The catch is that being surrounded by so much great stuff makes the dodgier moments all the more noticeable - often unfairly. "You! Is there a reason Yennefer doesn't comment on the current state of Geralt's beard in this scene?" "It's. Honestly, it's an almost irrational level of detail, to the point I'm convinced that CD Projekt's definition of Quality Assurance is a team of guys with spiked whips. One of my favourite little touches is that you have a spell that lets you pull a Jedi Mind Trick on characters, but if you do it to a guy while his friends are there, they're just going to start going "Wait, what the shit? Kill this guy, he's brainwashing Dave!"
Characters will remember former lies told even if you don't. Quests and character interactions simply flow naturally, with an off-handed comment or decision from hours earlier having equally natural effects - a guard who remembers you massacring your way into his boss' HQ for instance, or some heavies showing up in the street to get revenge for a priest you insulted. There're no icons next to dialogue options to tell you what'll happen, no "Clementine will remember that" flag. Never before, for instance, has there been an RPG so reactive, yet so content to hide the mechanics. Wild Hunt is so grounded, so good at world building, so subtle in its cleverness that after a while, it simply is. Time and time again I just had to stop and - in a good way - remind myself of just how good what I was playing actually is. Anyway, don't you have the fate of entire kingdoms to reshape or something? 'Aint no biggie, but thanks for noticing.
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A map that, while full of little icons and collectibles, never feels like Dragon Age Inquisition's awkward offline MMO or Assassin's Creed's pointless filler? Yes, yes, it yawns, reaching for a pint. An open world with the narrative depth and fidelity of a linear game? Well, yes, it muses, sloping off to the pub. There are games that jump up and down, waving and screaming, desperate for you to notice how clever and brilliant they are, and then there's The Witcher 3, as casual about it as its hero Geralt after killing some unstoppable monster. Looking back, The Witcher 3's greatest strength and weakness is how easy it makes everything look.
It's a flawed masterpiece, but make no mistake, it absolutely is a masterpiece - one of the best RPGs ever created, and a true tribute to Sapkowski's stories. It's the RPG that CD Projekt has been working on for ten years now - the first two games in retrospect simply being necessary baby-steps steps on the road to this, the Witcher game of their dreams. In my defence, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt isn't the kind of game you can rush, in any way whatsoever. Goodness, is that the time? And, more importantly, the date? Well, yes.