I'm not really sure what you'd consider "anything special", then. What more do you want from sidequests than what W3 offers?
The companies you mention (Ubisoft, BioWare, Bethesda) don't do any more with their sidequests than what's in the Witcher 3. In fact, they often do much less. Straight forward "talk to person to get quest -- kill bad guys who stole ring -- return to quest giver" routine, with very little actual story behind each. DA:I was littered with quests where you literally click on a person with a bubble over their head, they give you a short description of what they need and how they lost it, and you go fetch it, which consists of maybe fighting a group of bandits, picking up the item, then bringing it back for reward.
IMO, it's the extra detail, extra bit of story/lore that have impressed me. Obviously if you skin them down to their bare bones, all sidequests (all quests, even) are "fetch quests". It's how they're presented, the detail they're given, that make them interesting. So I'm really not sure how someone can play through the ones in the Witcher 3 and think they're not anything special compared to what we usually get from your typical RPG game.
Each sidequest feels almost like its own self-contained story attached to it. Typically, you don't see that from other RPGs with regards to their sidequests nowadays. Main quests, sure. But sidequests, rarely.
Missions not connected to main story feel very much like a mix of AssCreed and Arkham City to me. What with the heavy use of cutscenes and "detective" mode.
What I really like about the game are the more unpredictable random encounters. Like talking to the idol of a god and being led to a fat sylvan. And nice pieces of environmental storytelling.