When comparing Mass Effect Trilogy vs The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the Slant community recommends The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for most people. In the question“What are the best PC RPGs?” The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is ranked 3rd while Mass Effect Trilogy is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is:
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt tells a deep and intricate story about the main character, Geralt, on his long journey to find his adoptive daughter, Ciri, who's on the run from the evil, supernatural warlords of the Wild Hunt. You spend the game following various leads on Ciri's whereabouts, meeting up with old friends, former lovers, powerful politicians, and all sorts of people from many walks of life. These characters usually want something in exchange for giving Geralt the information he wants, leading you down some unexpected and eye-opening paths as you learn more about who they are, how they met Ciri, and how she helped them grow as people, letting you form a bond with her through these thought-provoking tales. And as Geralt either helps or hurts these people himself, he inevitably impacts their lives in even more ways. Aside from the main story, there are also two great expansions: Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine, both of which offer their own amazing narratives with hours and hours of content. Hearts of Stone has you get involved with a shady, all-powerful manipulator who gives Geralt a series of seemingly impossible tasks, while Blood and Wine lets you explore the rolling hills of the wine-loving country of Touissant, with all the political intrigue surrounding the Duchess there. The Witcher 3's story has so much to offer, easily keeping you hooked for well over a hundred hours as you play and replay the base game and the excellent expansions.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Choose your own adventure
The player is required to make many choices over the course of the three games, all of which have far-reaching consequences. Not just friends, but entire species can live or die based on player decisions. Morality is also not prescribed - the player is free to make Shepard be who they want them to be.
Pro Space opera aesthetic
The series is a beautiful love letter to space opera classics like Star Wars and Star Trek, while standing on its own merits.
Pro Good romance subplots (Mass Effect)
The romance subplots in Mass Effect are great. Playing as male Shepard, you can romance either Liara or Ashley, while female Shepard can romance Liara or Kaidan, your human male squadmate. There are certain consequences for being unfaithful where your partner will confront you or the person you're cheating with in a heated showdown. Sticking with one person for the whole game rewards you with a romantic scene near the end of the story. A lot of care and attention went into these subplots, giving you the chance to see each of the characters in a new light.
Pro Memorable cast of authentic characters (Mass Effect)
Mass Effect has an amazing cast of both human and alien characters who feel like real people. While just about any NPC you meet is fantastic, your squad members are the ones that stand out the most. They all have backstories and traits that are believable and natural.
Ashley is a human soldier who joins your team early on. As you chat with her in between missions, you get to learn about her history with her family and religious faith back on Earth. But then as you explore the Citadel, the game's main hub area, she makes snide comments about all the aliens around, keying you in on her true feelings about non-humans. By contrast, your scientist team member Liara is an asari: Mass Effect's species of blue female-only aliens. Despite being reserved and shy, Liara often jumps at the chance to gush about her research. Talking to her gives you the chance to learn more about the asari and why exactly she's so devoted to her academic studies.
Getting to know everyone through dialogue and squad banter is a lot of fun, making it easy to grow attached to your favorite characters.
Pro Calm and thoughtful atmosphere (Mass Effect)
There's something calming about Mass Effect's atmosphere that really gives you the space to think and reflect. Exploring places like the indoor trade port Noveria feels special because of the cool blue color scheme, the blizzard blowing outside the full pane windows, and the ambient, yet quietly emotional synth music looping in the background. Even the title screen has a thoughtful song playing over the beautiful sight of Earth from orbit. The atmosphere is wonderful in a way that's almost nostalgic, making you feel right at home each time you start up the game.
Pro You can customize your protagonist Commander Shepard
There are lots of ways to make Commander Shepard feel like your own character. The character creator at the start of a new game lets you change all sorts of options, from your hair, to your skin color, the shape of your nose, mouth, and ears, and so much more. Or, if you prefer, you can simply stick with the default male or female Shepard. You also get to pick which class you want to be for combat: soldier, infiltrator, vanguard, adept, or sentinel, each with their own unique abilities, like the adept's helpful "magic spells" and the infiltrator's specialty with sniper rifles. You can role-play as Shepard however you want, with plenty of options to customize your looks and your combat specialties for whichever role suits you the most.
Pro Stellar voice acting
40 000 lines of dialogue in Mass Effect 3 alone. Top-tier cast includes Jennifer Hale, Mark Meer, Ali Hillis, Seth Green, and Martin Sheen.
Pro Great third-person shooting combat and gun variety (Mass Effect 3)
The combat in Mass Effect 3 feels great to play. Taking out groups of enemies is fun because of all the ways you can change up your gameplay. There are lots of different loadouts to choose from and ways to customize your build with components, such as having an assault rifle that tears through armor, or adding elemental effects like ice to your shotgun to freeze enemies in place. Customizing your sniper rifle just right, for example, to decapitate an enemy from as far away as possible is very satisfying. Combat here is the best it's ever been in the trilogy, improving a lot over the clunky and unresponsive mechanics from the first game.
Pro Your choices have true consequences on the story (Mass Effect)
Your choices have direct consequences on how the story plays out, not only in this game but also across the rest of the Mass Effect trilogy. You get to choose between options like sparing or killing off an entire race of potentially dangerous enemies, saving or sacrificing one of your own squad members to finish an operation, and dealing with an enraged teammate who feels betrayed by your actions. How you handle certain side objectives during story missions can also have an impact on how the galaxy at large reacts to you. Each of your decisions, big and small, carry over through your save files to Mass Effect 2 and 3, opening things up for many different playthroughs to see how things turn out with other choices.
Pro Fun multiplayer (Mass Effect 3)
ME3 has a cooperative multiplayer option that ties into the single-player storyline. Players can take command of various soldiers across all the sapient races, teaming together to fight off waves of enemies and secure objectives.
Pro Great voice acting
By purposefully adding in fantastic voice acting it causes the player to feel more engaged and elicit emotional responses out of them. This is a tool used on purpose in order to make the player feel more immersed in the world of the game.
Pro Thoughtful and expansive story with well-written characters
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt tells a deep and intricate story about the main character, Geralt, on his long journey to find his adoptive daughter, Ciri, who's on the run from the evil, supernatural warlords of the Wild Hunt. You spend the game following various leads on Ciri's whereabouts, meeting up with old friends, former lovers, powerful politicians, and all sorts of people from many walks of life. These characters usually want something in exchange for giving Geralt the information he wants, leading you down some unexpected and eye-opening paths as you learn more about who they are, how they met Ciri, and how she helped them grow as people, letting you form a bond with her through these thought-provoking tales. And as Geralt either helps or hurts these people himself, he inevitably impacts their lives in even more ways.
Aside from the main story, there are also two great expansions: Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine, both of which offer their own amazing narratives with hours and hours of content. Hearts of Stone has you get involved with a shady, all-powerful manipulator who gives Geralt a series of seemingly impossible tasks, while Blood and Wine lets you explore the rolling hills of the wine-loving country of Touissant, with all the political intrigue surrounding the Duchess there.
The Witcher 3's story has so much to offer, easily keeping you hooked for well over a hundred hours as you play and replay the base game and the excellent expansions.
Pro Your choices lead to morally-gray consequences and multiple different endings
There are rarely any right answers when making decisions. The situations that the story puts you in are unique and oftentimes unsettling, sometimes leaving you agonizing over which dialog option to pick during story conversations. During your first playthrough, it's isn't obvious which of your decisions are "important" and will impact plot outcomes, making you think critically about all of your choices. Most surprising are the critical decisions that determine which ending you get -- once you see your ending, you learn how organic everything is, with the game keeping track of your relationships with other characters in subtle ways.
Pro Memorable and meaningful side quests
The Witcher 3 sets a new standard with how well-done the side quests are. Since Geralt is a witcher, meaning he specializes in dealing with monsters with his swords and magic spells, people often go to him when they need a monster problem taken care of. Some of these problems involve people who have lost loved ones to a monster and simply want help tracking down their corpses to give them a proper send-off, or they want Geralt to take revenge by tracking down the monster and killing it. These side stories go a long way to humanize the minor characters, letting you feel their grief, hopelessness, or anger within only a few short minutes of speaking with them and getting the quest details. It's impressive that the writers manage to consistently pack so much emotion into these optional quests that you might not even choose to play through.
Pro Fleshed-out romance options
Playing as Geralt, you have the choice to have one-night stands with ladies at certain taverns, or you can focus on his more involved romantic subplots. By this third game, Geralt has quite a long history with two competent and beautiful sorceresses: Triss Merigold, his love interest from The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, and Yennefer of Vengerberg, his old flame from the series of The Witcher novels that the games are based on. The two women also happen to be best friends, injecting some drama depending on how you go about things.
Triss is really sweet, fun, and spontaneous with the way she makes the stoic Geralt smile and open up more as they get up to mischief together. On the other hand, Yennefer is strict, straightforward, and no-nonsense, not wanting to get into feelings all that much, and yet she and Geralt have such a strong bond over several years, making it feel special when Yen does occasionally let her guard down. Both of these romances intertwine well with the main story, with great optional side quests that add even more layers to whichever relationship you decide to pursue. It's also possible to try romancing both of them at the same time, but you might regret it, so choose carefully.
Pro Vast and beautiful open world to explore
The world is gorgeous in how untainted it is, with many locations to see and visit. Full of vibrant life, the medieval-style setting is simple and understated, with wide open fields, rainy meadows, snowy mountain ranges, and modest wooden towns and cities for you to roam around on horseback or on foot. There are tons of secrets to find all over, like monster lairs to destroy for loot, treasure maps to follow, and hidden side quests in remote villages. The in-game clock keeps the skies changing with the hour as you cross from city to city, country to country, brightening the horizons with brilliant, golden sunrises in the morning and burning crimson sunsets in the evening. Everything is amazing to look at, encouraging you to wander around aimlessly just to take in the sights.
Pro Accessible to players who are new to the Witcher series
Even though this is the third Witcher game, you can still jump right in and not feel lost. The story is generally good with the way it introduces you to the main characters without expecting you to know who they are. Geralt often reminisces with his friends from the first two games, letting you in on their history and adventures together to give you an idea of what happened in the past. And you don't have to have read the series of Witcher books, either, as the games all take place beyond the stories there.
Pro The soundtrack is well constructed and complementary in almost all situations
While exploring, doing a quest whether it is main or side one, the music in the back always enhances your game play. When a fight starts it pumps you up by playing Slavic or Celtic beats, and on a heartbreaking scene, it slows down its pace and plays an instrumental that rings even after you close it. You won't even notice, but you start to hum Skelliege sound or Priscilla song in your daily chores.
Watching the sun set over the horizon while the Kaer Morhen tune plays was one of the best moments in the game. Without the songs to complement it, the side quests or the battles would have started to feel like a chore after a while on doing side content.
Cons
Con Tedious inventory management (Mass Effect)
The game overloads your inventory with weapon upgrades, modifiers, equipment, and all sorts of duplicates of those items. Clearing out your inventory can take several minutes at a time since there's no quick way to select the things you don't want and get rid of them. If you're diligent enough to trek to a store to sell things off every single time you're low on inventory space, you can make quite a bit of money, but it's not always convenient to do this, like when you're out in the middle of a remote planet. It takes a lot of patience to not get annoyed with managing all of your items and components.
Con Levels are very linear (Mass Effect 2)
Mass Effect 2's levels are more like winding corridors with the occasional wide open space here and there. You always have a clear sense of where to go next, but there isn't much room for exploration. It's also obvious when enemies are about to show up, since you'll come to a place with a bunch of chest-high walls conveniently spread around the area for you to take cover behind. It's unimaginative, making missions feel like you're only going from point A to B.
Con Vehicle controls with the Mako are absolutely terrible (Mass Effect)
Driving around on planets to get from place to place in the Mako is awful. Controls aren't as responsive as they should be and the vehicle's physics are all over the place. Just trying to make basic turns is bad enough; roving up a rocky mountain, for example, makes the Mako bounce and spin around like it's in zero gravity. These driving parts are mandatory and unskippable, so there's no way around them. It's so bad that the developers got rid of the Mako in Mass Effect 2 and 3, but you unfortunately still have to deal with it here.
Con Clunky third-person shooting combat (Mass Effect)
The third-person shooting part of Mass Effect isn't that fun because of how janky it is. Your character gets glued to cover whenever you're close to a wall instead of letting you press a button to enter cover whenever you want. The actual shooting mechanics are slow and heavy, and with guns that overheat if you keep firing them for too long. Suicidal squadmates run around getting killed unless you remember to keep directing them to hide behind cover everywhere you go. The combat is just unsatisfying, clearly taking a backseat to the game's story and characters.
Con The main enemies, the Collectors, feel misplaced in the trilogy (Mass Effect 2)
The Mass Effect trilogy's story is about stopping the Reapers -- ancient, unknowable beings who destroy all life -- but this gets interrupted in Mass Effect 2 by the Collectors who are more like minions of the Reapers. The Collectors are dangerous because they harvest humans, though this is not as important as the Reapers who seek to end all life in the galaxy in Mass Effect 3. It would have made sense for Mass Effect 2 to focus on the Reapers instead of the Collectors, since they're more of a secondary problem.
Con The ending is unsatisfying and lacks closure (Mass Effect 3)
Even with the free Extended Cut DLC that expands on the ending, Mass Effect 3's conclusion still falls short of expectations. Commander Shepard and his/her squad are denied a satisfying ending no matter which path you choose. For a series that features such incredible characters, it really stings that you don't get to see everyone have a proper farewell.
Con The human villains are poorly-written (Mass Effect 3)
Mass Effect 3's human villains are more of a joke than anything. Their motivations don't always make sense and they only seem to keep getting in your way for the sake of drama. This is most annoying during scripted story moments where they're suddenly able to overpower you and your team for no real reason. The game's story would have been better off without these certain villains altogether.
Con Story leans too heavily on an unimaginative plot device (Mass Effect 3)
It's disappointing that the big finale to defeat the all-powerful Reapers relies on a plot device. This MacGuffin-like device is boring and feels way too convenient, like the writers ran out of better ideas. It's not all that creative and feels anti-climactic, mostly because it comes out of nowhere in Mass Effect 3 with no mention of it whatsoever in the first two games.
Con Horde mode multiplayer can quickly get stale (Mass Effect 3)
The multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 is a lot of fun at first, but this doesn't last for long. You play with a team of up to three other players against AI of the different enemy factions from single player. Even though you get to unlock lots of unique characters and weapons, it's the same type of horde mode gameplay over and over. You may find yourself getting bored of the ten waves of enemies after a while.
Con Gameplay not consistent across games
ME1 is more of an RPG with some shooter elements; ME2 and ME3 are more cover-based shooters with RPG elements.
Con Some main story segments drag on for way too long
The story is generally excellent except for certain parts that seem to go on and on for hours with no end in sight. You start off looking into someone who has information on Ciri, only to get the run-around in the worst of ways, chasing down several leads for many different characters all at one time. Just when you think you're done with a series of main quests, you have to go talk to someone else, or kill some other monster, or go to some other place instead. It's really annoying and kills the pacing of the otherwise well-written narrative.
Con The combat can take some time to get used to
The real-time action combat with Geralt's swords and magic doesn't quite feel right. When you first try it, you might find the controls to be imprecise and a bit sluggish. You may need a few hours to get used to the way the swordplay works with parrying and dodging, on top of knowing when to use your defensive and offensive spells to take advantage of enemy weaknesses.