What are some games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?
Finding games like The Witcher 3 is hard. There is nothing that manages to come even remotely close to what this game has to offer (Except Skyrim).
It's is a huge game - so huge that I barely scratched the surface even after being more than 50 hours into it. After a few hours, I finally realized how humongous its medieval world is. Every time I felt like I know how things are going to turn out, The Witcher 3 always managed to amaze me with its variety of quests and new areas.
Playing a squeaky-clean guy in this game is impossible. Even the smallest of decisions you make would leave an impact on the game world, and most of the time, it will not turn out to be the way you want. The consequences are nerve-wracking sometimes. For instance, I inadvertently got an innocent man hanged. I didn’t like it, but that’s how this game plays out. You have to be prepared for the worst even when you are doing good deeds in the world. And sometimes when you think you are playing the devil, it might turn out to be good for everyone. It’s grim, dark, and to some extent, depressing. That's exactly why so many people love it.
I could go on forever, but let’s save it for some other day. For now, let's focus on games like The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. It’s not an easy job to find games that offer the similar kind of rich world full of things to do, monsters to slay and people to save. Nonetheless, some of the games mentioned below come so close to the kind of experience Witcher 3 offers –
Games like/similar to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Elder Scrolls Skyrim – One of the best games like The Witcher 3
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is the latest entry in the legendary Elder Scrolls series – A series that has been the definition of RPG games for last couple of years. Even CD Project Red, the guys behind Witcher 3, admitted to being inspired by Skyrim. You can tell it from the way Witcher 3 was designed. It embraces the open-world design of Skyrim while keeping the fluff away.
Coming back to Skyrim; it’s not the kind of game you’d want to rush through the content. It’s the RPG Bethesda worked on for nearly 5 years, giving it everything they had. There are a lot of sites to explore, dungeons to clear and powers to unlock. Doing all of this could easily take hundreds of hours and you’d hardly realize it.
If you are playing it on PC, don’t forget to use some mods to make this game look and play better than the vanilla game. Just tweak things a bit and you are in for a spectacular ride.
With the recent launch of The Witcher 3, some people have been unfairly comparing both the games, which is a bit absurd. They don’t even realize that Skyrim is almost 6 years old now. It’s last-gen game. While it’s not perfect, it’s certainly a masterpiece that deserves your attention. Skyrim’s world is full of curiosities and content, making every step and exciting one. There is always something waiting for you just over the next ridge.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition - PlayStation 4
The rest of the games from The Witcher series are just as breathtaking as the third entry in the franchise. If you have a PC, you can play Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 on it, if you haven’t already. Both these games provide a better look at our protagonist Geralt of Rivia. Although it’s not necessary to play the first 2 games if you are looking to skip to the third one, I wholeheartedly recommend playing them to better understand why he does what he does.
Both these games are carefully woven experiences. While they are not open world games like The Witcher 3, an amazing story and options of choosing your own path is still present. Just like The Witcher 3, your choices matter here. Whatever you do, will have long-term consequences.
Dragon Age: Inquisition - An open-world game like Witcher 3
Eight five hours. That’s how much time this game took to get the credits rolling. I am not even counting the numerous side-quests I ignored. It could have easily taken me 50 or more hours to finish this game had I done all the quests. There have been bigger RPGs that Dragon Age: Inquisition in terms of size of the world, but rarely has any game filled its massive world with so many meaningful things to do. It’s hard to not stumble upon a quest no matter which direction you take.
It’s not exactly a sandbox game like Witcher 3. Inquisition is more of a semi-open world game with its map divided into different areas. Some of it may feel restrictive initially, but they soon open up into huge sandboxes with tons of things to do. Surprisingly, none of it feels like filler as all the pieces of this game have been pretty well contextualized. That’s partly because of some clever writing and well-delivered dialogues, which makes every quest feel a bit more than a kill-fetch quest they actually are. Even in my eighty fifth hour, there are still a lot of places I haven’t even set my foot in. I am still discovering new things.
If you are looking for some games similar to The Witcher 3, you mustn't miss out on Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Dragon Age Inquisition - Standard Edition - PlayStation 4
Gothic 2 - One of the classic RPGs like The Witcher 3
Gothic 2 is probably going to be the oldest game here. This action-RPG builds on the foundations set by its predecessor. Set in the world of Khorinis, Gothic 2 marks the return of some of the old characters and places from the first game while adding tons of new places to explore.
Don’t be fooled by its dating graphics. It’s one of the deepest games like The Witcher 3 you’ll ever play. While the world is nowhere as big as Witcher 3, the amount of choices and decisions we make in Gothic 2 comes pretty close to what The Witcher series offers. It’s one of those rare games where your actions always have consequences. No good or bad deed goes unnoticed, which is what makes playing Gothic 2 fun. Even after all these years, Gothic 2 still remains one of the best action RPG games to this date.
The Elder Scrolls Oblivion
Released in 2006, Elder Scrolls Oblivion is still regarded as one of the best RPG games of all time. This is a remarkable achievement – a complex, open-ended, detailed RPG that’s pleasure to behold. Oblivion delivers on everything that made Elder Scrolls series so famous, while improving upon the weaknesses of its predecessor. While Morrowind was an amazing action RPG, I felt that it was not accessible to everyone. Only those who were hardcore fans of Elder Scrolls series could get into it. Gladly, that’s not the case with Oblivion. Even if you have no interest in RPG genre, it’s hard to overlook this beautifully crafted world.
The main quest takes about 50 hours to finish, but there are other activities and side quests to do which should take you more than 100 hours to complete. You can join different guilds and factions, root out the bandits hidden in dungeons, talk to different people and try to solve their issues, break in to someone’s house and rob them when they are sleeping, and do much more. The number of things you can do here is overwhelming! All these things combine to make Oblivion one of the must-have games like Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition - Playstation 3
All the Fallout games take place in a post-unclear world. China and US nuked each other out in 2077. What’s left is a huge radioactive wasteland with ghouls, super-mutants, ghosts and some lucky human survivors who somehow made it through the war. In most of the games, you step in the shoes of vault dweller, who has been underground for so many years. You have never seen the world before. It goes pretty simple from there. You come out of the vault and start exploring this huge wasteland to see what’s left of the world.
The first 3 Fallout games launched back in 1990s as 2D games. Then Bethesda purchased the license to this franchise and started making 3D Fallout games. So far, they have only made Fallout 3 that came out back in 2008. Another entry in the franchise came in 2010, but this time around, Obsidian Studio was behind the game.
You can play all the games of the Fallout franchise if you wish, but if you are looking for games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, you should stick to Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. While the Witcher 3 takes place in Medieval times, Fallout games take place in post-unclear war era. It appears on the ground that there is no similarity between these two franchises, but they share more features in common than you think.
For starters, both these games emphasize on giving players the control to be whomever they want to be. You have ample choices that are going to shape the world. It’s you who’ll decide the fate of people around you. The sheer amount of content in these games is dizzying. Once you get sucked in the universe, you’ll be playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas for hundreds of hours.
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