God, this game is a masterpiece. [Spoilers!]

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NO FURTHER SPOILERS PLEASE!!

I just finished "Now or Never" and said goodbye to Triss.

That last bit at the docks where it gives you the timed dialogue option for "I love you"… I didn't pick it. I couldn't. I let her go.

I knew it was the right thing to do. Her mages need her; nobody else can do what she can for them. Keeping her in Novigrad would only keep her in danger for selfish reasons. And it would be unreasonable to ask her to open up something we'd agreed to leave shut, and leave everything she'd worked so hard for behind…

BUT WHAT IF I HAD TOLD HER? What if I had been able to convince her to stay with me? What if she's just as lovesick over me as I was over her, and wants what I want and would have stayed in Novigrad had I just said the word? What could we have had together? I'll never know.

See, The Witcher III is unlike other games in that the way you treat the characters around you is impactful, and the decisions you make have real, permanent consequences. That dialogue option is so real, so accurate to what must have been racing through Geralt's head as he tried to say a goodbye he couldn't, and it leaves me, the player, with a real, tangible "what if" instead of being predestined to have to let her go.

That's such an exemplification of the magic of video games. Unlike films or books, it's possible to have parts of the story that aren't explicitly scripted, so that the "what if" factor is real, and the player gets to experience the freedom and the burden of choice just as the characters do.

Please, no spoilers in the comments. It's hard enough as it is not to simply google the possible outcomes, or at least see if I'll ever see Triss again, but I know that'll spoil the magic.

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God, this game is a masterpiece. [Spoilers!]