I'm 10 hours into my forth playthrough and my mental is complete Dogshit so my finding enjoent out of this is baffling to me. I can't find joy in anything else but this game, regardless of nostalgia is just something else on Death March while taking a leisurely pace and being at least a semi completionist. 

Many game have tried to follow it's blueprint, mainly Assassin's Creed post the Egyptian one but in over a decade no game has gotten to the same level. The sub genre is kind mercy cause it's not just an action open world nor is it an action RPG truly but a middling of the two. Rockstars RDR2 came close but it still doesn't eclipse it. Elden Ring nearly but it doesn't quite match the subgenre as ER is way more RPG focused. I struggle to name a game that beats it. Ghost Of Tsushima and quit few more. 

In your opinion what makes this game unmatched? 

.

Also, with the Next Gen Patch the game holds up so well. Like a Kojima game. 

What made it shine for me was the way every little place and sidequest told a compelling story, with even the side stuff written with a level of detail and interest most games can't boast even in their core questline. I wanted to explore this world and interact with these characters because they were so well fleshed out.

I do wish its physical world was as interactive as its narrative, but that's a minor quibble in the face of all that it gets right.

Incredible world building.
Godtier OST.
Amazing likeable characters.
Gorgous and fast world with lots to see and a attention to detail.
Side quests that are stories on their own.
Meaningfull choices.
Gwent.

By far the BEST open world game i ever played.

Back around that time all eyes were on Bethesda to deliver the big immersive sandbox, as Skyrim (4yrs prior) would cement itself into gaming myth. But unfortunately 4yrs after Skyrim Bethesda would show zero progression in their game design and really highlight how stuck in his way Todd as a game director really is  and that would be fine as Fallout 4 is a perfectly mediocre game but in the same year Witcher 3 launched. A game that shows a generational improvement to game design. CDPR really would knock Bethesda into irrelevancy by creating the most immersive open world of the entire Gen 8 and honestly even by today’s standards it’s still one of the very best. Nobody does it better in terms of Characters (design & VA), world design, OST and immersion better than CDPR (don’t @ me idc). Witcher 4 is gonna be generational.

I’ll admit I never played any of the Witcher games.

But I’ve read all of the books, except for the latest one.

Is there anyone here that had read the books before playing the games and how did you feel about the games coming in from the books?

I ask this because from what I read in forms of praise on the internet, it always seem to come from people not even knowing there are books that predate the games or people discovering the books after the game.

At least the games don’t seem to bastardise the books in the way the Netflix series, past S1, did.