The Witcher 3 is out and from all indications, it is probably the best RPG of the year so far and arguably the best overall. However, how does it stack up against The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?
Skyrim at the time it came out was a beautiful game with many things to do. However, one can't help but realize how bland the physical combat was. To be frank, the Mage combat in Skyrim is the strongest aspect of the game's combat, but everything outside of that, apart from the Shouts, feels weak.
It's as if Bethesda slapped old game mechanics to pretty graphics and called it a day.
When it comes down to the main story, Skyrim doesn't have a strong sell here. Players will find that doing side quests is a lot more fun than focusing on the main narrative. Not to mention how disappointing the characters were and the amount of bugs that plagued the game.
Seeing reviewers bypass the bugs and the obvious problems just to give Skyrim a high score was shocking to say the least.
When it comes down to The Witcher 3, however, the game doesn't have half the problems that made Skyrim such a disappointing game, and we're glad reviewers didn't chicken out in giving it substantial scores.
The game's combat is solid; the characters are memorable; and the story, while not the best in the world, is far greater than Skyrim's main narrative. We're not going to talk about graphics here because Skyrim came out in 2011, but that shouldn't have been the cause of terrible gameplay and story.
The guys at CD Projekt Red have shown the Elder Scrolls developers how to do open world gameplay right, and we can only hope they learn from that and build on it.
In the end, what we are saying is that The Witcher 3 is by far the better game. It might not have the customization options of Skyrim, but the world is more alive and productive.
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