Witcher 3 overrated. Nowhere near Skyrim

10 hours into witcher 3 and while i think its a good game. I also think its grossly overrated and misleading on pregame advertising in that its supposed to be a huge open world with no loading times. When in reality its not that open worlded, but a series of maps that do require loading times to travel between, much like inquisition. In fact this game is very similar to inquisition in alot of aspects. Which was also a good game.

But. I was expecting something new and amazing with perfect review scores and all the hype. I am severely let down. I will take a last gen skyrim over this for a few reasons.

1. The one map open world of skyrim was amazing.

2. The quests and dialogue of skyrim is unmatched, from killing an orphanage headmaster, uncovering mage school plots, thieves guild quests, demon quests, cisero lol, on top of the main storyline, etc.

3. 1st person is awesome. Even the dull melee combat of skyrim feels fun in 1st person. But ofc using magic was much more fun and varied.

4. Level system in skyrim is also unmatched imo. Even inquisition had a better leveling system imo.

Witcher 3 has good graphics, good story n quests, good combat, good crafting, etc but just doesnt live up to its hype nor surpass skyrim in any way for me. What u guys think?

You said it my brother

Whoever said it would have no loading times? I don't remember that claim. And anyway, what made you think a game called Witcher 3 would play exactly like Skyrim? Because CDR said it's as big as Skyrim? That's not the same thing as saying "Our game is Skyrim 2" which is what you seem to be claiming it meant.

@Wickerman777:

Not sure how u got that out of my post. If anything its an inquisition 2.

my skyrim comparison was made because skyrim was simply amazing and unlike anything else when it came out. I was expecting the same type of "amazement" from witcher 3 based upon the reviews and hype, not a direct gameplay sequel. Sorry if i didnt make that clear.

Well, with the exception of the PS3 version (Which is a tie) Skyrim has a higher metacritic average than Witcher 3 so what's the problem? I personally don't agree with that, I like the Witcher games more, but critics are agreeing with you.

The dialogue in Skyrim was horrible. I love it to death but hells no it did not have good dialogue. It was horribly acted too. Worst part of the game.

@Wickerman777: good point. didnt know that

@colbycadwell:

:) Well, if this game is nowhere near Skyrim then FORGET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because I don't think Skyrim was even that good!

Seriously? Let's see...

1. The Witcher 3's main map is much larger than Skyrim's, it's totally seamless (unlike Skyrim, which hid dungeons and indoor locations behind loading screens), it features a much more detailed, realistic and varied setting than Skyim, the modes of transportation are significanty better than Skyrim (with improved horserisding and boats). And so on, etc.

There are also a few smaller maps, which are still pretty big, but separated by small loading screens. That's for story and lore reasons - there's no way they could include them all in one big map, since it would take months of sailing/riding to get anywhere.

2. Skyrim's quests were crap, and featured little-to-no actual roleplaying. It was an unusually weak effort even by Bethesda standards, and Bethesda's writers are some of the worst in the mainstream RPG industry. Meanwhile, The Witcher 3's writing is improved over the previous games in the series, and I think it's safe to say that the dialogue and quests are the best of any open-world RPG (from what I've played so far).

3. 1st person is great in Skyrim - especially because the third person mode has terrible animations and looks very clunky. The Witcher series uses the third person camera well. Also...you're Geralt. He's a Witcher, not a magician. You can still make him a completely viable spellcaster and focus all of his skill points on his signs, but it isn't really the focus of the series.

4. How did Skyrim have a good levelling system? Enemies levelled with you, and you could be a master of all trades, making both levelling and your skill choices totally redundant. Meanwhile, the Witcher 3 has an actual feeling of progression, and a really interesting skill tree to explore (which you cannot master all at once).

Anyway, I enjoyed Skyrim, but mainly because it was a decent action game full of hilarious bugs. Still, it probably wouldn't even be in my top 50 RPGs of all time. It's simply full of flaws at every turn.

Meanwhile...I'm loving The Witcher 3. 13 hours in, and I honestly have nothing bad to say about the game. It is spectacular.

@quatoe: in dialogue i guess i mean moreso the story/quests. Not the voice acting. Cuz ya. Skyrim could of used alot more voice actors lol

Yeah, that's the thing about Bethesda games ... they're great as making these huge worlds and the games are fun but there isn't as much personality to them as some other games. Little details tend to be on the bland side. Much of the time the huge scale of them puts them ahead of other games despite lacking in the finer points, like natural sounding dialog. What impresses the hell out of me about Witcher 3 is that it's huge AND has the personality of small games. That's an accomplishment.

@colbycadwell: Yeah hearing the same voices over and over again drove me mad.

@Planeforger:

1. Wrong. All the maps in the witcher 3 are maybe 1/5th of skyrims map at best. And i actually prefer fast travel in skyrim compared to having to run to a signpost in witcher

2. Ur opinion. Ive never seen any game come anywhere near as good as the quests in skyrim. Even topping Kotor when it first came out

3. Ok. Then that rlly makes the witcher combat mundane

4. Skyrims leveling is fun for me since u level up the more u use skills and have complete freedom to mix and match n experiment and level as u plz. I think the skill trees in witch are horrible. Or any game that forces u to raise the same skill 5 points just to get to the next branch. Seems like needless boring padding.

I really liked Skyrim, it's a fun exploration/adventure game that offers little to no challenge. To me the ES series can continue down that path and I'm OK with it. But this is the Witcher series, nothing to do with ES, particularly to Skyrim. Honestly it's really weird reading people complaining about this game, and most of the criticism tends to be that "the Witcher 3 is nothing like X game".

Regarding the reasons you pointed out

1. The one map open world of skyrim was amazing.

- How can you say this? Skytim is filled with loading screen. Cities/Houses/Caves have loading screens. The first time I've played it was on console and some screens took minutes to load.

2. The quests and dialogue of skyrim is unmatched, from killing an orphanage headmaster, uncovering mage school plots, thieves guild quests, demon quests, cisero lol, on top of the main storyline, etc.

- Some quests in Skyrim are fun but most of them are completely linear. And the dialogue and voice acting is poor. The main story is probably the worst thing in that game IMO. And some quests broke the game.

3. 1st person is awesome. Even the dull melee combat of skyrim feels fun in 1st person. But ofc using magic was much more fun and varied.

1st person was cool, and 3rd person was basically broken. This is a matter of preference but to me the combat in the Witcher 3 is much more interesting and challenging.

4. Level system in skyrim is also unmatched imo. Even inquisition had a better leveling system imo.

I give you this one, the levelling system was really cool.

1. No. The Velen-Novigrad map is reportedly over 3.5 times the size of Skyrim. Skellige is apparently huge as well.

The smallest location is the tutorial area, White Orchard, which...is still pretty decently sized.

As for the fast travel system...I can't comment on it, since I haven't used fast travel at all.

Still, TW3's horse-riding is definitely better than Skyrim's - the automated galloping system is awesome, the ability to call your horse from any location is very handy, and you can actually fight while on horseback (which Skyrim didn't have at launch).

2. That isn't just my opinion - most people here seem to agree with me.

What I really disliked about Skyrim's quests were how they didn't let you roleplay at all. For example, with the Fighter's Guild quest, you don't get the choice to side with the werewolves. With the Mages Guild, you become archmage even if you're a dumb orc barbarian. With the civil war...you can stab the opposing leader in the head and he'll still welcome you into his home afterwards. You don't really have any choices, and nothing you do matters to the world at all.

3. How is The Witcher combat's mundane? It requires much more skill than Skyrim on the higher difficulty settings; the enemies have varied and interesting combat tactics; the enemies aren't just damage sponges like in Skyrim; and the animations and physics of it all look much bettter than anything Bethesda have ever done.

4. I dislike how Bethesda games allow you to master every skill. They did the same thing with Fallout. In Fallout 1 and 2, you picked a few skills to specialise in, and you sucked at just about everything else. In Bethesda's Fallout 3...you could just max out everything. Your character was exactly the same as everyone else's, and that really hurt the roleplaying and replayability of the game.

I do like TW3's skill system though. You can mix and match and experiment as much as you like, but you can't have every skill active at the same time...so your mixing and matching is actually important.

Also, with many skills, you're not just learning the same skill over and over. Levelling up skills usually unlocks more abilities for those skills, such as the ability to redirect arrows, or knockdown penalties on your Quen sign.

I think you're ten hours in, that's what I think. I'll take this opinion as an ill informed one.

I haven't played this game yet. But even before it came out, I understood as being a different game as Skyrim. Skyrims a much more open sandbox type game, and even though Witcher 3 is non-linear compared to the first two.

I still haven't finished Skyrim, i took a break and that was it. I'll have to start new again someday.

I was confused also with the review of 10/10 on this site. It looks far from being a perfect game. Even on a technical side, its buggy and i heard unless you have a maxwell gpu, you'll have terrible performance trying to max this game.

If you require more than 10 hours to form a informed opinion about a game, you are either dumber than a bag of wet paper or seriously need to work on your decision-making.

But to the OP list you can chunky combat, chunky mechanics that makes you sit back and wonder what the hell.

Witcher 3 is a good game, its big and for fans of the RPG genre, its a good purchase. But it shows that its not made by a AAA studio but a smaller studio that had to cut corners.

Skyrim's quests were largely forgettable and your choices have almost no impact on the world. I think Skyrim was by far the most shallow Elder Scrolls game made, and its storytelling is nowhere on par with The Witcher. Also the combat mechanics are much more sophisticated than Skyrim's "pick a weapon and clicky clicky clicky until everything is just dead". At least if you play on higher difficulty, you have to think about combat. Skyrim does other things well, but so far I think TW3 is vastly superior.

Skyrim (and the Elder Scrolls games in general, going all the way back to Arena) are good examples of "Western"-style RPGs, where customization, open world exploration, and non-linearity take precedence over narrative control. JRPGs are the extreme opposite direction where narrative control is very tight, but that's because the characters are created from the ground up by the writers and (typically) your character has as much dialog as any of the other characters, exploration is often (but not always) somewhat linear and story progression is almost completely a straight line, although sometimes with side activities.

Skyrim is impressive from a technical standpoint, but like all TES games it loses something from a narrative perspective. Yes, it's awesome that each person in the game has a full day/night schedule; every person has a place where they work, live, sleep, eat; and each NPC has its own AI and can decide its own actions. What's lost there, though, is convincing story delivery because the game doesn't really have in-game cutscenes. The game engine will pull you into the "conversation stare" when an NPC is close enough and they talk at you like dead eyed robots. Then when battles or scenes occur they pathfind their way around, often akwardly, in game which is neat from an "emergent gameplay" perspective because no two scenes will always play out the same but from a story delivery persceptive the NPCs don't feel like people compared to something that is much more heavily scripted and mo-capped like a Final Fantasy game or even a story drive FPS like Half Life 2. This is also made worse by the heavily recycled voice actors, although Skyrim wasn't quite as bad in this regard as Oblivion.

"1. Wrong. All the maps in the witcher 3 are maybe 1/5th of skyrims map at best."

Where are you getting that from? Multiple gaming news sites reported on this prior to the game's release, including Neogaf/Reddit users who have been pouring over the assets and doing comparisons.

http://gamingbolt.com/witcher-3-map-size-compared-to-gta5-skyrim-far-cry-4-new-screens-show-different-visual-settings

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/02/05/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-bigger-than-skyrim-30-times-the-size-of-the-witcher-2/

2. Of course this is a matter of opinion, but I would have to give this one to the Witcher series in general (not just Witcher 3). Skyrim has some cool quest trees, for sure. The Guild Quest trees and the Companions were all pretty cool quest trees in terms of story, but beyond that I'd say that the Witcher quest trees are FAR more interesting. No, you don't get to work your way up to eventually become the head of multiple guilds like you can in pretty much every TES game but the quests themselves are a lot more interesting from a narrative perspective. What even more interesting is that the Witcher quests almost all have branching paths and many of them even have failure conditions. Quests in Skyrim are largely linear, have no moral choice with some very binary expections, and are almost all "fetch" quests with combat.

The quests in the Witcher games are typically far more complex. In Witcher 1, there's a quest where you have to investigate a murder. In a TES game, the quest would probably play out by giving you map objective, you got and get something, maybe solve a simple puzzle, then move onto the next objective till you get to the end. If it's a really complex quest, maybe there'll be a choice at some point you can make.

In The Witcher, the quest didn't tell you were to go for all the objectives. You had to investigate, collect evidence, perform an autopsy, and choose who you accused. Finding the right guy actually relied on your character doing real research, like finding and reading a book on autopsy (that you had to find yourself), learning about poisons, talking to the right people, etc. If you didn't do -all- of the things you needed, the game would let you "finish" the quest by accusing who you -thought- was the right person, but you wouldn't even find out you were wrong until later.

Many quests in the Witcher games have branching paths and they are almost all morally ambiguous. Hell, Witcher 2 takes a huge story path branch near the end of act 1 that changes pretty much everything that happens in the next two acts. A lot of quests have failure conditions. Choosing one option in a quest will often have consquences later, quests can be failed if you don't do them in time, you can make a bad choice, etc. Skyrime doesn't have that. Side quests usually sit there forever until you do them, they have no branches or very few and usually only at the end of a big quest line (I.e. some binary choice at the end of a guild line).

Witcher quests are -way- more interesting. Even with almost every minor sidequest I find myself in a situation where I get to the end and I'm like "I don't know if that was a good or bad outcome, or I suspect ___ was lying but I don't know how to prove it" or some similar result.

3. Personal preference. I go back and forth but more often than not I like 3rd person, but neither will make or break a game for me.

4. Two problems with Skyrim's leveling system. It's too easy to "game" the system for fast levels by working up seldom used skills or non-combat skills (i.e. going into sneak mode in some corner of the town and taping your thumbstick up) and scaled monster levels. Besides the fact that it makes no logical sense that the monsters you find anywhere in the game world is determined by what level your character is, it's not a very good system from a balance perspective because it punishes the non-combatives (like alchemists) because no matter where you go the monsters may be more difficult than you can handle.

tl;dr version: Multiple gaming outlets have already been reporting that Witcher 3 is much larger than Skyrim so I don't know where you're getting the idea that it's smaller.

Quest trees in Witcher as deep and branching, often with repercussions, failure states, "success" states that might not be the best outcome because you missed something, etc.

FPS versus TPS is personal preference.

Skyrim uses scaled monster difficulty based on level, which is one of the biggest citicisms the game usually gets.

Please take it easy on the personal insults.

Regarding the comment, I think for a game like Witcher (or Skyrim) it's fair. For games that offer over 100 hours of content, 10 hours might not even be enough to get out of the "tutorial" or early act sections. It would probably be enough time to give you an idea of the overall gameplay mechanics but not the breadth of such a large game.

-Byshop

^^everything master Byshop said

Chunky combat?

Once you get used to it, it's like a faster, more brutal, more complex version of the Batman Arkham series' combat.

Seriously, take on a necker nest on the harder difficulty settings, and tell me that the combat is nothing short of silky smooth.

This.

Thanks for clearing up what I managed to muddle up in two over-long posts.

ugggh i've just abandoned a third failed attempt to get into inquisition so i can make a start on the witcher. this is not what i wanted to read :/

trust me, it's a very different experience from DA:I. It's NOT an "Inquisition 2". The combat mechanics, story-telling, everything is very different. I wish there was a demo so you could see for yourself before putting your money down, but alas those days are largely gone

@xantufrog: now THAT is what i wanted to read ;) thanks dude, can't wait to fire it up for the first time tonight!

@Macutchi: Cool! Hope you like it - I'd be interested to hear your reactions.

Uh oh spaghetti-o's, here comes the "over-rated" calls.

@xantufrog: yeah i'm looking forward to be getting involved in the discussions. judging from what i've read so far it seems people are split on the game overall but the forum regulars whose views i find are generally similar to my own all seem very positive so far so i'm optimistic!

Nah I prefer TW3 over Skyrim by a big margin... TW has a better story IMO.

I don't see how you can compare a game (Skyrim) that came out in 2011 to TW3 which just came out in 2015. Let's wait for TES: 6 before we can compare the games.

Someone who likes to stir the pot, I see. Sigh.. does Colby not realize there are plenty of people who say the exact thing about Skyrim? I heard the same rantings when I used to pay attention to Skyrim forums.

Not when choices you've made in those early hours don't show any consequence until much later as many are intertwined, nor until the combat has been fully fleshed out by upgrade abilities in a timeframe much longer than 10 hours. Yes, ill informed.

Okay, I like The Witcher 3, but comparing it to Arkham's combat is laughable. TW3 lacks the smooth animation and response of any of the batman games. It's a much more refined version of The Witcher 2 combat, but that's basically taking a bad combat system and only making it good.

Im 10 hours into witcher and have played through skyrim. Both have there positives and negatives what it comes down to is whether or not you enjoy them.

Skyrim is for casual gamers. The Witcher is for people who enjoy a challenge.

Skyrim has boring combat. The Witcher has good combat.

They both have good quests and stories. I personally favor the Witcher in this category because choices hit harder and are more controversial. Many of the outcomes are harder to predict, too. The Witcher is just more compelling overall because it isn't hamstrung by having to appeal to a wider audience.

The character customization in Skyrim is obviously great. The Witcher has no character customization other than how you wish to assign skill points. But, I don't see how this adds to the experience because your character is just a vessel used to enjoy the story. The game is almost imperceptibly affected by choosing a different race or sex.

Winner: Witcher. For the fun combat and great story.

Yeah, I would go that far either. I'd say that Witcher 3's combat is the best of the series, but not on par with Batman (a nearly pure action game where combat is most of the experience). The only non-Batman game that has comparable combat is Mordor, and that's because it's combat is a blatant copy of Batman's. Sleeping Dogs is similar.

I haven't played Witcher 2 with the official revised combat patch, though, so I don't know how that compares.

-Byshop

Sorry Mr.Moderator Byshop but the comment wasn´t directed at the poster or anyone in this thread, it was a general hyperbole used to bring a point across. But i understand your correction and will correct my post accordingly.

Also no its not needed to get more than 10 hours into a game like Skyrim or Witcher to form a informed opinion, Games like that rarely change their core gameplay from start to finish or from hour 10 to hour 50 or hour 100. So 10 hours into it is more than adequate.

"2. The quests and dialogue of Skyrim is unmatched, from killing an orphanage headmaster, uncovering mage school plots, thieves guild quests, demon quests, cisero lol, on top of the main storyline, etc."

How can a criticism or comparison of TW3's quests be made with only 10 hours? From what I'm hearing, quest choices you make early on affect late game outcomes. They're intertwined. As I said, an opinion that's ill informed. Unless he's finished the game, to which by his own admission it's only been 10 hours, thanks.....I'll take his comparison of Skyrim's quests as opposed to The Witcher 3's with a grain of heavy salt.

Most of these open world games are very cookie cutter now. Watchdogs had the same sloppy cookie cutter world. The witcher just expands on it and adds rpg elements but its still a mess. GTA, Skyrim were the big ones last gen. It's going to take them an entire gen to get up to speed just because $$$$$$. Sites like the gamespot are just as bad. It's just money and people propagating nonsense that anyone could make with $$$$$. Not very honest or creative. For a bunch of hipsters who think they are creative people they really are just sellouts.

Of the gameplay, sure, but this gets back into the "what's the most important aspect of a game" discussion. For me, gameplay is a part of the equation but not the whole thing. I've played games where I loved it for the first two thirds but it fell apart horribly in the third act. Beyond: Two Souls and Indigo Prophecy are both good examples of that (both by the same company, actually).

I would use "The Last of Us" as an exaple. You could probably beat that whole game in less than 10 hours, but if you played it to say the halfway point you wouldn't understand just how incredibly amazing an experience that game is because (in my opinion) the craziest shit happens in the last two "seasons". In a long running RPG like Skyrim, Fallout 3 and 4, Witcher 1, 2 and 3, etc some of the cracks in the world/concept/quest engine/etc might not show until you get much further along. Also, in these open ended RPGs, there's so much side crap to do you might not even make a dent in the main story while you are still getting your bearings. One of the comments often made in response to criticism of FF13 was that the game didn't really get -good- until about 20 hours in (which is around the point when you could pick your own party members). Granted, I thought that game sucked even after that point so it's not the best example.

But yes, core gameplay rarely changes over the course of a given game. For me, overall value comes from the total package. I'm probably about 4-5 hours into Witcher 3 right now and I'm still in the starter town.

-Byshop

So what part are you are right now?

I think my main issue with these open world games is they are all the same after a while. Skyrim and GTA were the big ones last gen and got about as good as they could. GAmes like the witcher and watchdogs take steps forward but also steps back. Both are kind of sloppy as far as basic controls and attention to detail in areas. Both watchdogs and the witcher have the same issue with very basic mechanics. People can say there is so much going on that's going to happen which is fair enough but even still.

I'd much prefer games that are different and well made. GAmes like this have their issues. They are well made I guess but with the budgets these developers have i'm not that impressed.

The witcher is a more streamlined skyrim. It's more detailed and focused. The stuff to do is more flesh out and organic as far as the story is concerned and stuff to explore. It just has that been there done that feel to it. FAllout 3, Oblivion, GTA IV, Then Skyrim. The witcher 3 and games like Watchdogs are steps forwards and steps back.

Between mass effect 1, 2, 3 the games got more streamlined and fleshed out and detailed. I'm seeing the same here. the game I'm having most fun with right now is Airtech Arena. I can't stand how you just buy units vs progressing but the game is free and it's a good strategy game that is a bit different. I have GTA and WAtchdogs and The witcher on my ps4 and switch between them and just notice the similarities is all. Just huge sprawling open worlds with same kind of structure as far as story. The witcher is an rpg and more like skyrim but even still. IT's nothing that new. IT's more an action rpg. I've played these games enough at this point. Dragon Age etc.. Big budget games that when it comes down to it aren't really any more fun than what i've played before.

The games are becoming more streamlined and fleshed out. Are they becoming better? I don't see anything that new here. With patches the bugs should be ironed out as far as framerates and wonky physics but it is kind of sloppy out of the box.

Give me something new and I'll give it a 10 that's really well made. I'm not seeing it here. There really is nothing 10 or revolutionary about this game. IT's just more of the same and developers selling what sells to the masses with very little guts to do anything else.

GTA gets 10's too. GTA has a huge budget and a huge open world game. Is the game really that good or fun to play? Watchdogs gets panned. GTA gets acclaimed. They are the same basic game. The witcher is more expansive and has had more time to develop. It still has a lot of the same bugs that watchdogs did.

I'm saying The Witcher is to skyrim what Watchdogs is to GTA in ways although the Witcher has had more development time. Gives them room for improvement. I think Skyrim was a better game and more creative as far as the sum of its parts. It was more open and creative. The witcher 3 is more that same formula that developers think people want. It's not a 10 game. It's more streamlined. More action oriented. Less open. Less freedom. More bugs.

Surely ten hours into a game is enough to realise wether you like it or not? Or wether its as good as another game in its genre.

Skyrim is in effect, an FPS shooter with RPG elements. I think people were persuaded to enjoy Skyrim more than they would have if it were an over-the-shoulder game (like the Witchers).

This also explains why Elder Scrolls Online is far less popular, because it doesn't give that shooter feel that lies latent in every Skyrim fan's mind.

That isn't to say the Witcher games are better - I don't think they are, but they're certainly more of a RPG than Skyrim.

The Witcher 3 is an incredibly deep game in its scope of choice and consequence. You need to invest more than 10 hours to see this. Sure, that's enough time to get a feel for the mechanics and whether you like it or not, but when speaking in terms of quests, longevity, and other attributes that RPGs stand on, 10 hours is not an adequate timeframe to come to any substantiated conclusions as to what it fully entails in other areas that are not just user interface related and take time to evolve.

@so_hai:Don't think Skyrim's secrete is being a FPS. I say this because a friend of mine who doesn't plays video games bought a X360 and the game and spent 100+ hours playing always in 3rd person. He really hated the 1st person view.

The thing about Skyrim IMO is that it lets you explore a realm of fantasy. And even the most casual player in the world can enjoy doing so without any kind of challenge. The Witcher combat alone will put many people out of the game. 1st because it will offer a challenge to the casual player, 2nd because even more experienced players will criticise it because it doesn't emulates other known fighting mechanics.

Yet there are people like myself that look at Skyrim as no different from Morrowind or Oblivion, and the game being simple point a to b deals. Looking at the launch period of both these games I'd say Skyrim is the overrated one. Witcher 3 in the very least seems to nail what was going for.

So far, Witcher 3 has a far superior exploration experience than Skyrim ever had.

I absolute agree 100% with you that gameplay is just part of the equation and yes i know that games can pick up or die in the last parts or further along then what 10+ hours might give, if you look at things like story etc. But that does not change the fact that in Witcher 3 and Skyrim and games like that, if you are 10+ hours in , you have gotten a big enough picture of the game to consider if you like it or not, because remember most of us are not professional critics and should play the game to the end. We are gamers and have enough game experience to be able to judge a game fairly quick.

So sure in a open world RPG like Witcher 3 there are tons of side things, there are a fairly large main story line, but most of it is the exact same type of quests, collect, gather, kill and that kind so you do not need to 100 of them to be able to tell anything. And the same thing goes for the main story line, you do not need to do them all or even half to get a impression of the story. So ill stick by that 10 hours is more than enough.