I also vote this. The side quest writing in the Witcher 3 is very high quality for the genre, and it's easy enough to completely ignore the superfluous content like bandit camps and stuff littered around.
It's a long game but it's so good I never got that feeling of "uhhhgg this was fun but I'm ready to be done". The thing about very good writing is that more is always better. Even excellent gameplay gets old after a while.
Hey high five, also a local newspaper guy! I bumbled into it maybe 7 years ago. It doesn't pay well (it's pretty rural) but it totally aligns with my principles. It's rough in the newspaper industry these days but it's also an interesting challenge. Your competition is basically Facebook and Google.
I totally agree though. Certain small businesses are happy to have a skilled programmer. My boss gives me a lot of leeway to follow my principals when it comes to user privacy and stuff.