14 DAY TRIAL // By far one of the biggest new features in The Witcher 3 is the full open world. While it brings a suite of stellar environments, it also adds a few annoyances or downsides to the actual role-playing game, such as tougher foes that are scattered in surprise locations.
The Witcher 1 and 2 emphasized their stories and scripted adventures over the freedom offered by other competing role-playing experiences like The Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age.
With The Witcher 3, developer CD Projekt Red decided to not only deliver a good story but also bring forth a huge open world that doesn't impose any restrictions onto players. The overall environment is still split between various regions but, more or less, they're all huge.
The open world has advantages and disadvantages
This open sandbox works pretty well in The Witcher 3, as the studio has filled with plenty of activities, settlements, and things to do or admire. As such, you won't be met with desolate nothingness or boring vistas.
However, it also brings quite a few annoyances, starting with the sheer ease with which players can encounter groups of enemies that are way higher than their own level. The game doesn't scale the toughness of opponents and, while all missions have a recommended level at which you can safely attempt them, the random encounters scattered throughout the environments have no such thing.
As such, if you reach a village at level 6 and activate all the nearby activities via the bounty board, you might encounter enemies at level 9, 10, or higher. If your luck is really bad, you can even reach challenging monsters that can kill you in one shot, before you escape by running away.
Another downside to the big world arrives through the fast travel system, which requires players to first reach a sign post before initiating such a teleportation. Instead of opting for the tried-and-true mechanic seen in Skyrim or Inquisition, which allows for instant fast travel from any point in the world to a known location, The Witcher 3's system just prompts a bit of tedious exploration, especially if you've already completed all nearby activities.