No. The game doesnt do anything new. Its not perfect. I struggled quite a lot with gameplay. But after I got used to it I really loved it.

What it does it polish what red dead redemption did. The main thing is atmosphere.

1. Tress realistically move. Bushes moves. The world is alive.

2. Nice weather system.

3. Most importantly the world feels real. By real I mean the "earth" is too horizantal in todays games. Yes. In many games theree are mountains or uneven places. But what witcher 3 does actually gives the impression of walking in real world. Whenever I play it I feel part of the game.

I really hope all open world games follow this and tries to improve it.

No, you had to click on a world map to go to different areas. That isn't a good benchmark at all. Still sticking to Skyrim.

Nah the benchmark is GTA V (feels like an actual world), skyrim feels empty a lot of the times. (By empty I don't mean lack of NPCs....)

Yea is a sad bummer on that small part, but each area is huge enough to ignore it to me.  I swear Valen itself seems as big as Skyrim.  And Skellige, which I haven't been to yet looks as big on the map.  Plus I can see another area just as big as those two being a part of one of the new DLC's.  Oh and at least my Horse is faster than me running.

To me it set the bar for side quests in Open World.

I mean just think about a typical Open World game like Assassins Creed.  You just go to a bird cage and click it.  Then you follow the map to the spot and sneak up to your target and kill him.  Rinse and repeat for all that type.  Basically zero story, character interaction.  You walk around and find a random civilian screaming for help and so you kill the guys.  It's just so boring.

Don't even get me started on Skyrims boring quests.  Even the main stories quite boring.

Now there actually is a few places where you do save a person in distress as well in witcher.  They are like the minor minor side quests.  morel ike a a "oh found them"  But neat thing about them is there is usually some letter there that has a little story telling about one of the bandits and his motives or a letter to his wife saying something, ect.  Just something small and neat to make the random saving feel more than it is.

I´m still waiting for a great open world game where the gameplay doesn´t feel clunky as hell (specially on combat), where you don´t spend half of your playtime  watching menus, where the story is not extremely unestructured, where you don´t feel totally disoriented everytime you leave the game for a week and where you don´t need to spend 5 hours everytime you play to have a satisfactory and engaging experience.

All those are flaws that I see on every open world game that I´ve played and everytime i have less tolerance about them. Sadly The Witcher 3 doesn´t improve any of those things, the world and the writting are pretty good though. I have hopes for Zelda, because that kind of gameplay can be perfect to solve most of those chronic flaws of the genre, but we´ll see.

Even though I love the game I have to disagree:

1. Yeah, the moving trees are nice, but sometimes ridiculous how far they bent to the side. 

2. Yeah, nice weather but nothing revolutionary.

3. Yeah, the world feels alive and at least the quests are probably the best in gaming so far.

But the Witcher also has many, many flaws in some basic things. 

Combat is just horrible. With or without the aim locked in it is just as mess and the camera sucks as well in the moment you fight on tight grounds. 

The horse ist awful. I'm getting stuck at invisible walls all the time. Can't ride through Novigrad without stopping every time, riding a bit back and then passing the 'wall'. 

At some point the world is a bit too scripted. I know, these scripts make many quests seem pretty atmospheric and nice. But at some points it also destroys immersion, like Yennefer talking with me about my beard - right after I shaved it - and stuff like that. 

The world, as alive as it feels at some points, is also pretty empty. I have quite a lot of Villages that are just copy & paste and don't even got quests for me. Also I don't find any remarkable places. I remember many things and places from other RPGs something I can't say about the Witcher so far (about 40 hours in). Even Novigrad is just a big pile of many, many houses. There is probably no place I will really remember.

This sounds mean but really: if we are talking about quest design the Witcher 3 really is the new standard. And I expect every following big RPG to get away from those low quality bullshit side quests. But there are too many problems this game has - at least in my eyes. 

People complaining about Witcher's combat and yet praising GTA5, lol

The irony.

So, visual benchmark? OK. The gameplay is at the other end of the spectrum

Visual Benchmark agree, but gameplay some people might not agree, but for me i haven't played (still waiting the physical copy i ordered on my regular store)