The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

If you want more: CD Projekt Red game design, excellent narrative-based RPG experience
Notable differences: Third-person camera, fantasy setting
Availability: Windows (Steam Deck OK), Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch

Let’s be honest, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was the reason our expectations for Cyberpunk 2077 were so high. The Witcher 3 remains one of the best RPGs of our time with its excellent gameplay, immersively detailed fantasy setting, fantastic score, and characters who will live rent-free in your head forever. If you haven’t played this yet, what are you even still doing here?

The Witcher 3 has a number of sharp differences from Cyberpunk, such as a third-person camera and its fantasy genre. But they have quite a lot in common elsewhere, and for aspects shared by both, The Witcher basically does them all better. Better overall cast of characters, better main and side-quests, better RPG mechanics, and better maps and traversal (though V’s cars and Geralt’s horse seem to share the unique ability to go off and do weird shit when you call them over; don’t you want more of that?).

The Witcher 3 is the end of a trilogy, so you might be wondering if jumping directly into the third entry isn’t ideal. I say throw caution to the wind and just dive into The Witcher 3. While you will get more out of Wild Hunt by playing the first two games, you can easily make this your first adventure with Geralt. And as I said in our previous Witcher follow-ups feature, you might find yourself wanting to go back and enjoy the first two anyway. I think it’s a story that surprisingly works well in reverse.

To make direct comparisons, The Witcher 3 is the most like Cyberpunk thanks to its sprawling, open-world environments. In general Wild Hunt feels less linear than the first two games, but those have a decent amount of alternative paths and narrative outcomes too, just with a more straightforward overall structure. You can’t go wrong picking any of these games to start with—though do keep in mind that there’s a remake of the first game on the way, which should make for a much more comfortable experience than the wonkiness of the 2007 original.