Is the title clear? Don’t enter, don’t read if you haven’t finished the game.
THERE WILL BE UNMARKED SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD.
Making some space for the second post.
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I finished the game.
My end
-Blood baron hanged himself, horse beast spirit thing freed.
-Cerys queen.
-Nilfgaard defeated, Redania expanded.
-Geralt goes to Kovir with Triss, finally leaves the Path, more or less.
-Ciri free and being a witcher. Which is a bit stupid, girl, the moment people hear about a pretty girl of 20 years with white heair working as a witcher every-fucking-one is going to know you are still alive! :P Not a lot more of witcher-women in this world.
The only thing where I “failed” was with Radovid. There was a quest to kill him but I missed it because I used the wrong option with Djisktra. It seemed wrong for me to say about Ciri, as he is a powerful person which still is much the old spymaster that he was once, that could provoke more people plotting using her. I kind of dig the Nilfgaardian Empire, maybe it’s the cool armors, maybe the Pax Imperia promise.
So, the ending itself.
The game is an instant classic, and it isn’t like the end is bad, but it could have been better, you know. Maybe because the quality’s level of the rest of the game is so high I can notice more how the ending part lacks a bit of something. It even feels rushed a bit, which is funny given how damn long is the game.
I think part of the problem of the end part of the game is that it has two climaxes, the one of Kaer Mohen, and the one at the final battle in the Skellige coast, and I think the first one was better, reuniting all the people in witcher stronghold, planning it all, Vesemir’s death, etc. Part of the emotional payoff of the player is “spent” there.
What has the second climax? The fight against the big bad? Bah. That’s one of the problems, Eredin.
Eredin is just a tough baddie with a cool armor, the game didn’t characterize him enough in any way for the final fight to be meaningful and powerful. Maybe a Ciri flashback when she was prisoner in the elven’s world would have helped to make the player fear and respect Eredin, the typical “let’s show the baddie in the mid part to make it relevant later and explain why he is so bad” done in other games. Even DA:I did it.
Even his design was super “evil guy!”, that face!, which goes a bit against the themes of Witcher of greyness and realistic fantasy. He seemed more a dude of a good vs evil fantasy. Compare him with the Archmaster from Witcher 1 or Letho from Witcher 2.
Another example of how it feels a bit rushed is that we don’t see any related to Crach’s death, a little moment of his funeral would have been good.
Also the romance part, which is more done in the first Act in the game (and properly!) but I would liked for the romance to have more presence in the end, too, its’ strangely ausent. The focus is in Ciri’s fate, and that’s fine, but in addition I would liked a bit more of resolution in Geralt’s end. A custcene or mini playable area where you are reunited with your loved one. But they totally forgot about both lovers in the end part, Triss even more, and only reappear in a single ending slide. Speaking of romance, I would have liked a big Triss vs Yennefer vs Geralt moment, dishes flying, in the second Act of the game, and maybe some more funny digs here and there, as the pair I saw were pretty fun (Yen throwing the bed where Triss and you made love for the first time, and Yen kissing you suddenly, just because Triss appears two seconds later). It was a great opportunity for good writing. But they chose the “easy way” where they barely interact with each other and easily accept whatever you choose. I suppose otherwise it would be more complex (and expensive), as they would have to do more variations of each scene, depending if you romance one, the other or even none of them.
A complaint I’ve been reading is how the endings work, they come from some options in a otherwise normal or even inane dialog you have from Ciri. It’s “hidden” that way. There are some options marked as “positive” and other as “negative”, and while I can see it in a pair of them, in others I can’t agree, they are very neutral sounding or understandable options given the situation, but they are marked as negative and enough negative points will “kill” Ciri in the end cutscene. Aside, the explanation being cheesy as hell, she has a flashback of your nice moments together and she presses on (or not) thanks to that.
And that ties with the final point, the White Frost. In the last two minutes, the game decides it has to deal too with the White Frost. Like it wants to tie up every thread, at any cost. Even if the previous 120 hours weren’t that related to that. It feels off, like included in extremis. And even more because even if it’s “dealt”, it’s done off camera, without any explanation. I can only think it will be explained (or played?) in a future Ciri game.
This scene was so powerful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBoci7pdpaY
The animation, cinematography, music, everything really. Just top notch.
Haven’t been this moved by a video game since Planescape.
Yeah the scene was wonderful. I knew she had to revive somehow, but even then it was a powerful moment where Geralt’s despair affected me.
At this point I watched on Youtube the other ends. Each one hast their own playable epilogue, and all are wonderful.
The “bad” end is super sad. Life, fuck my life sad. Geralt seems to go on but he is really empty of feelings and with a wish death. His quest, to recover the Vesemir wolf’s medallion that Ciri had taken for herself, killing the last crone in the process. There is an interesting symbolism with the female wolf trapped, waiting for her death, clearly symbolizes Ciri.
The other good ending has a an interesting bittersweet tone. It’s in White Orchard, but in a winter version, with all in snow. Ciri leaves Geralt to take her heritage as future empress of Nilfgaard, it takes Geralt by surprise and the goodbye is sad, but they should be able to see each other from time to time, and she is doing it because it’s the best way to “fix” the world, from a position of power. It’s all well done, with Ciri behaving a bit strangely and Geralt noticing it, until the moment they have a really happy moment when she jumps on top of him. And the truth comes out.
In truth my end, the most “happy” end where Geralt and Ciri go witchering together at least for a good while, it’s the most “neutral”, at least in the feels department.
In the political arena, not only Radovid or Emhyr can win the war, there is a variation where after Radovid assassination he seizes control, interesting.
nice information
thanks all
I got the “Ciri the empress one”. I was ok with it. Frankly it would feel weird to drag my adopted daughter around from brothel to brothel, trying to find a hooker that looks like Triss.
I severely bungled what little romance there was to be had with Triss and I tried distancing myself from Yen the entire game but it didn’t really seem to make a difference. In the end I got none of them, maybe I’ll look up that blind chick? They’re all pretty fine. walks away into the distance
The romance is done saying the three words women really care:
I love you.
If you say to one of them, you romanced her!
Very realistic approach!
I got pretty much the best ending I could want, I think.
- Baron went to take care of his wife
- Cerys became the queen and Skellige prospered
- Temeria restored - refusing Vernon Broche’s wish simply wasn’t an option (and fuck Radovid anyway)
- Ciri becomes a witcher
- Geralt and Yen get a happily ever after
It feels like I should be feeling that post game depression after spending nearly 200 on an epic (both in quality and scope) rpg but I’m not, the ending was just so damn satisfying. As far as I’m concerned this is the new golden standard for rpgs.
I just wish Vesemir had lived :’(.
The ending didn’t feel rushed to me, there was a lot of setup for it, and the sequence for the final two bosses was pretty substantial as well. They’re even some really good quests, the only one I remember going all wtf about was the swim to the flagship under darkness to deliver a letter. Seriously?
Fully agreed on the White Frost. It swoops in from almost nowhere at the last moment and makes everything done during the game appear kind of insignificant in comparison. And it was all so unforced as well. Everything happened off-screen, and the only story payoff was retroactively giving some meaning to the little Ciri/Geralt interludes, but until reading this thread I had no idea that’s what was happening.
And the bad guys were probably the weakest point of the storytelling overall. Here’s a confession: when right after Kaer Morhen Ciri proposes the quest to go and kill generic guy with a skull mask number one, I thought it was the final boss battle, all the way until he was dead. And then it turns out that there’s a handful of other equally generic bad guys with skull masks that will also need to be offed.
Great game anyway.
I just remembered, anyone else get a heavy Eastern Promises http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765443/?ref_=nv_sr_1 vibe from the bathhouse scene?
My ending was pretty much exactly what I hoped for…
- Baron lives, takes care of Anna
- Cerys is a queen
- Temeria is restored, although under Nilfgaard, who won the war
- Ciri becomes empress
- Emhyr defeated his enemies before ceding the throne to Cirilla
- Geralt and Yen are together, chilling out
The epilogue in wintery White Orchard was amazingly beautiful. I wanted to stay there far longer. I suspected what was coming, with Ciri behaving “strangely”, it was beautifully done, so bittersweet, but positive.
Regarding the entire storyline/writing, I have only two niggles I wish they would address/even retcon in DLC/expansion:
-
absence of Saskia and Iorveth. I understand Saskia is OP, but goddammit I wanted to meet her again so much. She was so awesome.
-
Dijkstra being a tiny bit too out of character there after Radovid assasination. Attacking Geralt/Ves/Roche was just a bad decision on his part, it seemed like CDP had to rush that part. If we could at least knock him unconscious or something, I would love that. Killing him just felt shitty.
Regarding Wild Hunt - I can understand the complaints about them. They were underutilized, especially Eredin. I suppose I did not mind too much because I know him better from the books and felt like I did not really need much more exposition with them. Plus for me the game wasn’t really that much about Wild Hunt/White Frost, but about all the real characters in that world, like Baron, Dijkstra, Dandelion, Zolta, Yen, Ciri, Triss, and on and on.
For me, post-game depression is real. Ending was beautiful and satisfying, but I just hate not interacting with these characters anymore, I hate that the journey is over. I have no desire to play any other games at the moment, nothing seems worthy to be played after this.
It’s funny cause it’s true :)
Very much so.
Mine was quite different.
- Baron lives, takes care of Anna
- Cerys is a queen
- Nilfgaard lost the war. Is this because I didn’t do Matters of State? I unintentionally closed it off before I could do it.
- Ciri meets up with Geralt and goes off to do witcher stuff
- Geralt and Triss move to some town and live quietly where she becomes advisor to some king.
Yes, Nilfgaard will lose the war unless you did Reasons of State and sided with Roche at the end of it.
In my ending The North wins the war under Chancellor Djisktra. I don’t know why but I kind of liked him. It was one of those things where I didn’t realize he was going to murder everyone if I remained neutral. Was kinda disappointed that Roche died.
R…Roche died? You monster!
And finished !
I soooo badly wanted to stick it to Nilfgard and make them lose the war but then I just could not let Roche/Vess die. Also, fuck Radovid. So, Nilfgaard wins (this time).
It’s funny, I knew freeing the spirit from the tree was going to be bad (too many lies on its part) but CHILDREN. How could I let the crones eat the children :(
Also, that way the Baron hangs himself. Freeing this spirit was really such a bad idea :(
It’s funny: the 1st time I saw Zoltan with his owl in the tavern, so delusional and trying to teach it to do tricks like a parrot I was really amused by it. Almost posted in the other thread to say how the little things like this build up the game world so much. And then, it turns out it was Philipa all along. HAHAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHHAHA. Love it.
I think CDPR missed a great opportunity for a 30 seconds scene between Philipa and Zoltan once she regains her human form. The situation is already great but could have been made glorious with just a little bit more.
I am not entirely sure why but returning to Kaer Morhen after the battle was a serious emotional gut punch to me. The combination of sad/subdued background music, knowing Vesemir is dead and the witcher home is completely abandoned and will slowly become a complete ruin. The abandoned castle itself. It felt so sad, just standing there. Imagining how it will continue to decay. Maybe just me but it was really emotionally powerful.
I would not call it post-game depression but yeah, feel a bit sad/empty right now.
Few criticisms:
- I chose Triss quite early in the game and then … nothing after the lighthouse? I don’t mean sex scenes but I was hoping for some interaction at least. But I just saw nothing at all between the lighthouse and the end of the game. No opportunity to chat, explore further the relationship etc. Was either all business or no opportunities to chat. It felt somewhat “off”
- Fight-wise, I was REALLY, REALLY hopping to see the equivalent of the fight with Letho in TW2. i.e. pure fighting skills, 1 vs. 1, same skills available to both characters. No magical gimmick bullshit. In that respect, I found the boss fights disappointing.
The only fight that got close for me was one you get when looking for Cat gear on Temple isle and you end up fighting some possessed witcher. Still, would have loved 2-3 more like this. - the white that eats (?) - whatever thing at the end. Guess it had to be there to tie up loose end but frankly did not leave much of an impression on me. I got the Cirila = witcher ending which I was happy with.
Also, I thought my playthrough had been thorough but apparently I missed at least a handful of side quests. Going to have to use a guide there to at least see how to trigger them.
My ending -
- Baron lives, takes care of Anna
- Cerys is queen of Skellige
- Temeria is restored, although under Nilfgaard, who won the war
- Ciri becomes empress
- Emhyr defeated his enemies before ceding the throne to Cirilla
- Geralt is a lonely fuck, because I told both Yen and Triss that I loved them. :(
I told Yen I loved her, of course. Then LATER I told Triss that I loved her. Then later there’s the hot threesome… which isn’t a threesome, they both tie up Geralt and leave and then later Yen says (paraphrasing), “Yeah we’re both done with you, forever, enjoy your courtesans.” End of romance. Great. Had I known I would have the opportunity to romance Triss I wouldn’t have told Yen that I loved her.
I also don’t get why Ciri was so sad about becoming Empress. I mean… Geralt can’t visit? Like, EVER? That’s dumb.
Fantastic game, but I’m going to reluctantly give the nod to Skyrim as still the greatest. While the Witcher 3 is better than Skyrim in virtually every way, there’s one important area where it’s not – Skyrim is much more of a role playing game. From bosmer illusionist to Khajit dual-wielder, there are dozens of way to play Skyrim. In the Witcher 3, no matter how you spec yourself it ultimately comes down to Geralt sticking things with his sword. Maybe in the Witcher 4 we can get a choice between Geralt, Triss, Zoltan and Dandelion. ;)
My ending was identical save that Ciri becomes a Witcher. F’n sad ending, standing there in Kaer Morhan all by yourself. I ran out of that place, couldn’t stand to be there alone.
My romancing was with Triss first. I knew of her from teh first two games, couldn’t remember who Yen was. Read the first two books, play more of the game, start palling around with Yen, and based on the prose felt like there was a strong bond between teh two that should be respected, so likewise told her that my medallion vibrated for her. Had I known of the details of their relationship, I would’ve been strictly a Yen man. Alas, I got that 3-some quest too and ended up alone. Which didn’t feel right, seemed like the writers should’ve put a bit more interaction among those three on screen. We can assume there was a good bit of chatting between the two women, but it still felt flat being delivered in such an abrupt way.
Edit: Just read farfrael’s post. Yeah, what he wrote. Post-game depression is about right, W3 is one of the few games in my decades of electronic gaming that actually got any kind of tug from me, and the loneliness was palpable.