Witcher 3 for me.

It has a great story, but it is the characters that truly sells it all. So many interesting people and monsters to meet throughout the game. And the game has the best side quests ever made in any open world game. And the two DLC packs are how all DLC should strive to be like, so much value for what you get.

I know many do not like the combat in this game, but I just love it. It feals just so fitting to how I pictured Geralt fighting when I read the books. It is like a dance of blades and magic, with pirouettes and brutal finishers.

The game is absoloutly gorgous to look at, even today I think it is one of the best looking games ever made, not just the fidelity, but the games art design. No game has immersed me as much into its world as Witcher 3 did. It is just something about walking through a village, seeing children play in the street, a mother holding her baby in her arms and people just going about their day.. It all just feels so alive to me.

The soundtrack in the game is also perfection. I remember the first time I went to Skellige and The Fields of Ard Skellig track started. I remember just riding slowly through the countryside with that amazing music and being mesmerized by the gorgous landscapes, it is one of my favorite gaming moments ever.

Is the game perfect? No, no game is perfect and Witcher 3 has some issues. They ruined the controler motion in the game with an update, but thankfully there is a mod that fixes this on PC. The game also has terrible balance when it comes to the loot in the game. So many legendary weapons are just beyond useless and I really wish they had some form of transmog system in place.

There is also some pacing issues with side quests, and normally I hate level scaling in games. But from a lore perspective, it makes no sense that Geralt meets some monster and it is impossible for him to take it on because of your level. Mods fixes most of these problems though.

Overall it is my favorite game and I can't to replay it again when the remaster comes out.