So looking back what do you prefer: The Open world of TW3 or Linearity of TW1-TW2?

[Jou05]

So looking back what do you prefer: The Open world of TW3 or Linearity of TW1-TW2?

I love the open world in TW3 (full of detail and feels very alive, especially love the side quests/stories) but I gotta say the main story was a bit too padded out and too fetchy (in general a bit underwhelming especially the first half)

TW2's linearity made for a much tighter and exciting main story
So I guess both approaches have Pro's/con's

What do you guys think?

 

[Fjolsvid]

it is possible to mix both: generally i like open world more. But it would be better for witcher 3 to have tighter story moments. Quest to search for Ciri starts rather too early. Maybe it would have been better to postpone it a bit ?

 

[Cipher-Six]

Let me start by saying, I love TW3 and I think CDPR made one of the best open-world games ever. But I'd gladly give up that open world in an instant if it meant having another big choice like Roche/Iorveth. If anything, I was hoping for more than one of those choices in TW3. More consequences and radical divergence means a lot more to me than an open world.

 

[Dermax]

I love the open world. I love the contracts. I'm happiest just roaming the world as a witcher, looking for contracts. The story itself isn't bad. And the side quests have more story that a lot of games do. That said, a tighter story can happen on rails. That's just the way of things.

 

[Madoga]

If it's a trade-off, I would've preferred more story, character development and interactions over a big open world.
The new area I enjoyed the most by far was Novigrad - where there is a lot of content packed together in a smaller very well handcrafted and atmospheric area.

Walking around in big open areas is fun for a while, but not really for me.

 

[Jou05]

Let me start by saying, I love TW3 and I think CDPR made one of the best open-world games ever. But I'd gladly give up that open world in an instant if it meant having another big choice like Roche/Iorveth. If anything, I was hoping for more than one of those choices in TW3. More consequences and radical divergence means a lot more to me than an open world.

I expected something like Roche/Iorveth with Triss and Yennefer in this game

 

[sarkocreme]

TW3 is a better game because of all of the improvements, but I much would've preferred TW2's linearity. TW2's story, choices, and quality time with characters are far better than TW3's broad strokes. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't feel the same way about Dandelion, Zoltan, Roche, and Triss if I hadn't played previous Witcher titles. Yennefer and Ciri are the only ones that really get enough face time relative to the rest of the game.

The decisions are much more interesting in TW2 as well. As far as consequences, this game really just comes down to Ciri interactions. Everything else feels minor, whereas TW2 had 3 decisions that felt really impactful. I'd easily give up the open world for that, but good open world games sell well. Great open world games are a gold mine. So the best point about the open world to me is that we may get to see a lot more Witcher content over the next few years then we would've otherwise.

 

[octavian123]

I have just finished the game. While it is clearly obvious that a lot of care went into making the game, the size of the world was a bit excessive...I got the same feeling I got when I played DA:I.

The world felt a bit...flat and too many objectives. By the time I finished half of the side objectives in Velen I was already bored with the zone but I kept on because I felt guilty for not completing all the quests. I HATE that feeling, it's like when you get a huge cake, eat half of it and then feel guilty for putting it in the fridge because it becomes stale. It happens in all games like these...all except Gothic and Skyrim too for some reason.

The best thing they could have done was to find a middle ground between TW2 approach and TW3, like Gothic 2...4-5 zones like White Orchard would have been more than enough. As it stands I feel the size was excessive, the amount of loot was a bit excessive (which makes it less valuable and unique). The new stuff you see starts to blend in after a while. The new village you see is pretty similar to the last, the cave you see is pretty similar to the last and so forth.

Also feel the story suffered a BIT because of it. Sure, there are plenty of very good moments and characters like Djkstra but I don't think the story is QUITE as compelling as TW2. It does explore lots of cool stuff but I kept feeling that it could have been even more. I don't think it's as good as TW2 from a story POV but it's no slouch either.

 

[pilgrimm]

Open word is pretty useless thing in this series. And tiresome. Nothing intresting really happens in this @world@. All content focused around villages and cities, so all this square kilometres doesn't have a sense. The monster nests for 20 exp, over 9000 chests with crap inside and "scenery" abandoned villages - it all just time killers.

 

[Sky-Sweeper]

Honestly it still doesn't feel open world to me sense there are "regions". To me, Open world is defined as one massive world, not a lot of "areas" such as the Skellige Isles and the No Mans Land. However, I do prefer this system to the linearity of the last games. In RPGs, the one thing I cannot stand is linearity in story-telling. Let me decide when and where to go, not the story. and that's why I like this system more. besides, from what I've read the story is pretty much borked if you haven't read the books.

 

[vivaxardas2015]

I don't see TW3 as an open-world game. Probably because I had experience only with sand-boxes, where different quest-lines do not intersect, and have no bearing on anything.

TW3 simply feels like a VERY BIG game, with very large areas, with a lot of superb secondary quests that influence the main quest. In essence, it still has the same narrative structure as TW1 and TW2. I love what CDPR did here, and I enjoy every second of it. If their further games are like this, I will be their loyal fan till the day I die.