The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
CD Projekt Red touted The Witcher 3 as an open-world fantasy RPG larger than Skyrim in the build-up to its launch, and all without the loading screens that were such an annoying part of Bethesda’s iconic title. That turned out to be only a half-truth in the end, with its main areas of Velen, Skellige, and Kaer Morhen all segregated by compulsory loading screens. By itself, the lack of a seamless open-world wasn’t actually a deal-breaker by any stretch of the imagination -only seldom would you travel from one area to the next in quick succession, and the size of each was so substantial and well-detailed that one hardly could complain. The pain was the amount of time each took to load when they did occur, and not just between areas, either.
Indeed, more than just an issue when traversing was the agonizing wait between deaths. The Witcher 3 wasn’t an easy game at all, and those playing on higher difficulties had to endure countless irritating waits in addition to fast travel loading times. Thankfully, this was just about the only problem in a game that was, by and large, a total triumph of aesthetic, design, and storytelling.
