Witcher 3 ironically made the most threatening villains story-wise far weaker than the most threatening villains gameplay-wise. Some emo vampire and a demon you can beat with mind games are gameplay-wise more threatening than the Wild Hunt, who are seen as the harbingers of the apocalypse, although story-wise, they'd be far weaker. The demon in question, Gaunter, even says he can't help you with fighting the Wild Hunt and finding Ciri, even if you did side with him and do everything he told you. So story-wise, he's below Eredin and Avallach's pay grade, since Gauntercan't find Ciri on the Isle of Mists, something Eredin was able to do. Even though Gaunter should technically be able to just warp Eredin or Ciri in, and shove a spoon into Eredin's eye socket.
This is mostly due to the fact that the DLC content, instead of scaling with you, is locked at level 35, meanwhile the main endgame questline is something you can do from level 22 onwards. So it's funny when say, I do all the DLC quests before bringing Uma to the Nilfgaardian Emperor, which starts the endgame quests. Because by the time that happens, I can set the endgame quests to Death March difficulty, but the enemies are way below my level. Which then leads to me crushing the endgame bosses at the highest difficulty making them look like noobs who wandered into the pro gaming server. I managed to defeat both Imlerith and Eredin on Death March difficulty, on my first try.
The game obviously expects you to beat the main story quest first, then turn around and do the DLC missions, but thematically speaking, I wanted the Wild Hunt to be the last thing Geralt fights before he lays down his sword and retires to his vineyard. They've been hounding him since the first game, and the third game as a whole builds up to them as the main event, so a trickster demon and a vampire crashout seem like minor side-stories when compared to them.
I wonder what the Witcher 3 DLC leading to Witcher 4 will be like. What it will entail, it obviously has to undo the Empress Ciri ending for those who chose it. Like say, maybe the Nilfgaardian nobles and trade corporations hate Emhyr so much that they will deny the throne to anyone who has a drop of his blood. That way, he can't just abdicate the throne to Anna Henrietta, who was his cousin. The Nilfgaard empire falls apart into civil war, another conjunction of spheres coughs up monsters all over the place, and Ciri has to renounce any claims to the throne and work as a common working girl/pest control expert.
No, they're just Polish BioWare now, and pretty much set on the same self-destructive course.
That's what happens when big money walks in on a small gaming studio. They suddenly lose their roots and focus on mass corporate appeal.
The same thing happened to the real Bioware. They went from a cute DnD-RPG company that made compelling stories and fun tactical games into basically Treyarch/Bungie making shooters or action games with love sims. Basically, imagine Halo if the Master Chief can choose between dating Cortana, Miranda Keyes, and the Arbiter's sister.
