The Witcher 3 and the Management of Narrative Scale - Writing on Games

HEADS UP - I try to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum here, but it does feature footage from Blood and Wine (again though, I tried to keep it to stuff that happens in the first half hour or so). Just something to keep in mind.
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Patreon: / writingongames
Podcast (iTunes) - itunes.apple.c...
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So, the show is a year old now! Holy heck! I figured what better way to celebrate than to finally start digging into my Game of the Year for 2015, that hasn't had its own video yet. Consider this a pseudo-review/analysis piece.
For me, The Witcher 3's greatest triumph is the way it manages its scale. So many RPGs fall into the trap of placing the player character at the centre of everything that is occurring within the world - this results in the scale of the narrative becoming untenable, making it substantially harder to really get players invested in the game.
The Witcher 3 eschews this, instead creating a game which focuses on the small things as much as (if not more than) the bigger picture. In reducing the scale of the narrative from some cataclysmic conflict that only you can stop to focusing on the way the conflict hangs over the lives of the citizens you encounter, they make it far easier for players to relate to characters. In this episode of Writing on Games then, I examine how the game achieves this reduction of scale through the way it handles characterisation, world design, and player choice, making it one of the most daring AAA action RPGs of recent times.
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As I say, the show is a year old and I can't quite believe it. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has watched, subscribed, listened, spread the word, pledged to the Patreon... every single one of you means so much to me and I'm so glad to have you on board as the channel continues to grow. If you feel like you have taken something positive from the show, if you would consider pledging at www.patreon.com/writingongames then I would be so appreciative. Every donation really makes justifying the amount of time I spend making these dumb videos a whole lot easier.
Also, I captured a bunch of footage for this episode but for some reason when it came to editing, it all decided to corrupt itself somehow. With that in mind, I would like to sincerely thank the following people for saving my ass (even though they don't know they did):
FiGhTiNCoWBoY for the majority of the Witcher footage (as well as getting me through a lot of Dark Souls 3 in the murky hell that was pre-release) - / fightincowboy713
Joe Leonard and 14Karma0 for the Skyrim footage - / maelfyn and / @karmasgaming9603 respectively.
Ahoj50, Polygon and Van Houten for the rest of the Witcher footage - / ahoj50 , / polygon and / @vanhouten6014 respectively.
You're all great, thank you very much.
Thank you so much to everyone for their continued support! Here's to another year of this big dumb thing.