4/5 ★ – MitchellT's review of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Over the past year and a half I’ve read through the Witcher book series and now finished all three games. Over that time it has become my favorite fantasy series ever, with such unique characters and engaging stories that stand out from others of its kind. Coming in at the end of my long journey is The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, bringing with it the culmination of both the game trilogy and the book series. It’s also been lauded as one of the best games ever made, and a landmark title in the open world genre. While it has some immensely satisfying character moments, especially for long time fans, as well as some well written quests and improved combat, I did not find myself in awe of this game like I was hoping to. My biggest takeaway from Witcher 3 was how similar it is to its predecessors. While it looks gorgeous and is absolutely massive in size (we’ll get to that later) it carries the same key identifies of its relatively indie status: repeated canned animations, a short cast of voice actors playing multiple roles, and some jank. While looking considerably better than the first two games, it doesn’t actually play all that differently at the end of the day. And while that isn’t a bad thing, it does kind of conflict with is “masterpiece” status. What I would argue as the biggest flaw of this game is that it’s too damn big. The world is massive and not all that intuitive to navigate, so you find yourself relying on the compass and fast travel to get around. I tried turning off the minimap in an attempt to find my way around the world more naturally, but that’s practically impossible given the way the game is designed. It’s disappointing how much time you spend playing this game looking at the top right corner of the screen, especially because the world is so beautiful. Exploration is just not that fun, and some quests even rely on that damn minimap to complete even if you just need to find items in the world. That fundamental flaw isn’t enough to make me dislike the game, in fact I think it’s quite good, but it does give me a profound sense of disappointment. Having recently re-played Red Dead 2 and finding the exploration so meaningful and immersive I couldn’t help but be dissatisfied with the simple task of going from one place or another. Combine that with a main quest that isn’t interesting for most of its runtime and I couldn’t help but think this isn’t the show stopping masterpiece it’s been built up to be. It’s a game I had more fun experiencing than actually playing, as its portrayals of the world and characters I already loved was joyous for me. My hope is that the DLC fix some of those issues and free themselves from having to be the grand finale.