30 Best Video Games Of All Time

18. The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Proving Bethesda wrong at every turn when it came to designing a supersized open-world that doesn't fall apart if you hang in one spot too long, CD Projekt RED's third crack of the Witcher whip was their best yet.

Thanks to Andrzej Sapkowski's brilliantly detailed lore fleshing out the environment itself, the crux of Witcher's monsters revolves around magic conjured through sheer will. This means post-war there'll be scores of reanimated dead soldiers to clear out, or perhaps a jilted bride haunting the place her special day went sour - anywhere there's a spot where something evil is occurring, the supernatural bounty hunter Geralt goes to work.

On top of this freeform sense of quest discovery (all of which are written better than the majority of full games) there's the search for missing surrogate daughter Ciri, some political posturing between the main factions governing the land and TONS of random encounters resulting in XP to level up Geralt.

Combined, CDPR's masterwork somehow manages to never feel overwhelming - more like the feeling of embodying Geralt himself; taking each day as it comes, ready to tackle whatever appears next down the road...