I couldn't vote, there wasn't "didn't even notice new direction"option.
And sorry, didn't read all posts... All Witcher games has been different and I don't think that it's a bad thing. Why doing same thing over and over again? All games has their rights and wrongs and all games are great. Witcher 2 had stuff that I missed in Witcher 3, but Witcher 3 had stuff that was new and I liked a lot. Can't say much about Witcher 1 because I haven't completed it yet.
CDPR choice consequences are the best I have seen this far. In every game. They made the finest RPG that I know. I trust that they are going to make lots of new and wonderful games in the future, but I don't want them to be clones to each other.
BAW was the last goodbye to Geralt, his retirement party if I can say so. So it's clear that they made it a bit different. I don't see that it's a sign for some "Disney route". Never even thought about that. I trust that we are going to see much more great characters and story telling in the future