List of changes and cut content from the May 2014 leaks (copied from Reddit)

[Shavod]

You are right, but for a grand finale, it's kind of cheap and unworthy... For me at least.
I thought "The best comes last" - Ending included.
Well, it shouldn't be.

Btw, before this goes more OT, lets end the discussion about the ending. looks like it wasn't part of the cut content.
Hard to believe it was planned to be bad -.-

As I said, I see nothing bad about it and they even announced how it's gonna look like back in 2013 (playable epilogue + ending cards). Turning each card into a cutscene would be extremely expensive, especially for something that is a brief summary and very small part of the actual ending. In fact, pretty much any other AAA RPG offer much less in terms of endings then The Witcher 3 already does, even in it's cut down final version. In terms of the epilogues themselves, I don't have much too complain, maybe just the Empress ending could use more setup. The things that pull the ending as a whole down are the ones before the epilogues, like final battle, events at Undvik plus some other parts of Act 3 and I know those were planned to be much better, so these are the things I regret didn't appear in the final game.

 

[Krull32]

As I said, I see nothing bad about it

And as i said, for me it's incredible bad.
Everyone have his opinion, and nothing will change mine about that.

Turning each card into a cutscene would be extremely expensive

It would be more expensive, sure, but it would have been worth it...

 

[Shavod]

And as i said, for me it's incredible bad.
Everyone have his opinion, and nothing will change mine about that.

If this is the case, I would suggest scaling down your expectations for the future, because otherwise no AAA RPG that already exist or is going to exist will ever satisfy you with it's ending, because either it's gonna be too abrupt or it's gonna be narration + ending cards.

It would be more expensive, sure, but it would have been worth it...

I definitely prefer a playable epilogues over fully animated summary and I doubt they had enough time and resources to make both, even back when they still believed that they will be able to put everything they want in the game.

 

[sv3672]

Speaking of the epilogues, those do have deleted or changed content, given that the witcher epilogue would originally have been in Novigrad, while the one for the bad ending in Kaer Morhen.

 

[Krull32]

If this is the case, I would suggest scaling down your expectations for the future

No, because a well made ending is not impossible or incredible hard to make... It only requires a bit more effort...
But you are right many Companies make the same mistake....and cdpr is in this case no exception.
Btw, it's a bit funny if i think about...Lower your expectations for the next game because it will not be better anyway ...

golden prospects :ugh:

 

[saltyB]

Btw, it's a bit funny if i think about...Lower your expectations for the next game because it will not be better anyway ...

It's funny, but also very sad! >.>

But yeah, it is always that exact problem with games sadly! When i think of it...i can't really remember of any ending in the last year's that was really mind blowing
Hmm...okay Metal Gear Solid: PP maybe? Because of the...okay i don't spoiler it!

But anyways...it is quite sad that CDPR are also getting stuck with that Problem!

Because normally the perfect formula would be:

Beginning (Should be Epic as hell)
Middle (You are on yourself now, exploring the game or whatever, it doesn't need to be that Epic or Awesome)
End (Should be more Epic than the Beginning, and should remind you of the wonderful game you just finished).

 

[Shavod]

No, because a well made ending is not impossible or incredible hard to make... It only requires a bit more effort...
But you are right many Companies make the same mistake....and cdpr is in this case no exception.
Btw, it's a bit funny if i think about...Lower your expectations for the next game because it will not be better anyway ...

golden prospects :ugh:

No, I'm saying about lowering your expectations for something that is a very small part of the actual ending, not a game as a whole. The epilogue serve as actual ending for the story, while the summary afterwards serve as a short recap. You can have a good ending even with ending cards, so I don't consider them a part of the problem with Witcher 3 finale.

Speaking of the epilogues, those do have deleted or changed content, given that the witcher epilogue would originally have been in Novigrad, while the one for the bad ending in Kaer Morhen.

List of assets imply that Witcheress and Empress endings would be still pretty much the same, one would just take place at the Crossroads and the other in Oxenfurt, as opposed to White Orchard. Bad ending is a bit more unclear matter, but the list of the cutscenes in the leaked files mentions scene called "Geralt's departure" before scene called "Geralt arrives to Crookback Bog", which may imply they planned to start it in Kaer Morhen, before Geralt goes to the Bog.

 

[Sam2305]

of course, the whole ending still does not make any sense after the "fix" and they added a requested fourth ending that can be perceived as a middle finger from Bioware to the fans that demanded it, even though it is the only one that makes sense.

That sounds... familiar...