I have clocked in 6 hours of game-play, and my first impression so far is pretty good. However despite playing for this long, it still sort of feels like I haven't gotten a good grasp of all the core game-play mechanics, and am still getting tutorials for new things. Having a lot of things to learn can be nice for people looking for a good amount of variety in their game. But it also means it will take a while before you are fully comfortable playing as Geralt. And it's not just tutorials themselves, there's a lot going on in the game at one moment that it's hard to keep track of everything. For example: memorizing all the combat hotkeys (spells, parries, dodges, etc.), food / health management, keeping track of all the characters / factions in the main story and side quests, inventory management, gathering resources (there's so much random stuff in the game world), character progression systems, crafting, potion making, etc. I know a lot of these are typical in video games, but it feels like the Witcher 3 takes these mechanics to 11. There's so much going on in this world that I sometimes get information overload. That's not to say my experience was bad. So far I think the writing is pretty great for a video game, if a bit lengthy. And the world is pretty intriguing, though the terrain can feel a bit flat and monotonous. It's not a fantasy landscape, rather it's a more believable world that matches the gritty story well. The world can sometimes feel a bit too dreary and hostile towards you, but I'm counting on the "Blood and Wine" expansion pack to offer a nice diversion from this gloom. Overall not a bad game, and I can see why people praise it. But you will need to invest a good amount of time before getting comfortable with the game world.
(mild early-game spoilers) At the beginning of the game, the main character (a reporter) enters an asylum he is investigating through some scaffolding. He immediately sees (and records with his camcorder) a bunch of blood on the floor of the room he enters, walks into a hall with blood smeared on the walls, hears a door slam shut, and enters a kitchen with intestines on the counter and a vent dripping in blood. So my first thought is to backtrack to the window I came in, and leave with the evidence I recorded. I mean blood and wreaked furniture should be pretty damning evidence to collect. But despite the window I entered still being open, my character refuses to exit through the window. So I'm forced to stupidly go through the bloody vent to progress despite it being kind of a red flag for, you know, a psycho murderer on the other end. So I kept playing, but my first impression is that this character is some sort of masochist who wants whatever bloody thing is on the other side of that vent. And from this point the game just gets silly. There are jump scares galore. The asylum patients look like Batman villains with deformed bodies, who like to throw you around a bit but won't kill you right away for some reason. There's an impaled dude that gives like 3 minute exposition dump. It all feels so silly. And it doesn't do anything remarkable game-play wise either. It's the usual "find a key to do this", "turn a lever to open this", "collect batteries for yo flashlight", "read this letter for exposition dump", etc. It all feels very cliche. It's a shame because the game has a promising concept and pretty solid graphics / audio to boot (for an Indie developer). But the inconsistent world and larger focus on Halloween house scare tactics makes Outlast feel more like streamer bait than a deep psychological horror experience.
