Witcher 3 is now the benchmark in open world gaming

[SvennoJ]

I'm loving the world and the characters, playing it with the Polish voice cast makes it something special.

However the game play is somewhere between passable and plain bad. Clunky movement, finicky positioning to press x in the exact right spot, camera is the biggest enemy in combat, bad horse controls, bad swimming controls, you frequently get stuck on the scenery as well as the camera, enemies get stuck on trees and the environment, climbing is inconsistent, crafting system is a mess that only weighs your inventory down with the ridiculous number of components you find everywhere, inventory is slow and a mess with no sorting options, text is too small in the menus.

The main quest and some side quests have been great so far, yet I've already spent far more time doing the same old generic stuff. Repetitive points of interest as well as generic kill x quests all over the place. Plus the actual game play in the quests is nothing to brag about either. Witcher sense spot the glowy red things in the right order to trigger the next thing gets old fast.

The frame rate can get so bad at times that combat becomes almost impossible with the wildly moving camera. Don't fight large groups in the rain. The loading times are downright awful. Equipment degrades far too fast, the game would have me repair my sword multiple times in one game day. Shops reset instantly, can't buy back stuff.

Axii is far over powered. I put most of my points in it (lvl 10 atm) and when I charm a lvl 7, he can chop down a shield bearing lvl 16 in 2 blows. Yet my lvl 10 self can hardly touch the lvl 16.

Graphical glitches are not uncommon either. Weird instant weather changes at times, night time environment lighting while the sun is already up, corpses that stick out in the air or through things, trees blowing through walls.

So really it's not much of a benchmark.

It's a testament to how good the characters and writing are that I want to play more. The landscape does look lovely and there's plenty to explore. However exploration is becoming less and less rewarding due to all the identikit villages and points of interest locations. Plus I saw the exact same guy 3 times in a row, twice as a merchant in an identikit village, then as an inn keeper. He could have at least changed his clothes.

I think I'll stop exploring and go back to follow the main quests as the open world game play is starting to put me off the game.