10 Video Games That Had A Bigger Impact Than You Realise
7. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Changed Open-World Design Forever
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is undeniably one of the most acclaimed and beloved video games of all time, but that doesn't explicitly mean that it's also had a major impact on subsequent games development.
And yet, it has, even if you might not fully realise it.
First and foremost, The Witcher 3 offered up a level of breadth and depth totally uncommon in the open-world RPG: its side quests in particular were more richly detailed than the main campaigns of many other similar games, in turn raising the bar for what side content should be in the genre.
Compared to almost every open-world of the time, The Witcher 3's felt so much more alive and vibrant, in turn forcing AAA open-world publishers to seriously up their game.
Its more non-linear approach to quest design and emphasis on a persistent, living world proved that open-world games didn't need to sacrifice rich storytelling in the process.
In turn The Witcher 3 has influenced the genre ever since, with the biggest open-world games - namely every future Assassin's Creed game and Horizon Zero Dawn - taking major gameplay and narrative cues from it.