I am currently on 3rd run of this game. I had written a review before, I think, I have to rewrite it and pour my heart in to this because frankly, this has been one of the most cherished experience of my life. Here goes,

I have been gaming all my life, effectively 2 and half decades of gaming on different platforms and being Half-life fanboy, I always believed that Half-Life 2 was the greatest game ever made. Any other claims seemed redundant and rightly so after playing those games myself, then I came across Wild hunt.

I started playing and I had played assassins of Kings sometime back but felt really rusty at start of the game, combat felt clunky and overwhelming at first but once I got used to it, the preparation before every encounter became a thing to look forward to. After finishing tutorial in White Orchad which was pretty fun and easy, I went to Velen. It started becoming more interesting, the war-ridden area with lot of swamps, empty huts with corpses, bandits, monsters and the death, despair and tragedy had its own beauty, I started enjoying the game and went off the path almost every now and then in search of question marks on the map and beautifully intriguing side quests, I started understanding why the game is critically acclaimed and universally loved, it was beautiful at times, it made me cry at times and it was overwhelming with right amount of difficulty at times. Velen remains one of the best created fantasy lands of all time, right up there with City 17.

So I started exploring and ended up in Novigrad, my word, I was amazed, the city was as real as you could have perceived in a game and almost opposite to what Velen had been, you explore Novigrad and you don't want to leave it, I ended up getting addicted to Gwent following threads from White Orchad to Novigrad, found myself exploring almost every single house, nook and corners of the city and the life, the soundtrack and environment took the journey to the next level. Now, I started enjoying this more than anything, almost craving the game at certain points in the day when I was at work or doing something else.

After finishing certain quests in Velen and Novigrad, shedding some tears about certain towers of mice as well as family tragedy of a bloody guy, Skellige was calling, by then, I was already a fan, someone who really enjoyed the journey, invested heavily in it and did not want to have my heart broken, yet something was missing, I still remembered claims about it being the best game ever made and for me, that moment had not come yet.

So I started exploring Skellige, I love explore by running or walking rather than using Roach, so I found myself running around on mountains, then I stop suddenly in my tracks, The Fields of Ard Skellige start playing, I have goosebumps, I am not in combat, not in dialogue, not in any story moment, I am just there on mountains facing the terrain and listening to the soundtrack and that was the moment I fell in love with it, shedding tear or two, I just stood and appreciated what I have been experiencing, the journey that had end and yet at the same time, it was something that had given me so much happiness, so many stories and so much to reflect and remember about. That was the moment I realized and accepted that this is the best game ever made.

I felt like writing this sometime back, since then I have found so many beautiful stories in this game, from Family Matters to Black Pearl, to Towerful of Mice, Priscilla's Song, oh my, What a journey.

Note on DLCs:

Hearts of Stone made me cry, grown man reduced to tears and Toussant in blood and Wine was a love letter to the fans.

Yep, The Best game ever made!!