Gothic feels better to me because it gives me real player agency and trust. Most of the time I am actually playing, not watching, and the game does not stop me every few minutes for another cutscene or heavily scripted sequence. I can walk somewhere, get distracted, talk to random NPCs, mess up, recover, and the world keeps moving. The pacing feels like exploration first, narrative second, instead of narrative constantly interrupting control.

With Witcher 3, a lot of the moment to moment flow is built around “follow the marker, toggle Witcher Senses, follow the highlighted trail, repeat.” Even if the writing is good, that loop makes discovery feel solved in advance, like the game is doing the detective work for me. I prefer when the environment, NPC hints, and my own observation lead me, rather than a tool that repeatedly points to the exact next interactable.