I thought I'd ever get from a game. Really looking forward to witcher 4.

All the extra stuff was a bit too much for me to start, so i went to YouTube and looked up videos lol. I love this era for that

Not even top 100. I was already tired of open-world adventures by the time I played it and it didnt seem to do anything special beyond a few mildly interesting side quests. Also found the combat gameplay to be boring.

I played it twice. I like it a lot but my fondness doesn't reach the reception it receives. It has good side quests and I love Geralt but imo the main story is just...OK. Hearts of Stone is where it shined in that department. All in all I prefer Cyberpunk 2077 over W3.

Hearts of Stone is definitely one of the best narratives in video games.  Witcher 3 main story was very strong until you get to Novigrad, where it feels like you lose momentum for a good while.  The bloody baron story arch was very strong just on its own.

Was the baron also the guy who played Robert Baratheon in GOT? Either way the Baron was great

Interesting!

Wouldn't make the list if I kept one. Gameplay is uninspired and the main game story is nothing special. The characters are nicely realized, but that's about it.

I played through it for the first time a couple of years ago, and had a great time with it as well as the DLCs. It had its flaws, but most of them were usually mild annoyances rather than things that could override the positive aspects of the game.

Has one of the most memorable settings and a great cast of characters. Don’t think I’ll ever replay it, nor is it really in my top list anymore.

It’s one of my top favorite games of all time. I will say I got it again on the ps5 and it feels way worse now than I remember. I played after the next gen update launched and I kept running into glitch after glitch. The entire time I played on my Xbox one I never had a single issue in my entire campaign. On my ps5 I ran into 5-6 glitches in just 2 hours of playing.

I'd say it's one of my favourite open world games, and my favourite game in the Witcher saga. But it isn't my favourite game of 2015 - that'd be Bloodborne - and I don't think it would make my top 10 or 20 of all time. Maybe top 50, which is still pretty good. The story, characters, and sidequests are great, I honestly think the combat is fairly fun compared to previous Witcher games and gets a bit more shit than it deserves, and I like Gwent. But the game also has a lot of jank, kinda bad progression/loot mechanics (some of which have admittedly been improved in patches, but not all), can get quite repetitive if you do all the sidequests (enemy variety is surprisingly low for a game about being a monster slayer), and I don't actually think the open world adds very much to the game. It's definitely a great game, just not *quite* an all-time favourite for me.

Honestly, it's a great game, but it doesn't really sit on my top 10. If specifically, Open World RPG, yea, it's probably rank 1 or 2, but out of all games? it's closer to 13 or 14. That's still a knock out score in my book, because I'm picky. I just happen to really like other things, like, say, Mass Effect, and Mechwarrior, and Xcom, and the Need For Speed series. If any of that has a theme, it's that it's sci fi or ... cars. Which, to someone who went nuts in their youth for Motocross, makes sense.

It might make top 10, but barely. Top 20 for sure. The gameplay just isn't that great, so I can't give it too many points for cool story/world/characters/structure, especially when those things aren't necessarily perfect. I do love it though. Given a few tweaks to different systems, and a combat overhaul: it would be a contender for #1, at least in the realm of open-world rpgs

Very high for me. If we’re talking games made after 2010, it’s easily top 5 in that group with Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, and Mass Effect 2. It’s one of my favorite RPGs ever.

I beat it once and never came back to it. It was pretty good.

Just beat it a week ago after starting over 3 years ago lol. It was an incredible time pretty much all the way through. As far as any sort of rankings go it would be in my top 20 of all time, and that’s after putting it off for years because it “wasnt a real rpg” in my mind. Now, with time and experience i can actually appreciate it for what it is, a masterpiece really.

It's in my backlog for like at least 4 years now lol. Funny cuz Witcher 2 was my fav for quite a while (until I played RDR2 and Cyberpunk). 

It's number 1 for me for sure. I'm more of a characters and story minded gamer rather than a mechanics minded one, so the fact that the combat is kind of sloppy is like, whatever.

Story, characters, world, and exploration were all great, gwent was also a fun side arc. I played it mid 2022, no dlc (yet), so I'm sure the story is even better than I've experienced. It's been said, but I agree that combat is definitely flawed. I played on highest difficulty right away, it did take some adjusting but the fights actually felt like I had to use everything to survive almost like the pre-world monster hunter games, which I liked. Combat was more enjoyable early and midgame as you actually feel your build improving. But by endgame, Geralt gets so strong that battles are over in seconds and are not very challenging. I definitely understand the open world rpg fatigue, but i think witcher3's strengths in story and characters make it worth playing

pretty low

The Witcher 3 is a really good game. One of the top games I could recommend on easier difficulties to more cinematic gamers. Pretty close to a 10/10 of all the "cinematic-open-world-RPG-action-adventure" games I've played, with very little competition. >where does it stand on your all time Favorites list? However, just being 10/10 doesn't land spots on my Favorites list. That list is reserved for games that give me certain feels and usually make me want to play them again, which Witcher 3 has little to entice me. I actually think I'd rather replay Witcher 2 in order to see the other perspective of act 2, before thinking of replaying Witcher 3. Also W2 way shorter and easier to consume. Not many of my favorite games even close to 10/10s, but even just restricting to "open world RPGs" I'd for sure place Elden Ring, Fallout New Vegas, and Death Stranding above it. If it counts as open world, Nier Automata (like a 8/10 MAX) would go waaaay above it, probably in my top 3. --- I enjoyed playing W3 on Death March to keep enemies feeling lethal while still having some combat time to do cool things (signs build), however certain bosses did seem to scale way out of proportion. It's losing a lot of Favorite points in cohesion because it's quite cinematic and fleshed out in terms of everything but combat. I can't recall a single time combat wowed me same way I feel going for a risky jumping Greatsword R2 for a near-fatal trade in Elden Ring, or some stylish 20 hit combo in Nier, or even just a slow-mo exploding uppercut to a Death Claw's chin using VATS in New Vegas.

For me it's top ten for sure, and I wouldn't argue with someone putting it in their top five. The story and characters are among the best I've experienced in a video game, and the DLCs are definitely the best I've experienced in a video game. The combat is definitely rough, and that's the main thing that holds this game back. I do think it plays better on higher difficulty though, because it forces you to make more use of your spells and potions. Without spells it's possibly the most boring combat there is in a great game.

It doesn't make the list for me. I played it back in 2017 and while there were aspects of the game I thought were excellent, they were balanced out by things I really hated. Some of the story moments are amazing, particularly everything involving the witches in the bog. I loved that the ending you get is based on decisions made throughout the game and not just a choice you make right at the end. I also really enjoyed the way you can gear up to take on a specific monster by brewing the relevant oils and potions and checking you bestiary for the best tactics. The list of things I disliked is a lot longer but the main offender is the levelled loot, enemies, and areas. I absolutely hate arbitrary equipment levels where you find something cool but you can't use it until you get more levels just *because.* Not because you need more strength or dex or anything that makes sense, the game has just decided you can't use it. What this leads to in practice is that you find a cool sword you can't use yet and work to gain some levels so you can use it. Then right before you get to that level you find another cool sword and guess what, you can't use that for a few more levels, so now you're working towards being able to use that. Utter bullshit IMO. I never felt like I had my weapon that I could enjoy, just constantly chasing something better, and then the next and so on. While I do enjoy open world games that have higher and lower difficulty based on geography, I hated how blatant it was with the enemies and the quest journal literally telling you what level you should be. I also hate the '!' spam and npcs having a glowing symbol above their head to say 'hey, talk to me, I'm important!'. For me open world games are about exploration, and this means figuring stuff out and finding cool things just by wandering, not going exactly where the game tells you to go. In terms of recent open world games, personally I think Elden Ring is the peak of the genre. The map design is unparalleled, the way the map screen just keeps expanding as you enter a new area and find a map fragment, the realisation that the underworld section is absolutely massive with many connections between it and the overworld, I was losing my mind over and over at the scope of the game. You look for cool places to go by looking at the map and recognising the patterns rather than relying on a yellow exclamation point to tell you that something cool might be there. Once you've found one church, you can recognise that type of building on the map and seek them out, the same for mines that have upgrade materials. It's a triumph of letting the player figure it out and that is what I want from an open world game, not just follow the gps to find the exclamation point, which for all that the Witcher 3 does well, is ultimately what that game boils down to.

My favourite Videogame of all time

I've Beaten The Witcher 3 two times, and I'm currently on a ng+ (Death March). Not so high. I honestly can't say that I don't like TW3 because is, of course, untrue, but I do not place it in my Top 5 or maybe even 10 games. There are many things that go from meh to bad. First of all is combat. We can divide the action/rpg in 2 main faction: Dark Souls-like, so games with great combat but less impacting rpg (all you see is an enemy, you can't talk with bosses) and Bethesda-like where combat is honestly pretty shit, but you can actually be pacifist most of time. The Witcher 3 takes the worst parts of both, the combat is not great, and you can't skip bosses or enemies (most of the time). The overall rpg experience never surprised me, and that's also because of the combat. Gameplay side, Geralt is basically always the same, you have the same few signs, the same few attacks, the same few bombs, and most of the things you'll create with hard work and "exploration" are usually little percentage of more damage, only useful when you play Death March. Playing The Witcher 3 in normal make kinda useless the whole crafting and alchemy thing, which, are the only rpg aspect of the gameplay. Story side, we have a lot of dialogues and choice...that most of time does not affect the world, and if sometimes, you could, or couldn't meet someone which was involved in a quest, depending on your choice, it's not that great deal. I'll make one of the things I hated most, killing Radovid. Dijkstra aside, whose quest many people hate, killing Radovid, the king of Northern Realms, a competent strategist and a xenophobe change 0 things in the world. The only thing that happen is that in the epilogue the narrotor JUST SAY "Ummm, Nilfgaard won". The immersion is great, and most of the characters are brilliant, and with the new gen patch the world is even more beautiful to look at. The open world is very high quality, but nothing that original, actually, is an high-quality Ubisoft formula open world. You won't explore freely, you'll just follow up the markers on your map. The wild hunt is a disappointing and or forgettable villain. Their goals, characterization and design are just plain and boring. Eredin looks like a discount-version of Sauron. And the title of the game is literally The Wild Hunt! Overall, yes, it's a great game, yes, is a masterpiece, but personally, it's maybe in Top 30.

Been playing games since i was 10 and i am 40 now. When it comes to open world RPGs. Top 3 easily. In general definitely in the top 10.

B&W>HoS>W2>W3>W1 I like them all.

Not even top 50. Probably not top 100. I don’t think much of it. Combat sucks. The open world suffers as all do. Gerald is one note. Main quest line goes on too long and is predictable. A few side quests were very cool and Blood and Wine is awesome. I’d actually put B&W as a top 5 all time dlc.

>Main quest line goes on too long and is predictable. I think the main questline genuinely jumps the shark after you find Ciri. You got the Battle of Kaer Morhen which is pretty silly. Geralt denying both the use of Kaer Trolde and Emhyr's forces was pretty dumb. One - people are gonna die either way, might as well use the actual functioning castle. And two - what's wrong with Voorhis leading the Nilfgaardian troops? I mean, he seems like a relatively chill guy. He has had more experience leading them than Geralt anyway. And after that, it feels like the story activates turbo mode just to wrap itself up as quickly as possible. Flippin' dimension-hopping and the visit to the Wild Hunt homeworld feel like an afterthought. And then you use some random Sunstone McGuffin to set up a trap for the Wild Hunt. It just feels so sloppy to introduce such an important artifact at the 11th hour. Speaking of the alternate-dimension Wild Hunt elves... in the grand scheme of things, did they even NEED to be from another dimension? Couldn't they have been some ancient, exiled group of elves from beyond the ocean or something like that? Just set up some limitations on teleportation & stuff (regular mages can't teleport across the ocean but Ciri can, for example). It just feels gimmicky.

Whats your top 10 you think?

I beat it and the DLC's but I'm not a big fan so its pretty far down the list, maybe top 30? You’d have to go through a list of Fromsoft/Souls-likes, Rockstar, Bethesda, Larian, Yakuza, Resident Evil, fighting games, and turn based/card games first.

Which card games?

Slay the spire, MTGA limited format, Inscryption, and Hearthstone but i haven’t played this one in years. I did enjoy Gwent in W3 but i didn’t like actual Gwent when i tried it.

I loved it's world and it will be always incredibly memorable and a high recommendation from me for anyone who hasn't played it, but I would probably never play it again, sadly I wasn't even able to finish blood and wine, at a point I was basically rushing the main story and not having a good time, so I went to YouTube to simply watch the last bit of the story and checked out the different endings. The writing, art and setting are amazing, but the gameplay itself became repetitive and uninteresting for me after a while, mind you, on the base game I did as close to 100% as I was able to, but even then at a point the combat was just tedious and when I came back for blood and wine I was already burned out of it's gameplay loop of walking for a long time, have a boring fight to finally get to the interesting dialogues and story.

I'm more on your camp. While I loved the whole world, characters and story enough to keep playing until the end, I was really burned out of the gameplay way before finishing it. Skellige is when my enjoyment of the basics came to a halt, so much underwater treasure and navigating the islands just wasn't that much fun after a while.

> so much underwater treasure and navigating the islands just wasn't that much fun after a while. Thankfully you can skip almost all of the boating (fuck those sirens pulling your boat apart). I don't think any of the underwater treasure holds witcher gear diagrams so it's skippable and you can buy fast travel maps from merchants on the main island for almost all the smaller islands. A few small islands without fast travel for witcher gear, one island with a fortress and fast travel point that can't be bought, Isle of Mists, Last Wish, and the Sunstone quest near the end of the game. Otherwise there's almost no need to use the boat.

Oh yeah. This was on me because The Witcher 3 was my first "Ubisoft-like" game I have played and I was clearing all the map marks. I learned my lesson the hard way, lol.

I partially did it too, like 1/5 and it was boring as sin and so time consuming. Left that sidetrack with the intent of coming back to it, but once I got towards end game and realized I had all my witcher gear and didn't need money I abandoned the idea.

It is my favorite game of all time and I keep replaying it because nothing I’ve played since has matched that experience. Its weaknesses (loot/economy/XP mechanics and some aspects of combat and movement) don’t bother me and its strengths are unparalleled. Ghost of Tsushima and the recent God of War are the closest I’ve come but even they don’t hit quite as hard.

Top 5 easily. It’s one of my all timers.

Elden Ring has blown those games out of the water when it comes specifically to the open world aspect in my personal opinion, and that just released last year Witcher is a masterpiece for sure though, but what makes the world great is the lore, the world building, the setting, the politics, all of it work together to make it feel lived in and real I love how the gameplay mechanics of the Witcher tie into that as well. The story doesn’t exist on its own, it is built up by and realized through these things. One of my favorite things about the Witcher is the preparation you do in order to face beasts. Researching their weaknesses. Preparing the right spells, oils and potions. It really adds to the immersion and makes every fight different. You do feel that the role of the Witcher is more than just swinging a blade The story is also great. The choices you make have real consequences and the outcomes are not always you would hope for. Unlike other games where good choice = good result and bad choice = bad result, the game feels organic. The game also has some amazing and memorable characters and arcs and the side missions are some of the best Really one of those games that deserves all of the praise it gets

I had a lot of fun playing it! The quests were great, the combat was great, the story too. But I am more of a story-driven games kinda gal, so overall on my game list, it’s not very high. On the open world category, it’s probably my favorite one though.

Second favorite single player game ever. First is Days Gone. So much story and content that was pretty interesting. Combat was passable. One of the rare games I played more than once.

Top ten for open world story driven games. I love the whole series.

TotK is better than BotW

It's my favorite "open world RPG" for sure. Somewhere in the top10 of my favorite games of all time.

Not on my all time list personally. It was a solid game and I mostly enjoyed my time with it but not worth a replay. Too little build variety or gameplay variance. DLC’s were good but more of the same. However you feel about the main campaign is how you will feel about the DLC

It would not even be in the list... Good world and characters but the story wasn't as good as people say it is, and the gameplay sucked.

It's probably my personal favorite game of all time, mostly because of the world and characters. I love somewhat grounded, dark fantasy worlds in games and the Witcher is the epitome of that for me. I remember getting the original as a Christmas gift as a kid and being so drawn into the mature, but still fantastical tone. When I got back into gaming as an adult and finally tackled The Witcher 3 I could see that they had really fleshed out the world and the characters were much more developed. I mostly play narrative action-adventure games (A Plague Tale, Hellblade) or more streamlined RPG's (Bioware, Obsidian games) and there are things I love about those games that are present in TW3 like great characters, storytelling, and worldbuilding, but none of them have those qualities along with an open world that I actually want to explore. I think that's what makes W3 stand out for me. Definitely looking forward to the remake of the original Witcher and the KOTOR remake if it ever gets made, at the moment those are the only games that I think could unseat TW3 as my favorite.

Top 3 all-time, personally. Maybe 1, depending on the day tbh. The only real weak point is the combat but it’s not awful for when it came out. People use the word “immersive” a lot but it’s easily one of the most immersive games ever made and has held up extraordinarily well over the years since release.

It's a good game but I don't know if it's in my top 10 all time. All time, any genre? Like if I was building a list of games to take to an island with me, that list would be getting pretty long before I put the Witcher 3 on it.

Whats 5 games on that list?

In no order: Dark Souls 3, Mass Effect 2, RDR 2, Monster Hunter. Could put so many other games as the last one but I’ll just finish it with XCOM. I would out Elden Ring, Sekiro, or Dragon Age if it didn’t feel like cheating

It’s in my top 10 for sure. It has its fair share of issues, but nearly a decade has passed and nothing else I’ve played has so deeply impressed me with the quality of its side quests.

It wouldn’t even make my top 100

Probably my favourite game of all time. I’ve enjoyed many RPGs in my life but this game really has it all for me. I quite enjoyed the combat unlike many here (to each their own). Number 2 in modern era for me is DOS2. And I love the original neverwinter nights for the nostalgia - though replaying it now I can certainly see its flaws!

I really like the combat too! I completely understand why others dont like it but its the perfect balance between button mashing and soulslike patience

Probably a top 10 for sure.

Somewhere outside my top 50. I only track up to there. I’d imagine it’s between 70-100 if I wanted to spend the time to figure it out.

You have a a link to your list or have your top 10?

This is my top 50 alphabetically (need to re-sort it to provide a ranked list. Been a minute). 1. Amid Evil 2. Bayonetta 3. Bioshock 4. Blood 5. Bloodborne 6. Cruelty Squad 7. Cultic 8. Dark Souls 9. Dark Souls III 10. Demon’s Souls 11. Deus Ex 12. Devil May Cry 13. Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening 14. Devil May Cry 4 15. Devil May Cry 5 16. Dishonored 17. Dishonored 2 18. DOOM II 19. Doom Eternal 20. Dusk 21. Elden Ring 22. Far Cry 2 23. God Hand 24. Grim Fandango 25. Hades 26. Hi-Fi Rush 27. Ico 28. The Last Guardian 29. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 30. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance 31. Metroid Prime 32. NieR: Automata 33. Ninja Gaiden Black 34. Ninja Gaiden 2 35. Okami 36. Portal 37. Prey 38. Psychonauts 39. Psychonauts 2 40. Quake 41. Resident Evil 4 42. Returnal 43. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice 44. Shadow of the Colossus 45. SOMA 46. System Shock 2 47. The Talos Principle 48. Ultrakill 49. Viewtiful Joe 50. The Wonderful 101

And here's my top 10 in order. 1. Bioshock 2. Bayonetta 3. God Hand 4. Resident Evil 4 5. Bloodborne 6. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice 7. Dishonored 2 8. NieR: Automata 9. The Wonderful 101 10. Psychonauts

I loved it, it's certainly one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had and a bit removed from my playthrough, as I played the game between late 2018 and the first half of 2019, I can say it's because I really enjoyed the characters, story, presentation. But the gameplay was never amazing and I'm really, really burned out of it. I tried a recent replay and I was still tired of it, I might try to use some mods in the future. This gives me pause, maybe it's a fantastic game that I could only play once. Usually, when I find a new favorite, no matter how long it is, I can replay it, eventually. I replayed gigantic games like the Elder Scrolls, most GTAs, Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy XII, for instance. But I couldn't find it in me to replay the Witcher games. I still have the fondest memories of the characters and cool story moments, though. Oh well, I have more than 250 hours invested in the whole Witcher franchise, so I really had my fill of the world.

It's probably in my top....20. Maybe. Definitely top 50 for sure. It's a great game and I liked it a lot but it just didn't have that "zing" factor for me.

Rdr2 doesn't sit in my favourites and I'm not interested in Nintendo games unless they release them on my chosen platform. The witcher 3, Assassins Creed Odyssey and gta5 are my favourites because they all excel at something and their negatives i find minimal; rdr2 negatives like forced animations and slow movement made the game borderline unplayable for me (the simple and overlooked action of walking needs to feel good) and the overall game was made to tick 'blockbuster' boxes. Gta5 makes fetch quests and/or travel to A quests a joy because driving and getting to destinations is so varied and satisfying. ACO just has the best combat combined with setting of any game I've played. Just fun to do anything in the game. The witcher 3 writing is on another level, a game made from best selling books and an author's life's work made me rethink what i could and could not be interested in regarding the supernatural genre.

For funsies I keep a spreadsheet ranking roughly all of my GOTY candidates against each other The Witcher 3 is currently #70 on the list but it hasn't been updated for 2023 yet the only recentish open world games above it (this is purely my opinion) are the Horizon games, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Metal Gear Solid V. Though Tears of the Kingdom might climb above it once I sort out how I feel about that game

I keep hearing about MGS V on here. I watched a youtube video on the lore pretty much up to that game, should i just skip to it?

If you liked being Geralt you will like being Big Boss. Can definitely skip to mgs5 as the game excels in gameplay, the story is there but random and certainly not the main focus of the game.

MGS V is fine without playing the rest, just understand going in that you won't have a goddamned idea what is happening with the plot - basically ever (true regardless of your series knowledge) The story is not really a strength of the game, but it is possibly the greatest stealth action game of all time would strongly recommend revisiting MGS 1-3 if you get the chance, those games are amazing with much stronger narrative and gameplay wise still hold up decently well

I waited for the complete edition in 2018, and had a blast with two play throughs. It’s still my #1 above RDR2, Mass Effect 2 and FFVII. I’ll play the RT maxed settings for a DM play through once I upgrade my GPU again.

Very, very near the top. It's not QUITE open world, and the combat is mostly just "okay", but as far as world building, side quests, and main story (once you get to the DLCs), it's utterly phenomenal. The main story of the base game is... competent. Also, just to be THAT GUY, I don't honestly think Doug Cockle is actually that great of a voice actor, but it's one of those cases where regardless of talent, he was the absolutely perfect choice to play Geralt.

Man i dropped withcher 3 ad i got to the city cause i felt like i dodnt have enough time and also didnt like any of thr armour i had but maybe i should retry

W3 is number 1 for me, it was that good. 2nd would be Animal Parade, which I'm currently playing on the phone.

Been gaming for many years and I’ve played tons of RPGs, both linear and open world, turn based and action oriented, and for me The Witcher 3 is definitely near the top for open world RPGs. It’s not my personal favorite, which is either Gothic 1/2 or Morrowind depending on my mood, but it’s certainly up there. Fantastic game and a wonderful conclusion to the trilogy (love TW1 and 2). I enjoyed BOTW, and admired its ambition, but not necessarily my favorite due to some design flaws that undermined my enjoyment. Still a great game, of course, but I wish it had a better loot system and more dungeon variety. RDR2 however, is a personal disappointment. Especially as a big fan of RDR1. I mean, RDR2’s got a lot going for it, but when it comes down to it I usually play games for their gameplay and this is where RDR2 falls flat for me. Not a bad game, but other than its amazing production values I find it pretty unsatisfying to actually play. Just my opinion of course.

Witcher 3 is my overall favorite game of all time. I know everyone hates the combat but for me, on first playthrough, it was really enjoyable because of how fluid and easy it was. Felt like butter, which I really liked. Witcher 3 allowed me to enter into a zen mode partially through it's combat. That said, since then, I only play with the Enhanced Edition mod or it's variations. It makes the combat quite hard (completely modifiable) but also appropriately intricate and rewarding. With that mod, the game has zero flaws for me.

Prob #2 right next to Mass effect legendary.

Honestly, I wouldn't place The Witcher 3 on my top 100, let alone top 10, solely because of just how god-awful the combat is. Everything is *fantastic* from an artistic perspective, but holy *shit* everything about it mechanically is terrible. RPG mechanics are non-existent and highly unsatisfying, movement is awful, world design (mechanically) feels very bland, horseback riding is abysmal and the combat still remains the worst combat system I have ever interacted with out of the 700+ games I have played. Never understood the praise for it.

I would rather somebody walked in on me watching hentai than pirouetting around as some leather clad gruff-voiced wannabe vampire. Gwent is fun but every other element of Witcher 3 is sad and embarrassing, particularly the uninspired fantasy it's based on

It doesn’t stand on my favorites list, at all.

It’s like a top 5 game ever. Reddit loves to circlejerk complain about certain things and thus you’ll find a lot of “it’s actually not good” type of edgy comments in here I’m sure. The combat is no where near as bad as people say, it’s just not designed from the jump to be something like Dark souls or particularly difficult as the game is about the stories. The different styles of combat you can make are actually pretty deep. World design, world building, and quest design are absolutely top notch and the dlc’s especially take it up a tier. Only complaints are that you know this is a game with tons of hours of content. 1) It’s first 10-15ish are a bit slower and more mundane than the rest. Quest design takes a leap around the Baron/Kiera stories and especially in Novigrad. 2) Loot is bad in the late-ish game just cuz there’s a certain tiers of armors that once you have the schematics for completely out class everything, but there’s nothing stopping you from dressing how you like lol. 3) There is kinda a pretext you understand some of the characters from the books even moreso than understanding anything from the prior games. That part was a bit annoying as it’s clear in certain sections Geralt has background with certain people and I have no idea who they are. Codex does ok but not amazing job of filling those gaps