Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 - which Universe do you prefer from CD Projekt Red?

Which game world of CD Projekt Red’s creation do you prefer?

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Archaea

Archaea

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Which game world do you prefer?
Which has better quests?
Which was more memorable after a play through?
How many hours do you have in each?
 
I actually finished CP2077. Can't say the same for Witcher 3, after multiple attempts.

I don't feel Witcher 3 is a bad game, but parts of it just didn't grab me.

As for the universe, I'll pick cyberpunk-related stuff pretty much any time.
 
Cyberpunk. I prefer sci-fi over fantasy. Neither had exceptionally great stories, although Witcher 3 had a better focus whereas Cyberpunk's main story was short. Neither did a good job of getting the player immersed in the story. I may have to give Witcher 3 the nudge as the overall story was more epic, despite being inconclusive.

But I preferred Cyberpunk over it by a good margin.
 
Cyberpunk's world was better aesthetically. It has enough variety to feel like each zone is a different place. Even the highway system felt impressive.

I really wish there was more gang/region specific content for the northern and southern districts. I feel like I spent 2 quest in Pacifica.


Witcher seemed to have greater scope but less variety. More content off the main roads.
 
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This is actually really tough but I voted Cyberpunk. I like TW3 as a whole a lot better except for the world, to me it felt like just another medieval setting.
 
I prefer Witcher series, not Witcher 3 in particular, did enjoy it, but Witcher 2 is still solidly my favorite in the series, mainly because it had a consistant difficulty throughout. (Witcher 3, 850hrs, Witcher 2, 220hrs, Witcher 1 40hrs)

This doesn't mean I don't like the Cyberpunk universe though, my problems with Cyberpunk other than the potential bugs is, choices you make don't feel impactful and the world doesn't feel as alive as I thought it would (far from it). Also after not playing for 4 weeks I completely forgot the story even though I beat it nearly twice (a week in the hospital ended that game, never returned to it), The Witcher stories have been unforgettable for me, I do with I could forget it so I can enjoy it like the first time once again. Maybe that is a blessing with Cyberpunk 2077 though, I could probably enjoy it in the future when the game is patched up and expansions are out since I don't remember it. (Cyberpunk 145hrs)
 
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I think the Witcher 3 beats Cyberpunk 2077 on every trait A-Z with the exception of graphics/RTX. I just finished a ~110 hour near completion run in Cyberpunk. I played every quest and finished every marker except the car buying ones, and a bugged out quest.
There weren’t really any outrageously memorable quests in Cyberpunk to me. There are multiple gut punch memorable quests in Witcher 3 story I still remember years later.

Thus the story was far more engaging to me in Witcher 3, and I liked the fantasy World far better subjectively.
I also personally preferred the over the shoulder camera aspect of Witcher 3 too for an RPG over FP.

Witcher 3 is my favorite game of all time. Cyberpunk, I’d give a solid B rating IMO.
Both enjoyable, but I’m really surprised at this point the poll is looking to favor Cyberpunk. The reason I created the poll is having just finished Cyberpunk I was thinking how much more I enjoyed Witcher 3.
Was curious what others thought. Interesting to say the least.

~110 hours in Cyberpunk 2077
~140 hours in Witcher 3

Off the top of my head memorable quests in Witcher 3:
Red Barron
The three hags
Keira Metz castle exploration
The final defense of Kaer Morhan castle
Hearts of Stone entire expansion with interacting with the devil incarnate Gaunter O'Dimm
The Olgeird von Everec haunted mansion
Detlaff’s vampire backstory
The dwarves quest
The fantasy story book quest in the Blood and Wine expansion.
That dwarf who was building a boat held captive by the giant.
The lighthouse quest
+ several more!

Cyberpunk 2077
Delemain’s AI rogue car quest
The “Play it Safe” parade quest
Edgewood Farm
The ending choice
 
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I always preferred Cyberpunk / scifi as a genre over fantasy.

But to me the Witcher series is one of the weakest ones I've tried even as a fantasy world I've tried to get into the games multiple times, never liked them, not nearly as much as other fantasy titles like Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls. Never finished any of the three. Got furthest in the second, maybe 5 hours in, but I so disliked the main character that I called it quits. And frankly he wasn't any more likeable in the Witcher 3 either.
 
M76 said:
I always preferred Cyberpunk / scifi as a genre over fantasy.

But to me the Witcher series is one of the weakest ones I've tried even as a fantasy world I've tried to get into the games multiple times, never liked them, not nearly as much as other fantasy titles like Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls. Never finished any of the three. Got furthest in the second, maybe 5 hours in, but I so disliked the main character that I called it quits. And frankly he wasn't any more likeable in the Witcher 3 either.
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I'd give Witcher 3 a try again. The intro/tutorial area is around 10 hours long. Yes the game is very long winded and it actually diminishes the quality because of it. But it sounds like you stopped right before the game really got started. I too didn't like W2 aside from the chapter 3 story. Game pretty much sucked everywhere else. W3 was a good improvement.
 
Archaea said:
Cyberpunk 2077
Delemain’s AI rogue car quest
The “Play it Safe” parade quest
Edgewood Farm
The ending choice
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The delamain questline is one of the weakest quest in the game, it is more a time waster / filler activity.
The play it safe? That's just walking through a corridor, nothing more,
And the ending is the weakest link of the game for me.

Say are you trying to list the worst quests? Because so far you are very much succeeding at it. I could literally list all other sidequests, they would be better than your choices :D
The only one you listed that is worth mentioning is the edgewood farm one. But it's still not my favorite from the game.
 
LurkerLito said:
Witcher 3 for me. Simply put Fantasy type games hold my interest more than cyberpunk story wise. Also between TPP games vs FPP games I always prefer TPP.
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I am totally the opposite of you. I prefer science fiction over fantasy settings by a mile. I prefer the first person perspective over third person by a long shot as well. That being said, the Mass Effect series is one of my all time favorite game series, and its third person. So, neither is necessarily a deal breaker. But, if I had to choose I'd always opt for first person. I'd have done the driving in Cyberpunk 2077 in first person if the position of the camera in the vehicle interior worked well enough to allow for that to be done effectively.
 
Flogger23m said:
I'd give Witcher 3 a try again. The intro/tutorial area is around 10 hours long. Yes the game is very long winded and it actually diminishes the quality because of it. But it sounds like you stopped right before the game really got started. I too didn't like W2 aside from the chapter 3 story. Game pretty much sucked everywhere else. W3 was a good improvement.
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I'm not really keen on spending 10 hours on something that I don't like. Even if the story gets better I didn't like the combat mechanics and design of the game either.
 
I really loved the atmosphere of The Witcher games, and after playing the first 2 games read all the books (with fan translations for the most part.) Definitely prefer The Witcher universe.
 
M76 said:
I'm not really keen on spending 10 hours on something that I don't like. Even if the story gets better I didn't like the combat mechanics and design of the game either.
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I hated a lot of games I ended up loving. I put it to having to learn the controls down to muscle memory, then without having to think about it, you can suspend disbelief and roll with the game. The long intro in Witcher 3 did that for me and only a couple hours into Cyberpunk I was screaming and yelling at not being able to sit in a chair....LOL
 
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W3, for sure. 2077 while having on the surface more detailed objects, better visual tech and some outstanding visual design nevertheless feels rather like window dressing particularly post-ending, not sustaining the illusion as much with how the city/universe is set up as being so 'alive'.

W3's universe OTOH can maintain more of an illusion due in large part to the war-torn world, sparser/smaller towns and camps. It holds my suspension of disbelief better and frankly I vastly prefer the tone and storytelling of the game. Beauclair is the exception where I feel it suffers from the same window dressing issue post-story since the place is too well-off and functional as a society to justify the lack of interactivity and explorable environments when quests are finished.
 
Picked Witcher, but I'm biased. As a Dad of daughters that was not expecting them to have the impact on my life that they have had, the Witcher story hit much closer to home for me. I've watched both of my daughters grow into adults and go out to make their own lives & decisions. I had barely finished the books when Witcher 3 came out, so I was primed for the story it contained. I almost did not have a relationship with my oldest because of her mother, so when Geralt found Ciri in that shack on the hidden island, I was a sobbing mess.

Cyberpunk was not a bad game or universe, but it did not draw me in nearly as much. I was hoping V and Johnny would have a well written redemption story, but it felt like it went from nearly hating each other, to "I will die for you" at a coin flip. I played 170 hrs of this game and every mission I could find, but it still felt like the game was telling me I was supposed to feel a certain way, rather than spending the character development time for me to feel that way naturally. In this respect, Witcher succeeded more that CP2077 in my eyes.
 
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M76 said:
The delamain questline is one of the weakest quest in the game, it is more a time waster / filler activity.
The play it safe? That's just walking through a corridor, nothing more,
And the ending is the weakest link of the game for me.

Say are you trying to list the worst quests? Because so far you are very much succeeding at it. I could literally list all other sidequests, they would be better than your choices :D
The only one you listed that is worth mentioning is the edgewood farm one. But it's still not my favorite from the game.
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You can’t tell me what I subjectively liked, but you may tell me what you subjectively liked. I am interested in what you thought the best quests were in Cyberpunk.
 
M76 said:
I'm not really keen on spending 10 hours on something that I don't like. Even if the story gets better I didn't like the combat mechanics and design of the game either.
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I couldn't agree more. The fact of the matter is, a game needs to grab you early on or it doesn't work. I tried Witcher I and II and I don't think I made it more than two or three hours in either. I skipped the third game as a result.
 
Archaea said:
You can’t tell me what I subjectively liked, but you may tell me what you subjectively liked. I am interested in what you thought the best quests were in Cyberpunk.
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It falls within the pattern of you liking Wither3, which I also dislike.

My favorite questlines were(only listing the starting quest, but many of these consist of multiple separate quests):
Automatic Love
Blistering love
Coin Operated boy
Dream On
Riders of the Storm
The Beast in Me
The Prophet's Song
 
I haven't played cyberpunk yet but in general i prefer fantasy worlds to futuristic/steam punk worlds.
 
M76 said:
It falls within the pattern of you liking Wither3, which I also dislike.

My favorite questlines were(only listing the starting quest, but many of these consist of multiple separate quests):
Automatic Love
Blistering love
Coin Operated boy
Dream On
Riders of the Storm
The Beast in Me
The Prophet's Song
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I had to look up your favs.

While I don’t share your list of favorites, two of your favorite quests for me are bugged out and I can’t complete them. :( (I think that’s 2 of the three bugged out quests for me).

Coin Operated Boy. The vending machine has a exclamation point on it but won’t talk to me.

Thr Prophet’s song. Has an exclamation point, and I’ve engaged in dialogue multiple times, but nothing ever changes or progresses. The werewolf’s don’t appear, and I don’t get any additional quest from him.

I liked the riders if the storm quest okay - rescuing Saul, but not sure it really stood out tall to me in the grand scheme. My list included the parade with the oda fight at the end. You said you didn’t like that one. I thought that was a great mission. Perhaps/probably my favorite of the game. To me it sort of defines the whole game!

The Oda boss fight at the end of that mission was the most intense in the game for me. The second most impressive boss fight for my play through was the animal lady with the big hammer in the mall/movie center. Both were intense and the definition of a great adrenaline raising boss fight!!! By the time I fought Adam Smasher I was just wayyyyy too powerful and I melted him in one clip from my riffle and one shot from my overwatch. So no time to get adrenaline pumping there at all.
 
I went with the Witcher. Cyberpunk was a neat experience, but it felt shallow to me. If it was a pool, it was a mile wide and an inch deep. Trying to explain an entire universe via shards (aka. the books in most RPG's) was pretty lazy. IMO, they could have learned from GTA in that regard. The Witcher 3 did a better job of telling the story of an entire world within the game itself.
 
Archaea said:
I had to look up your favs.

While I don’t share your list of favorites, two of your favorite quests for me are bugged out and I can’t complete them. :( (I think that’s 2 of the three bugged out quests for me).

Coin Operated Boy. The vending machine has a exclamation point on it but won’t talk to me.

Thr Prophet’s song. Has an exclamation point, and I’ve engaged in dialogue multiple times, but nothing ever changes or progresses. The werewolf’s don’t appear, and I don’t get any additional quest from him.
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Well I can't help that. On my first playthrough the whole Judy / Clouds questline disappeared from my journal.
Archaea said:
I liked the riders if the storm quest okay - rescuing Saul, but not sure it really stood out tall to me in the grand scheme.
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I didn't mean rescuing Saul, but what comes after The heist mission with the train the preparation, the campfire, etc. I might have writtten the wrong quest name.
My list included the parade with the oda fight at the end. You said you didn’t like that one. I thought that was a great mission. Perhaps/probably my favorite of the game. To me it sort of defines the whole game!
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It's basically going through a corridor without any choice or alternate path, columinating in a forced, unavoidable bossfight. That mission defines everything that is wrong with the game for me. If it had multiple paths to success, ways to avoid the bossfight based on prior choices, then it would've been great. As it stands it is just an empty setpiece. Sure the parade looks great, and the level kills FPS with the crowd, but it fails narratively for me completely.

Archaea said:
The Oda boss fight at the end of that mission was the most intense in the game for me.
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I'm judging missions based on narrative value and writing, sure it is the most interesting bossfight in the game, that doesn't make Play it Safe the best quest by a long shot.

Archaea said:
The second most impressive boss fight for my play through was the animal lady with the big hammer in the mall/movie center. Both were intense and the definition of a great adrenaline raising boss fight!!! By the time I fought Adam Smasher I was just wayyyyy too powerful and I melted him in one clip from my riffle and one shot from my overwatch. So no time to get adrenaline pumping there at all.
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As said, that has nothing to do with which is my favorite quest. I'm not judging quests on thrills and action.

A good quest evokes emotions, makes you think about stuff, or is simply funny, ironic, orr satirical. None of this exists in Play it safe. I think my absolute favorite quest is dream on, because it raises a thousand questions, it has action, but also investigation (even if a bit lame at that at least it tries) and a really hard choice at the end of it.

I value even some simple fetch quests more than Play it safe, like the quest where you need to retrieve the databank for Sara Dorsett, because it has characterization, you learn about the character's background and motivations which is intriguing. Play it safe does nothing for me. At least I don't hate it. Although I do find Takemura pretty annoying and kind of an ahole. The thing that saves Cyberpunk for me, is at least the biggest assholes are in supporting roles, and not the main character like in the Witcher.
 
Books are “corridors” and they can be enjoyable.
Movies are “corridors” and they can be enjoyable. Scripted doesn’t mean, necessarily, bad. Agreed that I don’t typically like entire games to be on “rails” but I don’t mind a well scripted section of a game to be on rails.

What I loved about the parade mission is the build up, the beautiful visuals (giant goldfish holograms floating by), big crowds, vertical level navigation, the actual real sense of time being critical because you might miss your target as her float flies by (basically one of the only missions in the entire game where time legitimately feels critical. The game otherwise routinely wants you to feel like you don’t have much time in dialogue and overall story, but you know can stick around and loot and explore until you get bored and there is typically absolutely zero punishment for it).
Yes it is a corridor but it isn’t totally obvious where everything is, where your route will go, and the whole plan was hashed out in advance making the lack of actual navigation options less impactful. Lets be square, how many open options do you really get in this game anyway. IE: Your mission = steal a data shard from house x at yellow quest marker. You drive there and can either go in a single window or the front door. The target is always in the exact same place. Whoa, 2 whole choices. The targets in Cyberpunk never really move (except another quest I like in tracking down the rogue AI cars). It not like this game is a master class in real actual player choice. Far from it. All three character classes are nothing more unique than a 20 minute intro and the it’s the exact same game from there. The game’s story is on rails, and it doesn’t really matter what you say or do in any conversation except one conversation towards the end — through the entire game. Its the illusion of choice. Three dialogue options on conversations, but they all lead to the same outcome - etc.

Hitman Blood Money is the only game I’ve really ever played that comes to mind which allows more actual choice on how you complete your missions. Your target has a activity timeline, and you get to assasinate him at whatever point you want and face the consequences of your choice. IE your target is to assasinate a well known actor. He will be performing at theater X. The actual assassination can take place anytime you want during a scheduled 2 hour window of the show. Do you kill him in his dressing room before the show, on stage, or post show — anytime you want, anywhere you want. There is nothing like that in Cyberpunk. It’s all illusion of choice in Cyberpunk. The whole game is a corridor. The only thing you really get to pick is what order you do the side missions in. Oh another one came to mind as I’m writing this. Sniper 4 has some of this too. Where your target is on the move, on a routeine in a fixed time window and you choose when and where the deed is done.

So yeah. I cast my vote that the Parade quest characterized some of the best of Cyberpunk. As to emotions — excitement, wow, suspense, adrenaline, surprise, sense of urgency. All there. The intense Oda boss fight, the fight in the red rooms immediately after as the Arasaka elite guards came for your hostage. All very memorable and engaging - grabbed my attention anyway. I made a save of that section, and it’s the first story section I’d load up for my buddy (who hasn’t played Cyberpunk) to let him play what I thought was an excellent section of the game.

I do understand, agree, and enjoy your stated importance of true player choice, and consequence. I think that's an area where Witcher 3 has Cyberpunk beaten in spades. I looked up many quest dialogue options in Witcher 3 to see how the choices panned out - wringing my hands on which choice to make in many conversations. Because there was more impact to the immediate consequences and the game conclusion -- and often decision options weren't cleanly black and white as to what outcome they would have. I only had that indecision a few times with Cyberpunk, because you could pretty much tell the dialogue choices didn't matter.

Ultimately all one man's opinion...
 
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