4) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Fun fact: I was originally supposed to have this list up last week. What delayed the publication, you ask? Well, besides my crippling laziness and hectic holiday schedule, I found myself repeatedly getting drawn back into the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
As gaming has advanced over the past few years, one of my major pet peeves has been developer skimping out when it comes to crafting fully realized worlds. Any studio can create a massive playground for gamers to explore, but only the truly great ones can make fill it with enough substantial content to justify exploring. CD Projekt Red had previously proven themselves to be extremely talented, but the latest chapter in the saga of Geralt of Rivia is their greatest accomplishment.
Building around a mature and fantastic story that never fails to entertain, the title is jam packed with substantial and enjoyable content. And while I don’t want to call out any one studio, the assorted sidequests here don’t feel like they were generated in order to pad-out a short title’s length.
Each and every quest takes you to fantastic locations and has you interacting with interesting characters. It’s the rare game I find myself getting completely lost in over and over again. Sure, the combat engine, is, uh, not great, but when there’s so much enjoyable content to be found, I’m willing to put up with it.