I just completed the main story, got a good ending with the ideal world state I suppose but perhaps not the ideal character state. And yeah I think we should talk about how it stacks up relative to the best games of all time. This game is certainly the best game of the year, I don't think any sane person could dispute that even though the year's not done yet. But it's probably also better than literally every game that came out last console generation. I looked at an old list of mine (and an amusing thread) and apparently I put San Andreas at number 4 at the time as it was the best open world game. I think the Witcher 3's better. So it basically comes down to virtually perfect games that are definitely better, i.e. Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, Vagrant Story, Starcraft... and that's about it. You can say Tetris I suppose but Tetris has always been a cop out. Obviously there's other contenders like Metal Gear Solid 3, Super Mario World, Link to the Past, The Last of Us, and Souls Game X but I don't find those games quite reach the perfection plateau. So the game is better than everything in the past 10.5 years or so, that seems pretty good to me.

It's my favorite open world game ever, but I find it really hard to compare games of different genres.

I find Bayonetta, for example, more fun than The Witcher 3, but is it better? I dunno. It's super subjective.

@viciousbearmauling: Game's big doe! 2011 GoTY arguments ahoy! To be clearer I think The Witcher 3 has perfectly competent gameplay and the best storyline/characters ever in a western game and the sum of all parts is relevant. Open World games have an unfair advantage just due to scope, however most of them fall well short of actually capitalizing on those advantages so it doesn't make a ton of difference in the long run, but this game in particular never fails to impress.

I enjoy Bloodborne and Rocket League on a moment to moment basis more than Witcher 3 but I don't have a compelling drive to just keep playing them for extremely long periods and that's what a good storyline provides.

In the case of Bayonetta or Vanquish or even Bulletstorm I really enjoyed playing those games but that doesn't mean I couldn't spot the obvious flaws that they had (Alfheim Portals/QTEs in Bayonetta, the story and characters in Vanquish (which certainly had potential), the uh... fine Bulletstorm is pretty good)

It's mostly excellent, but not nearly as revelatory as some people think it is.

We've told repeatedly that in order to have an open world RPG, we need to sacrifice depth of narrative as well as creativity in quests. After all, it's a big, big map and they have to fill it with so much stuff. The thing is, Wild Hunt disproves that with great enthusiasm. You can take the main quest and hold it up to any other game in the genre, let alone open world, and it'll trounce all but one or two. Not only that, but we've been suffering side quests that have been, for so long, nothing more than fetch quests dressed up in one or two lines of dialogue. "Hero! please help me do X!" and "Hero, thank you for doing X!". We've been told that this is the height of depth in side quests, and Wild Hunt says otherwise. Not only is each side quest treated with the care and craft of the main quest, but each side quest weaves in and out of the main story so deftly that you'd be hard pressed to figure out just where one ends and the other begins.

Combat in RPGs have been a challenge since the isometric, party-based format was abandoned. Many a studio have struggled to figure out how to make combat challenging, fun, and a treat in and of itself. Usually what happens is a developer goes too far in one direction over the other, and as a result we have shooters and melee fighters playing dress up with an RPG skin. Wild Hunt strikes the perfect combat between number crunching and responsive gameplay. It's a great melee combat system that has nothing to do with Batman Arkham games. Let that sink in for a moment. Wild Hunt features its own style of combat, and nothing else plays quite like it. That is one hell of an achievement in this day and age.

Crafting is simple enough, but still peppered with enough nuance as to keep anyone invested in finding the next tier of Witcher Gear, or tracking down that last Verbena to craft Superior Monster Slaying Potion. Each of the three skill trees (Swordplay, Sign, Alchemy) are full of depth and robust enough to offer unique methods in dealing with mobs. Sign builds don't play like Alchemy builds, and Alchemy builds don't play like Swordsman builds. It's actually worth it to find your niche and exploit it.

Those are just some of the reasons I can think of as to why Wild Hunt is a truly fantastic game. It's a landmark in the genre, something that will be talked about with reverence the same way Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate II are. The fact that it took 15 years for a game to throw its elbows into those two titans and force them to make room is rather sad, but fuck it, someone finally did it.

It's a fantastic game, but I put it down for now to enjoy the summer.

The combat on the toughest difficulty is tense and tactical. The main story is well done. The side stories are well done. The characters kick ass. The art and creature design is great. The music is fantastic. The game has soul. The RPG stuff is satisfying. There's a ton to do, but it doesn't feel tedious. Geralt is a cool protagonist.

It's great and it's something special because it does so much so well. And it's the one game I'll keep booting up all the way to the end of the year (MGS, Tomb Raider, and Halo being the only roadblocks. And the aformentioned summer)

Neh, I'd easily put USFIV and FE:A above it. UMvC3 and P4G too. Probably TLoU. Not to mention that I fully expect RB4 and and MGSV to actually be fighting it out for the #1 spot come year's end. Definitely a great game, near the top from the past 2 gens for sure, but I feel perfectly sane in disputing its "best of year" status. I could do that based on gameplay alone, and even if most of the core story is great, when you stretch it out over 100 hours it really dilutes the impact.

@starvinggamer: So many acronyms! I think if Through Time and Space was an Indie game instead of a quest in the Witcher 3 it would probably be on GoTY lists by itself.

@fredchuckdave: Spelling complete words is hard! Also really? That quest seemed significantly more uninspired than most. You never visited any of the worlds long enough to care and the payoff was hardly exciting.

I have it as my GOTY this year, really in its own tier. Just an awesome game. I've actually been screwing around a bit lately and working on making a list of my favorite games of all time. That my personal favorites, not the objectively "best" games of all time. The list is far from finished but right now I have Witcher 3 as my #10. As far as open worlds go, I have it behind Fallout 3 and Skyrim, but I could see it beating them out as well

I never expected a new game to beat out all of my past favorites, but after 3 playthroughs its easily my favorite game of all time. Obviously experiences will differ, but this game just hit every mark for me. It's exactly what I want in a game and I didn't even know until I played it. They haven't even put out their expansions for it yet. CD-Projekt Red had a good history of supporting the past two witcher games so I expect they'll only improve as they go. So yeah, you'll get no disagreements from me. I'm up for praising the witcher. To be honest, I can't imagine any open world games surpassing this anytime soon. The standard has been raised significantly, and its going to be hard not to notice when games fall short of the new mark.

@starvinggamer: For a game that reuses a lot of assets just due to budget constraints I found it pretty surprising, also while they could have made it 2 hours long I think it was sufficient to get the point across (i.e. a demonstration of Ciri's daily activities). Payoff was fine I think, though the payoff in the Witcher is just more really good dialogue as always. If you're talking about the Eredin flashback specifically then sure whatever but that's not really what makes the quest good. You get to see the Aen Elle as they look normally and wonder why Avallac'h is so short.

It wasn't drinking at Kaer Morhen or anything but it's definitely something I could see being stretched out for a couple hours and hailed as a visionary masterpiece (not to say it deserves that praise inherently) were it a different game in and of itself, provided it didn't have a AAA publisher.

Yes, it is that good. It is currently the best game of the year and easily among the best games of the last decade. I hadn't been playing the game that long when it just felt like a classic.

I've just completed it after 200 some hours death marching over every square inch of that map and still have some things to do (I keep POIs hidden mostly) but I'm mulling over NG+ now so who knows.

The Witcher 3 doesn't really introduce brand new elements to open world rpgs but it masterfully and artfully elevates some of these elements well fucking beyond what they had been before. In general, the game is so cohesive and natural as a world it's just stunning. It feels like a game world that has just been there, for ages. You know, gone over with a fine tooth comb, full of "authentic" detail. It's lived in and creaky, but it's very charming too.

Well I love it anyways.

There is only MGSV, which, in my eyes, could possibly dethrone The Witcher 3 as GOTY, and it's truly a shame they have to go head to head in my heart this year.

@fredchuckdave: I guess for me the asset generation was the only thing that seemed notable about the entire experience.

EDIT: Not to pick too many nits or anything. Great game.

Managed to cop a pc key from someone who didn't want it, bout to start this up.

I pretty much have to agree with everyone's praise about this game except for the few things that really bother me in this game.

The horse... my god what a waste of memory and potential in my mind. Even with all the updates, I still dread using Roach to get anywhere. Obviously the horse is pretty necessary to get around in the Witcher 3, but that doesn't mean it's fun... It's just a cumbersome mess that shouldn't be looked over when it's so poorly designed. Not to mention just how boring the horse is implemented in this game. It's named and it's sort of a character I guess...? But it doesn't really do anything else but serve as a way of transportation, which makes me think why weren't we given the chance to buy other breeds of horses if they were going in this lifeless direction anyway.

So to further go along, I think the glitches in this are pretty bad. To the point where it kind of gives me a bad taste in my mouth. The first time I played this at launch I was really worried from all the weird shit happening that I was not going to be able to finish some quests due to bugs, but luckily that never happened, but it's still very aggravating having a damn glitch happen when I'm playing this. Just today I was so angry because Geralt for whatever reason refused pull out his silver sword so I could fight off some drowners. Apparently he felt like fisticuffing them all to death, but I was not in the mood for that...

Yes I think Witcher 3 in terms of its narrative and gameplay accessibility and mechanics will be regarded as probably the best western RPG ever. I agree with that, but just like with Witcher 2... it needs some serious loving from the developers first.

Also we still have some pretty big launches coming up here, with MGSV possibly being even better than Witcher 3 and of course there's Fallout 4 also, but I feel that's in a different category than these third person open world games in my opinion.

It's pretty good but I think the combat falls flat sometimes. Just like Witcher 2, you pretty much have to rely on Quen. Also, the stuff that happens in Novigrad is generally uninteresting. The main story just comes to a standstill.

REally good. Game of the year material!
Certainly the best open world game up to this point.
Does it beat some other things in their influence.. probably not. But I would say the witcher is an achievment.

The massive open world looks fantastic with all the foliage and stuff going on, but it plays kind of bad in my opinion. I think it's miles better then let's say Dragon Age Inquisition, but still nothing special. I'm still playing once in a while (in Skellige now, level 18), but only if I got nothing better to do. Not like Bloodborne and Batman where I would wake up early just to get some more hours in.

Even after patch 1.8 on PS4 it still doesn't feel like a very polished game to me.

@whitestripes09: The horse is actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it, that's not to say it isn't a complete disaster but it does get better after a while. Doing the races and stuff (which I forced myself to do so I could get the saddlebags earlier :P) does make it easier. If you're having trouble with a big group of enemies the horse comes in handy because you can just sprint through them and one shot a few people along the way (and repeat as necessary). With regards to the horses character I'm pretty sure Geralt mentions somewhere that every horse he has is called Roach (and that I think has more to do with Geralt's character than the horse's). Also I feel sorry for you, I came across absolutely no big bugs. I did get the fist thing happen to me a few times but you can easily fix that by running away a bit and then taking out your sword so it's really no big deal.

@fredchuckdave: Best game of the year? Sure. Better than literally everything released on last gen? I wouldn't go that far, and I really enjoyed it.

It's really ambitious and does a lot of things really well, but simultaneously it does a lot of things really weirdly. I would say The Wild Hunt is one step away from a really amazing game but they need to tighten up the controls, expand the combat and hire some good UI designer because man, even on PC that inventory screen is just not great.

In terms of open world games I still think Red Dead Redemption is overall a better experience from beginning to end and probably my favorite game of the open world variety.

Easily hangs in a overall top 3 games of all time for me, one of my favorite stories in any form of entertainment.

About this good: *makes complicated, dance-like hand motions*

When people talk about "best games of all time" I think there should always be a generous buffer between the release (or even full completion) of a game and putting it up for consideration. Ergo, it is way too early to talk about The Witcher 3 in that way.

Like a lot of other posters, I found the writing to be the best part. The combat started to drag for me after awhile though. I played a very dodge/counter-attack orientated build but outside of fighting humans, I was constantly casting quen, making my investment in dodging kind of trivial. I probably should've bumped up the difficulty (I was on normal).

That aside, I think it is a truly great game. Definitely one of the most memorable gaming experiences I've had.

Finished the game the other day and I think it's the first game since the Mass Effect trilogy to really make me care about the characters and their relationship to each other. And many of them felt fleshed out and had personalities of their own that were more than just a piece of a story. Even the world feels complex and lived in. The complex social structure of Novigrad, the fervor at witch Skellige residents proclaim you should respect their customs, the dogmatic bond to spiritual truths in Velen etcetera. Every place had a personality. And you can't look at the world of of this game and not see a long list of parallells to European history and current events, all of which made the game for me both relatable and gave it the added benefit of not necessarily having to be explicit about some things.

I did every side quest I could find, all the contracts and was grinding question marks at the end of the game just to get to level 34 so I could get my master crafted wolf's armor. I don't think I've willingly spent this much time with a game before and pushed off finishing the main story just to do some other stuff. And even with all that, I am still not tired of the game. Might even consider doing a NG+ if I have the time. But it's definitely one of those places I could go back to just to hang out.

Also, the ending I got has haunted me for a few days. It was good but horribly bitter sweet in a way that made me feel both good and bad at the same time. Which is probably a first in games in general.

It was okay. The controls and handling were imprecise and mediocre and I found much of the dialogue uninteresting. The combat was too simple, the traveling got tiresome sometimes and I liked The Witcher story better when it wasn't about saving the world. I deleted it right after the ending. I don't think I'll play it again.

It's pretty great but definitely one of the most overrated games of all time. I also had a better time with Dying Light and that came out this year.

It's damn good.

Best game of the year? No. Best game of the year is easily Bloodborne. No one will argue against Witcher 3's story, but in terms of gameplay and raw emotion Bloodborne has everything beat. Hawkeye Gough's quote from Dark Souls always comes to mind when I think about my feelings with Soul games. "Exhiliration, pride, hatred, rage… The dragons teased out our dearest emotions…Thou will understand, one day."

It's what I feel when I play those games and no other series comes close to that feeling.

Its a quality game, but i wouldn't say the main story was anything to write home about. I found the smaller stories in the side quests much better.

Game of the year, uncontended and highly likely to be game of the gen.

Easily the new ceiling for open world games or narrative driven RPGs.

I don't necessarily think The Witcher 3 redefines the western RPG formula in any new and exciting ways, I think it's simply a good one of those. Where I think it excels is in the world building and storytelling, of which I would definitely call it a landmark in gaming.

Until Fallout 4 and MGS V comes out (though the issues surrounding Konami pretty much leaves a bad taste), this is pretty much ahead of all the games I've played this year so far. Its not redefining anything but its doing all the things we know of open world RPGs and does it very well. I'm currently going back to play it with New Game+.

Also Roach > DA:I Horse. HOLY SHIT was that horse so fucking slow. I can get around a map faster by switching to a mage that had that Ice spell that could zip them across the map and you can't fucking ping for items while you are on that fucking horse. FUUUUUUUCK.... still enjoyed DA:I though but I eventually got distracted by other games and sadly never went back to it.

It's definitely my favorite game in that genre. It dethroned KOTOR for me, so that's a big deal. KOTOR was also my favorite game overall, so I guess that makes The Witcher 3 the best game I've ever played? Huh. For those arguing its "just another western RPG" I would counter by saying it provides good answers to the questions that genre has been asking for a while. It's not a paradigm shift, but the template it created is significant and will have a lasting effect on the genre. Namely on how to create an interesting open world environment and how to tell a complex, detailed story within that universe. Instead of walking the tired tropey lines of "hero out to save the world" the Witcher 3 puts you in the shoes of a compelling but relatively under powered protagonist. Geralt is constantly fighting with forces that are frankly beyond his grasp, from politics to supernatural entities, not to mention his own personal history. The game world is positively littered with jobs to do, people to meet, creatures to kill, etc.

For me Geralt has always been a conduit for reaching the infinitely vast universe of The Witcher. Instead of using the world to tell a story about Geralt, CDPR use Geralt to illuminate small pieces of the world. The game left me with the impression that I was just scratching the surface of Geralts world, and that's something I rarely get from other Western RPGS. The goal is usually to make the player feel "special" somehow, with the game world tailored to the generally overpowered player. Just compare the world building and story arc in TW3 to some recent games in the genre and you'll see the difference immediately (Mass Effect, Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim, etc).

edit: side note, I doubt this game will get GOTY talk here since basically nobody on the crew seemed to take the time to play it. It was really disappointing hearing Jeff rail on the controls and ignore literally everything else the game has to offer. Hopefully Dan will pull a Brad this year and convince everyone else that's its actually a great game.Though GOTY will probably come down to that Destiny expansion and CODBLOPS 27 or something like that...pity, but thats the way it goes.

It was the definitative conclusion to the story I had been helping it tell me (via my choices) since the Witcher 2 (which is where I think it really starts to pick up). I got, what I consider to be, the best possible ending for every character I cared about, and exactly the story-book, happy, wrap up that I look for it fantasy escapism.

Which I admit is a bit of a depature from the game, in the end I don't think the ending I got would at all be considered canon? But for me, it was exactly the story I wanted to tell. So..spoilers

To me, having never read the books and only playing off the games. This was an extended love-story between Geralt and Triss, and the world around them going into chaos. With the introduction of the new characters, to me, I played it from that stand point. Ciri was Geralt's just remembered long lost daughter. Through-out the entire game I had his approach to her, then, match the one I began to write for himself, and the one I figured such afather would teach a daughter. Its her life, its her choice. Will I give her over to this or that group? Only if she decides too. Will I try to stop her from fulfilling her ultimate destiny? I would make it clear I didn't want to lose her, would make it clear she did not have too..but then would stand aside when she made her choice. Would I support her going off on her own to get revenge? Why yes I would. And on and on. And, of course, since during the Witcher 2 I decided early on that Geralt's entire point was purely "I am doing things for myself" in that case "To save the woman I love" I played it out as a romance story, and in that game as in the witcher 3, got the exact ending I like my romantic escapist fiction to get. Just as the Ciri ending I got was exactly the way that I want a 'For the world, I will give all I have" character to be rewarded. Ciri got everything she indicated she wanted, Geralt did, Triss did. Those were the 3 I cared about, and they got their happy endings for me. That I ended up putting the world in a state I was pleased to see friends Geralt had made along the way (and who stood by him in time of great crisis) put in a happy place as well? Why, that was good too.

So ,since I ended up with exactly the ending I wanted, just as I did with the witcher 2, and since it was a build up of that game, and based on choices I had made based on how I decided I would have the character I was playing roleplay/think and such? The witcher 3's story was a consistent narrative, and exactly what I wanted.

So how good was it? It was bloody great. Hand's down game of the year so far without question. Still some games that might knock it off but..I doubt it, I highly doubt it. If I could have as many games like this to play as I had free time from now until I die, I would never have need to buy any other games ever again, I enjoyed it that much.

And now, with the new game+, when I am ready to see how it would go if I make some different choices..I get to do that too.

So yah, I loved it, tl;dr Best game evar.

The Witcher 3 is a very, very good open world fantasy game, but I also think that it wasn't the greatest thing ever. The story just gets worse once you leave velen (it picks up again for a short while later though), the combat is never very good, and it had one of the least satisfying endings I can recall in recent memory. Also Ciri's voice acting is kind of annoying.

But yes, it's definitely a great, but I think it tends to get blown a little out of proportion.