First hour of the game I googled “Aloy Talks too much”
I just finished the Elden Ring DLC and the Tomb Raider remastered trilogy. These games are 30 years apart but share the same mostly quiet protagonists.
Lara is alone, doesn’t try to solve the puzzle for the player in the first 5 seconds, let’s the player explore and figure things out and soak in the atmosphere. Aloy is as chatty as Nathan Drake but she’s just muttering to herself in the wild, she even narrates her actions like an audiobook
The constant hud and text over every in world item also ruins the immersion. Yes I get that you don’t see items in Fromsoft games, you get that streak of light. But Horizon firstly hides the item in their busy environment design then forces you to press a button to prompt that streak of light, for immersion!
Actually this is what I liked about the Witcher 3 is that the side quests were really great. Of course there were generic ones that felt like doing chores but a surprisingly big amount of quests were actually unique with great stories.
This for me was the best thing about the game. Combat was kind of meh, especially the oils, etc. but the world was very well crafted and not only the main story but also a big chunk of side quests were really engaging.
The chores ones are what I mean. Boring. But there were some really good ones for sure. I really liked finding all the Witcher gear too. The world is incredibly vast and detailed, packed with stuff in every nook and cranny. Same with elden ring. Though I felt the dlc lacked in that regard.
The blood and wine dlc was amazing. I loved the main story/mission. There was a lot to love in the Witcher 3. I’ll have to play it again some day.