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Looking through the lens of relativity, I'd have to say Witcher I. The fact that the fucking masterpiece that is Witcher III and not-amazing-but-definitely-worth-a-playthrough that is Witcher II both stemmed from the comically bad dumpster fire that was #1 is nothing short of a miracle.
The franchise *should* have died at #1, but I'm sure glad it didn't.
I think that's maybe a bit harsh compared to a lot of the games mentioned here. Witcher 1 definitely has a lot of problems compared to 2 and 3 but it had a lot going for it as well. Sure the combat was broken as hell once you got all the spinning moves and it was super sexist with the women as trading cards thing. But the story and world building were still fun and Geralt was well characterised. It's not a great game but it did well enough to get them the sequels. Definitely nowhere near the worst game I've played.
I think that's maybe a bit harsh compared to a lot of the games mentioned here.
For sure - by "looking at it through the lens of relativity" I guess I failed to specify what I was holding it relative to - where my brain's at W1 as a starting point, and the quality of W2 and W3... Relative to other trilogies that actually did well, Witcher's starting point is hot trash. Like, a game that bad doesn't generally go on to have good sequels, but the degree of improvement in both W2 and W3 is fucking astounding.
W1 still has probably the best writing and script of any of the three games. I definitely prefer the third for gameplay but W1 is just an artifact of the awkward time it came out, when there was a lot less consensus on how 3rd person action games controlled.
I remember playing Witcher 1 and being thoroughly underwhelmed by it, so I'm glad to feel validated here instead of just having to label myself as a game troglodyte