Are we assuming we can travel from one end to the other the in a straight line?
Whether it takes 40 minutes to cross the Novigrad + No-Man's-Land map and Skellige map individually, or whether it takes 40 minutes to cross them combined seems beside the point. Either way, we're dealing with the largest single-player open-world game since Elder Scrolls Daggerfall (MMO maps are larger still, so are racing games. But f!@# racing game amirite?)
We're also making a pretty strong, and likely incorrect, assumption that the horse can maintain a full gallop indefinit
Fine. But that doesn't change the fact that The Witcher 3 is by no means small. And anyone who was satisfied with the size of Skyrim's world should have no complaints about the size of The Witcher 3.(skyrim map is smaller than oblivion)
There is too much water, and I personally do not like it. I expected sailing to be a small part of the game which would serve as a distraction, but it seems like that we are going to spend a lot of time on water.
I would have preferred to see more dry land locations such as Gors Velen and Brokilon. I'd prefer a map that covered more of the Northern kingdoms, including Kaer Morhen (being part of the map and accessible any time) all the way down to Rivia, Lyria, and even Cintra, instead of so much water and islands.
This is what I personally would have liked to see:
View attachment 12117
Maybe.Impossible... To create such big map and fill it with interesting people and quests is just not possible. Unless you have few billions on your bank account and 12 years to develop such game...
The actual map would end up something like this if you cut the extra mountains and water, and a portion of these locations such as Novigrad, Oxenfort, and even Kaer Morhen are already in the game. By scaling down and reducing the distances it actually would not be as intimidating as you make it to be.You do realise that your map would include whole countries (with the size of real world countries like Poland and Hungary). Even it it was scaled down it would still remain way too big for a game. It would cost billions of Euros and take at least a decade to create such a huge game-world with quests, characters, its own story arc and content in general. Also the game would be unplayable: it would take ages to explore and also it would distract you all the time from the main quest line. People would get bored of it pretty quickly due to its ridiculous size and the amount of filler content it would offer.
...is irrelevant.This is Skyrim's map. If this was possible in 2011 on last gen consoles, then I say there is a high possibility that a map like above is possible in 2015.