With Blood and Wine out, I have decided to compile a list of my favourite quests from The Gwenter 3: Card Hunt. Sorry, I meant to say (Writer's thoughts at the moment: "Skellige deck HYPE! OLAF CARD!!!") The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. This was my triple-A GOTY of last year for having well-done writing, complex characters, amazing animations, a stellar soundtrack and for the effort put into the first expansion pack, Hearts of Stone. Some of my own thoughts and opinions for these quests will be stated and if these views do not match the readers... there's nothing I can do about them. I interpreted these things like that. So, of course there will be quests that left a stronger impression on me during the long hours spent running away from high level mobs and sliding down mountain slopes.
SPOILER WARNING!!! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS
Family Matters (the Baron’s questline):
This quest initially starts out simple; local self-proclaimed Baron, Phillip Strenger, wants Geralt of Rivia to find his missing wife and daughter, Anna and Tamara. Since this is a medieval fantasy world with monsters roaming about and bandits pillaging the countryside, this seems like a simple search and rescue quest. The story however then shifts into a tragic tale involving domestic abuse and regret. The Baron is both a drunken abusive bastard of a man who should be condemned but still a man nonetheless by showing that he feels true remorse for his actions, acknowledging his role in his broken family. A scene that truly moved me was when he was reciting the prayer Geralt dictates for him to say as he lays the Botchling to rest. The voice-acting for this scene is the highlight of this scene as it conveys the man's genuine remorse as he tearfully recites what Geralt dictates and I am mature enough to admit that I may have felt my eyes water.
The quest goes deeper in exploring abuse in a family through the daughter and the wife. With the Baron's daughter Tamara, she points out how despite her father's care and tenderness around her, the knowledge of his physical battery of his wife served as a form of abuse on its own as she had to witness years of such abuse on her mother. As for Anna, the Baron's wife, she showcases how abuse does not just come from the man as her act of attempting to abandon Phillip, taking their child in the process, in the early years of their marriage for another man while Philip was out fighting in a war as a soldier (resulting in him murdering said man) instigates the first fracture of their marriage. Her repeated taunts and insults towards her husband despite his attempts at reconciliation leads to his own abuse as he found it easier to stop her unceasing insults with physical harm. Her hatred of her husband however leads to her desiring to abort a new child simply to spite him (as he expressed his hopes for the new child to fix their broken marriage) resulting in her seeking out the Crones of Crookback Bog to induce a miscarriage through magic that eventually comes to pass. From this, the player sees several aspects to the abuse in this family as neither party to the abuse were willing to resolve their problems and as a result of this, even the uninvolved Tamara is traumatised by the actions of her parent. While Anna's actions do not exonerate the Baron of his actions, it allows the player to understand him. As an in-game response sums it up, fault lies on both sides.
The other key idea of the quest is regret. As mentioned before, the Baron feels genuine remorse for all of his actions towards his family (even if the miscarriage had been his wife's fault). By being forced to acknowledge his guilt and feel regret, the Baron becomes a changed man. After tracking decisive leads to the missing women, Geralt is eventually informed that the Baron had stopped drinking and has become rather introspective for someone like him. The events have left their scars on the man and now seeks to be better than who he had been. His daughter, when discovered, refuses to believe this due to her own perceptions of her father while his wife is in no condition to consider anyone (due to being enslaved by the Crones). In one conclusion of this quest-line, the Baron is reunited with his wife and daughter but not only does his daughter refuse to recognize him, his wife had been driven insane through her time with the Crones. Here, the Baron's character arc comes full circle as he embarks on a journey to a medicine man with aforesaid wife to find a cure for her madness, swearing off drink during and after said journey is resolved while finally beginning the first steps towards reconciling with his daughter. The Baron from the initial stages of the quest may not have done such a thing but the Baron after his encounter with Dea does so without hesitation and with some form of tenderness towards his wife. This quest highlights how human these characters are and how the writing is able to acknowledge the grey aspects of morality through exploring such ideas in an interactive medium and delving deeper in exploring the act of abuse on a family. Every time I think about this game, this is the first quest that comes to mind as it seems much of the game's writing strength hinged on this particular quest-line.
After rescuing the bard, Dandelion (a close friend of Geralt), he ropes Geralt into helping him set up his new cabaret with several schemes. Simple enough story; hi-jinks among friends, handling problems for the opening day etc. The twist comes immediately on opening day when the star of the show and Dandelion's current (and presumably permanent) lover, Priscilla, is attacked by a serial killer stalking the streets and barely escapes with her life. Filled with barely held-back rage and grief, Dandelion makes a simple request to his friend: find and kill the serial killer, a request Geralt is more than willing to undertake. The quest takes Geralt through investigating several leads and encountering additional parties involved in this case.
What I like about this case is how it was built up whereby the cheerful optimism of starting a new cabaret is suddenly shifted into a grim and horrific tragedy without too awkward a shift in tone. Due to prior events (and possibly previous games), the player would have developed some form of attachment to Priscilla and Dandelion which makes this tragedy more of a gut-punch. Dandelion, a typically cheerful, womanizing bard, hardens in rage and grief at the sight of his nearly-dead beloved and contrary to his personality before, makes a sincere request for Geralt to avenge his beloved. As a result of all this, this quest feels emotionally charged as Geralt begins his investigation to hunt down this foul being for justice and vengeance.
The other thing I like is how this quest is among the many quests in The Witcher 3 to require the player to think further into the mystery. The quest throws an obvious suspect at the player as the quest progresses which the player may take to be the killer but the observant player (or more likely, the one that has a back-up save file) may notice glaring clues that point to an unlikely suspect. The fact that the game allows for the player to miss such a solution is one I do appreciate as it reminds players to use their intuition and deductive reasoning rather than quest markers and journal hints. Doing so allows the player to hunt down the 'monster' responsible for the serial killings and bring them to justice. While the conclusion is rather underwhelming, I left the quest with good impressions (and the vindication of having a brain).
Hearts of Stone (Dead Man's Party, Scenes from a Marriage, Whatsoever a Man Soweth):
The first expansion pack to The Witcher 3 includes a plethora of quests. There are three quests in this DLC that I am rather fond of for the quality of the entertainment value, the atmosphere and the writing.
The first of these three is the quest, Dead Man's Party. In Hearts of Stone, the character, Olgierd von Everec makes Geralt, forced to act as a proxy of a being named Gaunter O'Dimm, grant three of his impossible wishes to settle a deal made by the former to the latter. One of these wishes is for Geralt to show Olgierd's brother, Vlodimir von Everec, a good time. The only problem is that he is dead. With Gaunter's help, Geralt is able to summon the ghost but remains intangible on account of being a ghost after all. Due to aforesaid ghost requiring a physical body to have aforesaid fun, Geralt ends up possessed voluntarily. What follows is a humorous quest as Vlodimir, possessing Geralt's body, attends a wedding accompanying Shani, an old friend of Geralt who is aware of said possession. Geralt's antics when possessed are simply hilarious to watch as he shamelessly flirts with Shani and the other female guests, innocently insults male peasants, potentially ends up wearing ass ears and generally makes a fool of himself in a quirky manner. Since the quest offers several activities of varying depth, possessed Geralt (and his voice actor) gets the opportunity to act out of character and have fun. The quest ends on a tragic note for Vlodimir however and leaves the couple in an awkward situation (Shani's history with Geralt being brought up once more).
The next quest is Scenes from a Marriage. This request involves obtaining a violet rose that belonged to Olgierd's wife, Iris von Everec, who resides in the von Everec estate. As shown by the previous quest, the estate is experiencing a rather severe haunting. After a challenging boss fight, Geralt is able to enter the estate and discovers the effect of Olgierd's deal on his loved ones. The result of von Everec's deal left him with a heart of stone that only allows him to experience sensations at a superficial level, leaving him incapable of experiencing any sensation to its fullest. Entering deeper into the estate, Geralt witnesses the impact of having a heart of stone as the Olgierd captured in the memories of Iris is unable to truly feel the same love he felt for her before the deal was made and the inability to hold onto any emotions drives him to commit terrible acts to his wife and her family, culminating with him simply abandoning her to pursue newer sensations for his stone-heart. The atmosphere within the estate is creepy with enough shadows and decay to keep the player on their toes (unless the player does what I did and simply drink a Cat potion) and when Geralt enters the Painted World (made by the ghost of Iris that still haunts the estate), the art style shifts to reflect that with backgrounds seemingly painted (while interact-able areas remain in the normal style). This quest also features three rather challenging boss-fights with the Caretaker, the Wraith from the Painting and Iris' Greatest Fear having unique mechanics that require alteration of usual player tactics to accommodate for these fights (I personally found the Caretaker to be the more challenging of these three overall). In the end of the quest, Geralt is left with a difficult dilemma when Iris offers the rose: On one hand, taking the rose will release her from the Painted World but would cause Iris to cease to exist while the alternative allows her to continue existing but her imprisonment in the Painted World continues. This is one dilemma that got me to stand up and pace around the room thinking. In the end, I chose to take the rose to release her from this existence so that she may find peace in some afterlife or in oblivion.
The last of these quests is Whatsoever a Man Soweth. The quest seems simple enough at first; meet up with Olgierd to inform him about fulfilling his third request (the second unmentioned request involved a heist). However, Geralt encounters O'dimm who suggests a new meeting spot and while time is frozen at O'dimm's whims, he kills a man who interrupted him prior by sticking an entire spoon through his eye-socket. After that disturbing display of power and making the suggestion, an optional objective is also presented which is to follow-up on Shani's investigations into O'dimm. This next part is optional and players may skip this next bit but at the risk of some intriguing exposition. After entering the closed Oxenfurt Academy, Geralt finds Premethine Shakeslock, a professor who did extensive research into the entity that is Gaunter O'dimm.
It is here where the player begins to glimpse at O'dimm's true nature as Shakeslock reveals O'dimm to be an ancient being of evil that wields tremendous power (if stopping time was not proof of that already) whose modus operandi is to trick people into making Faustian bargains he is able to twist in order to claim the souls of those foolish enough to try. This, along with several bits involving O'dimm, add an additional layer to O'dimm as an antagonist as he becomes more unique than the main game's antagonists while making him out to be the closest thing to the orthodox Devil in the Witcher universe with his recurring title being Evil Incarnate. As an antagonist, O'dimm winds up being more interesting to me that Eredin or Radovid through the mystery surrounding him, his true identity (along with its implications) and the game that is being played between him and Olgierd for the latter's soul with Geralt caught in between. After that revelation, the quest continues with the meet-up with Olgierd. Through clever re-interpretation of Olgierd's terms, O'dimm is able to trick Olgierd into fulfilling every condition of their agreement (both of them standing on the moon) to claim Olgierd's soul.
From here, another decision arises: Allow O'dimm to claim Olgierd's soul or save Olgierd with the only proven method that allows one to best O'dimm, a game of wits. The latter is more interesting in my opinion and as a Witcher, Geralt usually opposes the greater evil. While Olgierd has done a lot of terrible deeds, almost all of those deeds can be traced back to his deal with O'dimm and the monkey's paw effect at work which is why I chose to help Olgierd. In the game of wits, O'dimm instructs Geralt to solve a rather simple riddle by finding the object of the riddle in a nightmare world of O'dimm's making. While the answer (a reflection) is simple, accessing the answer is not as O'dimm shatters every mirror Geralt finds in the nightmare world. It will take the player's wits (and optionally a hint from an earlier quest) to solve the riddle. Doing so allows Geralt to defeat O'dimm (for now) and frees Olgierd from his deal who is finally able to feel the weight of his actions again and accepts the need to atone for his crimes. While there are two conclusions to this quest, I prefer the conclusion with Olgierd freed of his heart of stone as it provides a more optimistic resolution to a story involving a Faustian bargain with Olgierd free to seek atonement for his crimes and for the feat of being able to defeat the equivalent of the Devil in a game of wits. The feeling of accomplishment for finishing this quest is only mired by the lack of a full epilogue but as a whole, it felt like a suitable conclusion to such a tale.
Where the Cat and the Wolf Play
This is one quest added via the free DLC program ran prior to releasing Hearts of Stone. What starts out as a simple contract develops further when the village of Honorton, where said contract originated from, is found massacred. What follows is an investigation as Geralt attempts to figure out what had massacred the village. Eventually, Geralt learns that another witcher had performed the massacre and Geralt goes off to confront the witcher. Gaetan of the Witcher School of the Cat is the one responsible but as Geralt confronts the butcher, Gaetan reveals his own side of the story: That he had completed the contract for the village and that the ealdorman had attempted to pay the man less. After arguing, the ealdorman told him to go to the nearby barn where he claims a stash is kept. Upon entering however, Gaetan was ambushed by some of the villagers (with the ealdorman) and was nearly killed. In response, Gaetan slew the villagers in a frenzy save for a little girl, Millie who had informed Geralt of Gaetan's presence. This creates an interesting dilemma for Geralt and the player as they have to decide whether to kill Gaetan to avenge the villager and put down a dangerous individual or spare Gaetan due to the circumstances. In this quest, I chose to spare Gaetan acknowledging that Gaetan's frenzied slaying could be the result of the mental problems that the School of the Cat has been known to suffer from and that the villagers had started this mess. While Gaetan is still guilty of murder, he is not completely at fault (plus sparing his provides access to a decent steel sword at my level) and a witcher like Geralt would not make for a proper judge in this case. This interesting dilemma presented is another reason why I enjoyed this quest so much as some intuition and thought comes into play here. While short, the player will have to ponder and decide the appropriate outcome. The other bonus here is Millie's present if the player goes out of their way to help her and visits her later on which tugged at the old heartstrings upon seeing said present, making me feel like I did some real good in the world of the Witcher.
Contract: Skellige's Most Wanted
This is another one of the DLC quests. The quest starts out simple with the contract-giver asking Geralt to hunt some Nekkers. This quickly changes when a boulder almost crushes Geralt at the scene of the supposed Nekker attack. After following all the leads, Geralt is led into a clearing where a godling, a doppler, a troll and a werewolf lie waiting. The four sentient monsters have teamed up to deal with the witcher present. What makes this quest stand out for me is the fact that this quest takes into account all contract monsters that have been spared. Several witcher contracts may allow Geralt to spare a monster or allow it to stay in its chosen lair for several reasons (either out of sympathy, justifiable reasons or out of mercy) and it is this quest that takes these acts of mercy into account. By being able to spare these monsters, Geralt is able to prove to these monsters that witchers are not just monster hunters. The werewolf however does not buy this argument, having gone insane with rage due to his mate's death at the hands of another witcher resulting in a suicidal charge against a witcher. The godling in the end sums up the lesson of the story that man and monster are similar with some good, some bad and others simply lost. The conclusion is rather underwhelming for such a quest but I acknowledge it as it is one of those quests that takes decisions made into account (and I do have a soft spot for quests that recognize my decisions).
The Battle of Kaer Morhen
This particular quest is part of the main quest and takes place shortly after finding Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon (or Ciri for short), Geralt's surrogate daughter (for lack of a better term). While the quest is a typical hold-the-line quest in an old fortress, what I do like about it is the amount of ways it can go down as a result of completing (or not completing) side-quests. Certain characters may not even be present if their side-quests are not done (with one in particular is of determinant status as a result of choices in Witcher 2) and having those characters present makes it easier to keep more people alive while opening up new options. As for the battle, it is tense and epic with the warriors of the Wild Hunt outnumbering skilled fighters and mages who are only winning through experience and skill. The battle however is doomed to fail and comes at a heavy cost for the witchers from the school of the Wolf as Vesemir sacrifices himself to prevent himself from being used as a hostage of the Wild Hunt to capture Ciri. The way the battle is resolved is rather underwhelming after such a battle but then again, there was no real way to resolve the battle with the defenders of Kaer Morhen beating the Wild Hunt backed with magic. As a climax, it was alright but once again, it is a quest that acknowledges in-game actions and that is why I place it on my list.
No Place Like Home
Taking place before the Battle of Kaer Morhen, this quest pops up as Geralt spends the night in Kaer Morhen, home of the Wolf School branch of witchers, with fellow witchers, Eskel and Lambert. Since Vesemir had taken UMA (Ugliest Man Alive and a relevant plot device) to the mountains to try more traditional means of lifting the latter's curse, Geralt and the rest have some free time. What follows (if Yen is romanced, there are differences) is a hangover-like quest as the three witchers get drunk off a special cocktail that is as potent as an entire bottle of undiluted whiskey to a normal person. Seeing a character as serious and stoic as Geralt getting sloshed is entertaining (and part of the reason why I liked Dead Man's Party). Highlights include their slurred attempts at finding a missing Eskel and their attempts to work Yennefer's megascope while wearing her dresses to call for more sorceresses. This particularly entertaining quest comes before one of the more harsher quests with UMA being subjected to the Trial of the Grasses (an excruciating procedure) and the rest of the main quest, making it a decent tension-relieving quest which is often needed in a good story to prevent the story from being too much about angst. It comes at the right time as after this quest there are not as many funny moments than there are heart-wrenching moments. Speaking of which...
Isle of Mists (the ending in particular)
The Isle of Mists is the quest where Geralt finally locates Ciri, taking place before the Battle of Kaer Morhen. While the quest is a basic exploration quest with an escort, the end of this quest is a heart-wrenching climax with the in-game animation and soundtrack at their finest. The cutscene after the dwarves hiding in the hut reveal that Ciri appears to be dead is one of the finest bits of animation I have seen in a game of this size. The lack of dialogue allows for Geralt's body language to communicate his trepidation and fear at the possibility of Ciri's death. Upon discovering her seemingly dead, the body language (through the animation) is able to communicate brief rage before disappointment, sorrow and grief as he slumps onto her bed. The way Geralt holds the lifeless Ciri in his arms amidst silent sobs portrays immense grief on Geralt's part and the music keeps the mood down. Only when the wisp used to guide Geralt to the Isle of Mists enters Ciri does the music shift as the two are finally reunited properly in each others' arms. That cutscene is one of the best cutscenes I have seen in games due to the way that the body language and soundtrack worked together to tell the story for that moment. It does not set mood through mouthy monologues or songs with unneeded vocals but simply used the body language of the characters and vocal-less music to convey the mood in that moment, telling the story from there (I do admit that the woman wail at the end is harder to listen to on repeated watches).
SPOILER OVER
That is all for my list. I am aware that opinions are different but these are mine. The reader is free to leave a comment to voice their own favourite quest from Witcher 3, any other Witcher game or even other games in general.
