Skyrim or Witcher 3?

[Emma]

It's a tough one.

I have similar feelings to both games really. To start off, both are huge worlds and have tons to do, see and explore. Though this also put me off from both games even though I enjoy playing them when I can. Everything feels like a chore and I get distracted far too much. I'll go one place and try to do a quest and I'll find a location (or two, or three, or four) on the way and, from those locations, more quests until the point were I've got a quest-line that looks more like a book.

Spoiler

Trust me, I love open world games and large RPGs and I've sunk 100s of hours into the Fallout franchise, but I just can't seem to get into these two enough to the point where they become favourites of mine. I felt like the Fallout games had a better balance with its overworld and things to do without me just getting uninterested in exploring or completing quests.

I dunno, kind of felt to me that Fallout was about the same. I keep wondering just how crazy Fallout 4 is going to be.

Though above is my only real gripe with the two games and something that's more so a personal preference than anything else. So which one's better? I honestly couldn't choose. Skyrim had a better overworld in my opinion with more dungeon-like areas, while the Witcher did become a tad repetitive with its locations (also I really disliked the borders in the Witcher were you had to turn back and how it had separate overworlds too).

One odd thing about the turn-back borders that irritated me is how sometimes Geralt would actually be excited and enthusastic about what lies beyond despite turning back. The only times he really seems to complain about it is if you hit a turn-back border while swimming at sea, where he'll complain about being too old for that kind of swim.

There's no doubt about it though, the Witcher has the better atmosphere and soundtrack to accompany the amazing graphics, which give it this dark fantasy feel.

So much yes. It's so much better it's not even a contest. Witcher 3's soundtrack dominates. Might even be my favorite soundtrack ever.
Here's an example:

Combat is a tough one as well, the Witcher 3 definitely feels smoother and more tactical, but the weapons and abilities that Skyrim had kind of made it more enjoyable in my opinion. Story (though Skyrim seems to have a deeper more interesting lore), I'll have to go with the Witcher since it felt more personal and not "I'm a dragonborn and special" or "which side should I choose". One had more choice, but former felt more compelling even though I haven't completed it.

Story's going to be more opinion base. But generally Witcher 3 has a better overall story that is more compelling and as you said, personal. Skyrim more so encourages you to imagine your own story in your head, with the story that exists in the game as only a framework to build your own around. So they kind of serve a different function in that regard.

 

[Dio]

I'm surprised I haven't posted here yet, being a lover of both Witcher 3 and skyrim.

I found that with Skyrim it's more forge your own path and exploration based. The story and lore are good but you have to discover it rather than it being handed to you. Also side quest stories are generally not tied to the main plot and in some cases are better than the main quest. Completing them in certain ways affects the world and a lot of the people in what they say it can be very rewarding to do them and see their effects. Witcher 3 on the other hand is very much more focussed on telling you the main story and side quests tend to be short and don't affect the main world as much.

The freedoms provided by Skyrim are much greater than in the Witcher. You can pretty much kill any NPC in skyrim you don't like, but you can't in Witcher 3. Alvor the blacksmith once sent thugs to kill me for stealing iron from him. I took my revenge by killing his wife and leaving the note he sent to the thugs on her corpse. There was also some kind of priest disturbing the peace in one of the towns so I shut him up permanently. In witcher you cant even punch NPC's if they are irritating.

Witcher 3 is full of content but it doesn't have as much content in comparison to its size. Skyrims over world is more condensed and probably has more exploration elements than Witcher.

Music wise. Skyrim has a few great pieces of music to be sure. The iconic main theme is unforgettable but most of the other pieces of music are easily forgotten. Witcher 3 is pretty much all great and I remember many of the pieces. It has one of the best video game soundtracks out there, definitely in my top 5 of all time.

I terms of the main story. Witcher 3's is longer than Skyrim's for sure. Skyrim takes only about 20 hours for the main story. With Witcher 3 you can expect double that.

Graphics. It's no surprise that the Witcher 3 looks better than Skyrim as it is a next gen game. Skyrim doesn't look bad by any means but for a visual treat, go for Witcher.

 

[Justac00lguy]

I agree as well, it's hard and kind of unfair to compare them since they're a generation apart. Maybe a better time to compare two massive RPGs is when Fallout 4 comes out. No doubt I myself will probably be somewhat biased to one of my favorites franchises, but it'll good to compare and contrast both and see what game did what better.

 

[Garo]

"Skyrim's game world, for example, is only around 39 square kilometers, making Witcher 3's world roughly 3.5 times larger than that of Bethesda's open-world epic." Here's another source for that same claim.

That's just actual size. I could talk about how The Witcher 3 has a lot more substance and character than anything in the cold, soulless Skyrim, but honestly? Everybody knows already. There's not much of a debate. If Witcher 3 were just a little better about the way it treats women characters I'd probably be all over it all the time. But as is, I'm just sort of slowly wading my way through, getting mired in the sheer absurd numbers of sidequests that fill up my log and overwhelm me every time I load it up.