Why the main narrative in the last third of the game is a bad hot mess [major spoilers!!!]
First, let's start with the basis for my assessment: I've played the game for about 120 hours and I did all the main quests, all the side quests and all the contracts. I explored almost every bit of the world, fought against every monster in the game, met all the more or less important characters. I've experienced two of the main endings as well, by changing some of my decisions in the game. So I'd say that I pretty much know of what I'm speaking which doesn't mean that I see my points as ultimate facts that cannot be denied but that my points are based on actual comprehensive first hand experience and the corresponding thought process.
Second, good things first: for most of the time, the game is pretty much awesome, almost perfect if you ask me. I've never seen a game world that seemed that alive and good looking and just believable in its own world rules and limitations. There are so much dynamic elements in this game, so much attention to detail, so many awesome, little moments in which you think "that's it". Other (partially) comparable games like Skyrim or Dragon Age Inquisition are one or two levels behind the immersion and believability this world offers. The narrative is naturally quite important for that feeling of immersion and believabilty, besides the more technical stuff like graphics, sound and animation. And for the biggest part, the writers did an awesome, even outstanding job. Especially many side quests and some of the monster contracts feel well written, well executed and mechanically diverse (in the limits of the genre) and satisfying, a combination which is quite rare in gaming. Based on world building, overall narrative approach (most of the time), atmosphere, technical aspects and basic gameplay alone, the game would surely deserve the highest ratings, I'd say even a 10/10 (especially when we look at the ratings other RPGs got in the past...)
There is a big BUT though: there is one specific element of the game that doesn't hold up to the rest of the game's mechanics and elements, namely the main narrative, especially in the later parts of the game and at the very end. While the game's main narrative is quite enjoyable, fascinating, entertaining and last but not least logical and well designed and staged it turns into a bad hot mess in the last third of the game. I will explain in the following parts why I think so and which elements contribute to that assessment. I will start with the pacing, story structure and overall storyteling approach. Then I will evaluate the choice&consequence mechanics and how they influence the ending of the game and the epilogues. And finally I will put some light on the writing and design of main characters of the game and their contribution and their depiction in the later parts of the game in particular.
Edit: I've extended the analysis with a fifth chapter about Ciri and her abilities and whether she qualifies to be the saviour of the world and the defeater of the White Frost or not. Since this post would have become longer than the allowed maximum of words for a single forum post here (beat that, guys!
) I had to put it in another post that can be found here.
Edit 2: I've again extended the analysis with another chapter on choice and player agency. It can be found here.
1.) Pacing, story structure and overall storytelling
There is a certain, "optimal" pattern for how to pace a good and gripping story in writing theory. Star Wars Episode IV is for example a quite common and rather famous example for an almost perfect story pacing. It looks like that:
View attachment 16402
As we can see there is a clear pattern of ups and downs in the engagement curve over time that generally gets higher and higher until the final climax, with a single higher eruption at the beginning in order to draw people into the world and story and fascinating them enough to stay on board, so to say. This basic pattern of story pacing builds on some simple principles, with having a clear "goal" being of the most important ones. In SW Episode IV it's the goal of the rebels to destroy the death star and it's Luke's personal goal to master the use of the force. Both elements come together in the final scene of the movie, right before the epilogue, in which Luke fires a missile into the air vent of the death star just by using the force and relying on his powers. This climax is prepared throughout the whole movie. Every other major action in the storyline is performed in order to reach this final goal (or goals).
Now let's have a look at the (main) story pacing in Witcher 3:
View attachment 16403
As we can see there is a pretty big deviation from the "optimal" story pacing pattern. First a clarification: There are actually a whole lot more ups and downs in the game, depending on how much side stuff you do at which time, so it's more about the bigger picture and the main story bits that are important here. The actual height of the singular points is also very much debatable, so that's just my assession and attempt to show a simplified engagement curve. So let's concentrate on some "big" points of the main story and pretty much neglect the bits in between where you roam the open world and do side activities (I do think that you could quite fairly say that some side quests should be even above some of the big main quests in the curve but that's not the point here. That assessment is not about side quests or monster contracts so I think that this isn't a big issue here.)
I've labelled some of the big story points, namely Geralt finding Ciri in the house on the isle, the battle of Kaer Morhen against the Wild Hunt, the witch sabbath with the fight against Imlerith and the Crones, the final battle against the Wild Hunt and the last moments of the game where Ciri goes through the portal. Now what's the problem? Well, there are smaller and bigger problems.
Let's start with the smaller problems, the inconsistent pacing structure with main moments in the game that are more engaging, emotional and gripping than the final battle. I'd say (you might disagree though) that the moments in which Geralt finds Ciri for the first time in the game and thinks that she was dead and the battle of Kaer Morhen with all the main characters and the death of Vesemir at the end are much more impactful than the final battle. And not only that: they are also much more gripping and impactful than the main story stuff between. The best example for that is the witch sabbath with the boss fight against Imlerith and the Crones. This quest even feels like a foreign body in the game. It's pretty much the only quest in the whole game (besides the end battle, obviously) that is clearly designed as a classical boss fight. In the whole rest of the game, story always trumps simple gameplay patterns, but not here. The whole quest feels like the decision that there should be a boss fight somewhere without a proper linkage to the main storyline and story pacing. And it doesn't help here that the execution of that quest (together with the boring and tame witch sabbath) is rather poor as well, compared to the rest of the game. CDPR even perverted the actual motivation for doing that quest in the first place. It was Ciri who was full of feeling of grief and vengeance after Vesemir's death, not Geralt. But she agrees to play tic-tac-toe with Geralt about whom should kill Imlerith. Compared to the rest of the game, that's totally out of character behaviour for Ciri and it also takes away much of the possible emotional impact.
So the overall pacing structure isn't that optimal overall in the last third of the game (basically after the battle of Kaer Morhen). This is sad but not the worst element of the the whole issue with pacing. The worst element is clearly the obvious deus ex machina moment right at the end of the game after the final boss battle. This moment doesn't only finally destory the pacing, it even openly violates basic story structure principles like having a clear and transparent goal that explains why people do all the things they do. Of course is fighting against the white frost the overlying background "problem" of the whole world and saga, which includes all the games and novels. But in all these works the fight against the white frost was always a far away, more philosophical issue (even in Witcher 1, but that ending had its fair share of problems anyway). Neither in the books nor in the games Geralt - the main character of all these works - never did anything against that issue. It wasn't the problem and goal at hand. Same is true for Witcher 3. For dozens of hours, much until the very end, the obvious goal of the game (or work of fiction) was to protect Ciri and to overcome the Wild Hunt that wants to capture Ciri and invade the witcher world. That was Witcher 3's "killing the death star by using the force" goal that had its climax in the final battle against Eredin and the Hunt. But then CDPR had the weird idea to basically trump every single goal in all the books and all the games so far in the last five minutes of the game by sending Ciri through the portal between the worlds in order to fight against the white frost - without any real introduction or explanation to how it came or why it came which constitutes an almost classical deus ex machina moment.
Let's step back from Witcher 3 for a minute and compare that to Star Ward Episode IV again. If we really think about it, the very ending of Witcher 3 is pretty much like Episodes V and VI condensed in two minutes without further explanation. Luke doesn't only manage to control the force in a crucial situation for the first time and destroy the death star, he also kills the dark emperor and ends the Sith reign and "saves the whole world" just in a single moment, very much like an afterthought. I mean the problem with such a deus ex machina moment is pretty clear. Star Wars needs two full episodes (although much of it could be cut if we only look at the main directive) to build up proper tension and context for an even bigger goal than destroying the death star. Destroying the death star was a clearly defined goal that seemed at least somehow reachable in Episode IV - even when the chances looked bad - in the context of the whole narrative of the episode. Killing the emperor and ending the Sith reign is a completely different and arguably even more challenging goal that nees additional preparation and context building. That's why the classical Star Wars was a triology and not a single movie.
Now back to Witcher 3. It's pretty weird how much Star Wars and Witcher have in common here. The similarities between Ciri and Luke are striking when we look at their development and character design in Episode IV and Witcher 3. Both have immense powers that make them special in their worlds but both cannot fully control their powers until the very end. And in both world there is actually a bigger thread than just the goal at hand: in Star Wars it's the reign of the dark side of the force and the Sith, in Witcher 3 it's the assumed apocalypse of the white frost. But while Star Wars builds up tension and pacing in clear and thought out patterns with "rising" goals in three movies, Witcher 3 wants to achieve the same in only one work but with the weird idea that the first goal should be explained in depth and tried to be achieved in 100 hours while the big end goal is never actually pursued, but achieved in the last 2 minutes of the game (without having any direct control of the outcome but that's a topic for the following passage). Compared to that every achievement in the game before looks indeed like kindergarden. The one person who seemed to be weak only one moment before just saves the world in the next without explaining how the suddenly had the power to do so and how she did it in detail. That's not only a weird deus ex machina moment, it's a pretty unbelievable and baldy written one as well (which of course is based on the lacking structure of pacing here).
2.) Choice and consequence and the ending
You cannot really write about the end of Witcher 3 and the narrative structure (and outcomes) in the past bits of the game without talking about choice and consequence. First, let's define them. Having a choice means that you as the player reflect about what you're about to do when you do it. It's about thinking what might happen if you choose option A or B and about thinking what feels right or wrong, good or bad, fitting or unfitting for the character you want to roleplay. Consequence on the other hand is the realization of the impact of something you did previously. One good example for that is Chrono Trigger in which stuff that seemed like small and unimportant bits turned out to be remembered and important in the end. So if you chose to steal something from somebody at a certain time in the game you will get to see the consequences later in the game. For a "good" consequence mechanic there need to be certain prerequirements: first, a clear chain of causality that makes consequences and the corresponding previous actions or decisions comprehensible, second, a display of what the change you initiated means to the world and third, the realization that players should never feel too repelled for some decisions they made before by making uncomprehensible or arbitrary links between events or certain situations (which goes hand in hand with the clear chain of causality).
So how does Witcher 3 perform here? Well, even though choice and consequence are different mechanics they often work together, especially in role playing games. When we look at the very end of Witcher 3 and the scene in which Ciri goes through the portal between the worlds we can constitute that there is no real choice there left. It's pretty much a consequence-only scene. That's actually quite the opposite of the ending in Mass Effect 3, in which the final scene is almost completely choice-only (both are based on a deus ex machina ending though). The question now is: does the prerequirements for good consequences work here? Is there a clear and comprehensible chain of causality? And beyond that, is the respective consequence itself comprehensible compared to the rest of the work? Let's start with the first question and the chain of causality: the outcome of the ending and the respective following epilogue is pretty much dependent on a few specific decisive moments in the game, specific dialogue choice situations in particular. That poses another question about good choice situations that must be answered first: does the player have a fair chance of evaluating the possible consequences of his actions while being in the specific choice situation?
To answer that we must look at the specific choice situations here. To limit the amount of text (more could be evaluated later), let's stick for now to the five choice situations that determine whether Ciri comes back from the white frost (the assumed "good/neutral" ending) or whether Ciri doesn't come back (the assumed "bad" ending). The ending is therefore based on
1) How you react after Vesemir is dead and Ciri is uncertain about herself and her abilities.
2) How you react when Ciri wants to go to the witch sabbath to kill Imlerith.
3) How you react when Ciri is called to the lodge of sorceresses.
4) How you react when Ciri wants to destroy Avallac'h's lab.
5) How you react when Ciri wants to visit Skjalls grave.
The base line for all these choice situations is that Ciri will come back if you "push her self-assurance and support her decisions and desires" in all these situations. That sounds pretty comprehensible. But it's actually not that simple. Rather than making the ending dependent on moral decisions, it's dependent on psychological decisions, on how Geralt behaves as a father. The problem here is two- or even three-folded. First, there is a difference between the psychological assessment of the player and the one CDPR envisioned for the ingame characters. Second, the decisions follow rather general psychological rules without acknowledging and respecting the context of the respective situation. And third, a conflict between assumed character and desired outcome.
Let's take for example the situation in which Ciri asks Geralt whether she is allowed to destroy Avallac'h's lab after she found out that the Aen Elle (at least the lady) actually hate her. Well, what's the problem here? First, it doesn't sound very much like Geralt to allow such a thing in general, especially if you're a witcher or want to be a witcher. There is no point in destroying the lab. And even if you think as a father it sounds pretty weird to actually join Ciri in destroying the lab. "Live out your aggressive feelings in the very instant you feel them?" Doesn't sound like an adivce many father would give their children for a good reason. Another point is that Geralt and Ciri aren't alone, but accompanied by Yennefer, a character from whom is known that she lays pretty big focus on how a sorceress (and Ciri) should behave (a point that is in general constantly underdeveloped in the game by the way).
Or take the situation in which Geralt is asked whether he wants to accompany Ciri to the lodge of sorceresses. Again, CDPR assumes that letting her go alone empowers here self-assurance. But is it that clear? I think that's highly debatable again, because it's again a psychological decision about complex human feelings and behaviours. The problem here is that there is a predefined outcome for a debatable question that could be interpreted in many way, by both the player and the ingame characters. It's easily as thinkable that Ciri is happy that Geralts want to accompany her and support her. In no way it MUST mean that Geralt wants to supress or control her. In a good and uncomplicated father-daughter relationship there is actually no big difference in such a situation. If Ciri wanted to go alone she should say so and only if Geralt insisted to come with her she feels controlled by him. But even then it's understandable if you take the whole backstory and chain of events (from both books and games) into account.
Another example is the situation in which Ciri is uncertain about her abilities and her place in the world. In CDPR's mind Geralt acts against her self-assurance and against her free will if he tells her to relax and that she doesn't have to be perfect - and if he invites her to drink with him. Now what's the problem here. The problem is context. Quite shortly before this situation there is a rather extensive situation in which Geralt drinks extensively with the other Witchers. It's obviously a "Witcher ritual" to drink that way when they come together in Kaer Morhen. That ritual isn't depicted as a bad thing, quite the opposite. It's depicted as a part of the behaviour of the Witchers in the wolf school. So back to the choice situation. What should the player think in this situation? From a modern "conservative" perspective you might think that giving a young lady something to drink doesn't seem to be the best idea. Ok, point taken. But is that the only way of possible thinking here. It's not. If you think in the context of the world and the situation offering Ciri a drink in this situation seems like a natural choice since apparentely this is a common ritual of the witchers to deal with problems. To drink together and have fun, forgetting the problems of the world. Ciri wants to be a witcher of the wolf school, both book readers and game players should know that she actually at least partially sees herself as a witcheress. So why not offering her a drink? Why not "taking out fuel of the situation", advising her to relax and calm down. Again, in this situation the choice situation and the outcome isn't clearly alined in way that makes sense for everybody in the given context of the situation.
Ok, what does all of that mean for the ending and the "big consequence"? I talked about the chain of causality. Obviously there is a problem with this chain of causlity if the outcomes of the events that consitute the chain feel arbitrary and even guided by some predefined and qutie rigid psychological thinking pattern of a game creator. Let's have a look at that Chrono Trigger example I brought up earlier. Stealing something from a poor person is a moral decision, a moral choice. It's quite easily to say that it's not a "good" action. So if you get brought to justice later or even if people just despise you later on that seems like a natural and comprehensible consequence (if for example you were seen while you stole). Clear chain of causality and comprehensible outcome. The problem with the ending in Witcher 3 is that the question which ending and epilogues you get depends on rather "small" decisions in the world that don't feel really meaningful once you have to decide on them and whos outcome doesn't seem all that transparent and comprehensible. Even worse, some of the much "bigger" decisions - at least some that feel bigger - in the game have no consequence at all. The only difference if you decide to kill a king for example is a different 15 seconds video in the epilogue. Neither is it of any importance if you love Yen or Triss for example. I guess one of the problems here is that CDPR wanted to avoid clear right or wrong moral decisions. But they took it too far. The situations that decide about the outcome are so subtle and difficult to assess that not only the outcome of the choice situation itself but also the big consequence feels arbitrary. And in the end that has a huge impact on the satisfaction of the player who wants that his actions have clear and transparent consequences or at least consequences that seem comprehensible in the respective context. That's imo not the case for everyone and everything here for the reasons I mentioned above in the respecitve examples. And that very likely leads to many players feeling repelled at the end of the game, getting an ending and epilogue that feels unjustified and incomprehensible.
3.) The epilogues
Now, let's talk a bit about the epilogues which are quite important to the narrative since they are the last experience people have in the game. What's their quality? What's their goal? Are they satisfying?
Well, that's of course a debatable question again, but I think it's safe to say that the epilogues don't serve the "This story is about Geralt's personal quest" goal all that well. Well, let's have a lood at the different epilogues. There are three different possible epilogues or endings. An assumend good one, a neutral one and a bad one.
Let's start with the bad one. In the bad one Ciri never comes back from the white frost and Geralt travels back to the swamps in order to kill the last crone and to get Ciri's witcher medaillion back (actually Vesemir's one). In the last take Geralt gets the medaillion but seems suicidal (because of grief?) and the house gets swamped with monsters. So what's the problem with this gameplay epilogue. Well, first it never explains what happens to Yennefer or Triss although - if Geralt is in a relationship with them - they are quite important to both Ciri and Geralt. Second, Geralt feels completely out of character in this ending. Why is that so? Well, the issue is that Ciri sacrificed herself in that ending but it was her free will. Nobody killed her. Nobody forced her to do what she wanted to do. So why the suicidal grief? Maybe Yen is so mad at him that he didn't prevent that that she left him as well. Problem is: we don't know because the game doesn't tell us. So in the end, this epilogue really feels like a punishment for "bad" choices down the road instead of a logical and neither good or bad outcome of the events. But there is also a really good or positive element in this epilogue. It's the only epilogue in which Ciri doesn't come back. It's the only epilogue in which the deus ex machina moment isn't all that bad in itself because it's not used as final climatical achievement but as a way to let the end open - very much in the tradition of Sapkowski if you think at the end of the books.
So what about the bad and neutral ones? Well, their basic problem is that Ciri comes back from the white frost which - like described above - destroys the whole story pacing and structure with a weird deus ex machina moment. And then, neither the "Ciri becomes a true witcheress" nor the "Ciri becomes emperess" outcomes seem really believable and "in character" after all. Ciri can't be a real witcher because she is no mutant. She has no super fast reflexes, no improved sight and she cannot drink potions. Of course, in the gameplay sections she just auto-heals herself and uses her never-explained "fast forward" skill all the time (more on that in the next chapter). But from a narrative point of view that doesn't make much sense. And Ciri as the empress of Nilgaard? Well, I don't know, it just doesn't sound like the Ciri from neither the books nor the game. But it's maybe - all in all - the most believable outcome of all - excluding the deus ex machina moment.
What all epilogues miss is a satisfying description of what happens to the ones Geralt has an emotional connection to. No word on Dandelion. No word on Triss or Yen if you love the other one. No word on the lodge of sorceresses. Most of the videos in the epilogues are about political outcomes (even thought the game should be about Geralt's personal quests) and even those are lacking. Take for example the events on Skellige Islands. Right before the end there is both an upcoming civil war and a Nilfgaardian invasion established in the narrative. No matter which epilogue you get, no word on these events in the epilogue videos which seems weird. Why establishing a civil war right before the end if you just ignore it in the epilogue?
4.) Character writing and design
There are certain problems with character writing of main characters that extend the problems with the overall storytelling and the story pacing towards the end of the game. Most of it is bearable but it just stand for a huge amount of lost potential in terms of storytelling.
The most obvious one is Eredin, the king of the White Hunt which is clearly the biggest villain in the game. In theory, there are two types of possible arch-type villains, the narrative villain and hte force-of-nature villain. While they have different traits and motives, they share one definite element: both can't just be "evil" for the sake of being the evil force in the game. The force-of-nature villain usually represents a certain form of challenge to the hero, like the embodiment of chaos. By defeating and dealing with the villain the hero tests himself and his believings. The narrative hero is even more complex. It's a fleshed out person that has believable human motivations and feelings and a complex set of values and convictions. The problem here is: Eredin is neither one or the other. Throughout the whole game he stays blank, like the big evil in the background that is just needed to have any kind of goal. The same is true for the rest of the Wild Hunt. Imlerith is actually the very same narrative and gameplay element as Eredin, just with another skin. Eredin just feels lacking, especially compared to other characters of the game. Just take the Bloody Baron and compare his complex and believable character design and writing to Eredin's one. It's like two completely different levels from to different games. Even Eredin's second man in state, Ge'els has more characters and complexity, only because a single quest is dedicated to him and two minutes of cutscenes are granted to give him at least some space for character exploration.
Then there is Ciri, the second main character. Well, it's probably the hardest character to write and design in the whole game and I do feel with CDPR. Ciri isn't written or designed all that bad but she has some obvious flaws imo. First, her specific experiences don't seem to have a rather big influence on her (speaking of the books here of course). Especially everything sexual is rarely a topic although it's actually a quite important theme for Ciri since "everyone wants to abuse here sexually". It's probably not only a problem with character design her, but with the very tame game design in respect to sexual topics in general. Rape, sexual abuse and psychological abuse and stuff like that is not a topic in the game although it is a natural element of the books and quite important in the case of Ciri. Like a typical blockbuster game it has no problems with open violence but it doesn't feature sexual violence or other forms of human suffering (By the way, people always die at once without suffering. You never hears somebody crying in pain if you cut of an arm or a leg. That's actually pretty disappointing from an immersion and believability point of view. Why open visual violence but no acustic suffering?). So Ciri seems to be a bit tame in that regard while she mostly feels like a teenager although she should already a young adult. Her behaviour seems imho more fitting to a 15 or 16 year old girl (like she was in the books) than to a young woman who has gone through hell on earth already. Another huge problem is the lacking explanation of her skills. What's that "fast forward" skill? She has basically no other skills than opening portals to other worlds in the books. She cannot cast magic anymore. So why isn't that explained? I get that it's a nice gameplay feature. But it's just weird to have no single line of explanation for that, especially for people who know Ciri from the books. After all, her abilities and all things magic are a complex matter in the books while they are mostly a prop in the games. That might have been well suited as long as the story was just about Geralt but with Ciri entering the stage things changed and magical stuff should be put on a whole other level in narrative terms.
Another shortcoming in terms of character writing and design is the three-point relationship between Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer. Especially the relationship between Ciri and Yennfer is extremely underdeveloped. And in one of the only scene in which it is shown Yennefer behave's completely out of character. I think the choice situations in the relationship between Ciri and Geralt which determine the ending also don't add to a well written relationship between them as you could imagine after reading the books. After the really well done scene in the house when Geralt finds here and thinks that she was dead their relationship stays rather cold. I guess a problem here is that games in general have a very hard time to deal with already existing relationships. Every major relationship in the game (Yen-Geralt, Triss-Geralt, Ciri-Geralt, Yen-Triss, Triss-Ciri, Yen-Ciri,...) feels like it had to be build up anew intead of just continueing it. It's most obvious in the Triss-Geralt relationship, but it's basically the same for each one. The problem is that it feels out of place for the parent - child relationships between Geralt and Ciri and Yen and Ciri. This relationship shouldn't be needed to be build anew. But since CDPR uses the relationship between Ciri and Geralt to exactly do that it's hard to avoid.
Another problem with Yen and Triss in particular is that their character and motivation feel underdeveloped and that they don't feel in character with the books. Yen's strongest motive should be that she wants to be mother at all costs. That's what drives her. That's why she had so much conflict with Geralt. That explains her special relationship as step-mother to Ciri. That explains her "new" relationship to Geralt. None of that is fleshed out in the game which seems to be a huge lost chance to me, especially since female-centered themes are rarely explored in big games. Yen is always only important in connection to Geralt but not really as somebody on her own. And Triss' biggest problems are her guilt feelings for being in the lodge and her hidden desire for Geralt. It's a bit better handled in that case but stil underdeveloped. While I agree that the respective romance quests and scenes are rather nice and imo belong to the best quests in the game, I think especially in the ending they stay blank and underdeveloped. Why the hell do we take Philippa with us for the search of the sunstone? Why not Triss or Yen, depending on whom we love? That could have been a perfect location and time to finally explore their relationsship before the end. Instead we have to travel with Philippa, a character that has some importance of course, but a character who isn't nearly as important as Triss or Yen. And why is there no bigger conflict between Triss or Yen if you decide for Yen, for example?
Besides from the obvious sorceresses, the other sorceresses feel underdeveloped as well, with the one exception of Keira Metz. But both Margarita and Fringilla feel rushed and pointless. They are both introduced rightly before the end and they don't have much purpose besides being used as staffage. It doesn't help her of course that the sorceresses and the lodge aren't even mentioned in the epilogue...
5.) Ciri as the defeater of the White Frost?
--> http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-spoilers!!!?p=1761767&viewfull=1#post1761767
6.) Choice re-evaluated: where is the player agency?
--> http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-spoilers!!!?p=1777814&viewfull=1#post1777814
So that's about it for now. There is of course more the topic (there always is) but I think the stuff I've written almost bursts the limit for a forum post or thread. I know it's a huge wall of text and I know that some or many might disagree with a whole lot of stuff I pointed out here. That's not a problem since I like good discussions. But please don't answer with any one-liners or anything like that that indicates that you aren't really interested in the topic or only want to dismiss me or my writing in general without arguments. If you want to reply please read what I've written first and answer to the topics at hand. Otherwise there can't be a good discussion.
First, let's start with the basis for my assessment: I've played the game for about 120 hours and I did all the main quests, all the side quests and all the contracts. I explored almost every bit of the world, fought against every monster in the game, met all the more or less important characters. I've experienced two of the main endings as well, by changing some of my decisions in the game. So I'd say that I pretty much know of what I'm speaking which doesn't mean that I see my points as ultimate facts that cannot be denied but that my points are based on actual comprehensive first hand experience and the corresponding thought process.
Second, good things first: for most of the time, the game is pretty much awesome, almost perfect if you ask me. I've never seen a game world that seemed that alive and good looking and just believable in its own world rules and limitations. There are so much dynamic elements in this game, so much attention to detail, so many awesome, little moments in which you think "that's it". Other (partially) comparable games like Skyrim or Dragon Age Inquisition are one or two levels behind the immersion and believability this world offers. The narrative is naturally quite important for that feeling of immersion and believabilty, besides the more technical stuff like graphics, sound and animation. And for the biggest part, the writers did an awesome, even outstanding job. Especially many side quests and some of the monster contracts feel well written, well executed and mechanically diverse (in the limits of the genre) and satisfying, a combination which is quite rare in gaming. Based on world building, overall narrative approach (most of the time), atmosphere, technical aspects and basic gameplay alone, the game would surely deserve the highest ratings, I'd say even a 10/10 (especially when we look at the ratings other RPGs got in the past...)
There is a big BUT though: there is one specific element of the game that doesn't hold up to the rest of the game's mechanics and elements, namely the main narrative, especially in the later parts of the game and at the very end. While the game's main narrative is quite enjoyable, fascinating, entertaining and last but not least logical and well designed and staged it turns into a bad hot mess in the last third of the game. I will explain in the following parts why I think so and which elements contribute to that assessment. I will start with the pacing, story structure and overall storyteling approach. Then I will evaluate the choice&consequence mechanics and how they influence the ending of the game and the epilogues. And finally I will put some light on the writing and design of main characters of the game and their contribution and their depiction in the later parts of the game in particular.
Edit: I've extended the analysis with a fifth chapter about Ciri and her abilities and whether she qualifies to be the saviour of the world and the defeater of the White Frost or not. Since this post would have become longer than the allowed maximum of words for a single forum post here (beat that, guys!
) I had to put it in another post that can be found here. Edit 2: I've again extended the analysis with another chapter on choice and player agency. It can be found here.
1.) Pacing, story structure and overall storytelling
There is a certain, "optimal" pattern for how to pace a good and gripping story in writing theory. Star Wars Episode IV is for example a quite common and rather famous example for an almost perfect story pacing. It looks like that:
View attachment 16402
As we can see there is a clear pattern of ups and downs in the engagement curve over time that generally gets higher and higher until the final climax, with a single higher eruption at the beginning in order to draw people into the world and story and fascinating them enough to stay on board, so to say. This basic pattern of story pacing builds on some simple principles, with having a clear "goal" being of the most important ones. In SW Episode IV it's the goal of the rebels to destroy the death star and it's Luke's personal goal to master the use of the force. Both elements come together in the final scene of the movie, right before the epilogue, in which Luke fires a missile into the air vent of the death star just by using the force and relying on his powers. This climax is prepared throughout the whole movie. Every other major action in the storyline is performed in order to reach this final goal (or goals).
Now let's have a look at the (main) story pacing in Witcher 3:
View attachment 16403
As we can see there is a pretty big deviation from the "optimal" story pacing pattern. First a clarification: There are actually a whole lot more ups and downs in the game, depending on how much side stuff you do at which time, so it's more about the bigger picture and the main story bits that are important here. The actual height of the singular points is also very much debatable, so that's just my assession and attempt to show a simplified engagement curve. So let's concentrate on some "big" points of the main story and pretty much neglect the bits in between where you roam the open world and do side activities (I do think that you could quite fairly say that some side quests should be even above some of the big main quests in the curve but that's not the point here. That assessment is not about side quests or monster contracts so I think that this isn't a big issue here.)
I've labelled some of the big story points, namely Geralt finding Ciri in the house on the isle, the battle of Kaer Morhen against the Wild Hunt, the witch sabbath with the fight against Imlerith and the Crones, the final battle against the Wild Hunt and the last moments of the game where Ciri goes through the portal. Now what's the problem? Well, there are smaller and bigger problems.
Let's start with the smaller problems, the inconsistent pacing structure with main moments in the game that are more engaging, emotional and gripping than the final battle. I'd say (you might disagree though) that the moments in which Geralt finds Ciri for the first time in the game and thinks that she was dead and the battle of Kaer Morhen with all the main characters and the death of Vesemir at the end are much more impactful than the final battle. And not only that: they are also much more gripping and impactful than the main story stuff between. The best example for that is the witch sabbath with the boss fight against Imlerith and the Crones. This quest even feels like a foreign body in the game. It's pretty much the only quest in the whole game (besides the end battle, obviously) that is clearly designed as a classical boss fight. In the whole rest of the game, story always trumps simple gameplay patterns, but not here. The whole quest feels like the decision that there should be a boss fight somewhere without a proper linkage to the main storyline and story pacing. And it doesn't help here that the execution of that quest (together with the boring and tame witch sabbath) is rather poor as well, compared to the rest of the game. CDPR even perverted the actual motivation for doing that quest in the first place. It was Ciri who was full of feeling of grief and vengeance after Vesemir's death, not Geralt. But she agrees to play tic-tac-toe with Geralt about whom should kill Imlerith. Compared to the rest of the game, that's totally out of character behaviour for Ciri and it also takes away much of the possible emotional impact.
So the overall pacing structure isn't that optimal overall in the last third of the game (basically after the battle of Kaer Morhen). This is sad but not the worst element of the the whole issue with pacing. The worst element is clearly the obvious deus ex machina moment right at the end of the game after the final boss battle. This moment doesn't only finally destory the pacing, it even openly violates basic story structure principles like having a clear and transparent goal that explains why people do all the things they do. Of course is fighting against the white frost the overlying background "problem" of the whole world and saga, which includes all the games and novels. But in all these works the fight against the white frost was always a far away, more philosophical issue (even in Witcher 1, but that ending had its fair share of problems anyway). Neither in the books nor in the games Geralt - the main character of all these works - never did anything against that issue. It wasn't the problem and goal at hand. Same is true for Witcher 3. For dozens of hours, much until the very end, the obvious goal of the game (or work of fiction) was to protect Ciri and to overcome the Wild Hunt that wants to capture Ciri and invade the witcher world. That was Witcher 3's "killing the death star by using the force" goal that had its climax in the final battle against Eredin and the Hunt. But then CDPR had the weird idea to basically trump every single goal in all the books and all the games so far in the last five minutes of the game by sending Ciri through the portal between the worlds in order to fight against the white frost - without any real introduction or explanation to how it came or why it came which constitutes an almost classical deus ex machina moment.
Let's step back from Witcher 3 for a minute and compare that to Star Ward Episode IV again. If we really think about it, the very ending of Witcher 3 is pretty much like Episodes V and VI condensed in two minutes without further explanation. Luke doesn't only manage to control the force in a crucial situation for the first time and destroy the death star, he also kills the dark emperor and ends the Sith reign and "saves the whole world" just in a single moment, very much like an afterthought. I mean the problem with such a deus ex machina moment is pretty clear. Star Wars needs two full episodes (although much of it could be cut if we only look at the main directive) to build up proper tension and context for an even bigger goal than destroying the death star. Destroying the death star was a clearly defined goal that seemed at least somehow reachable in Episode IV - even when the chances looked bad - in the context of the whole narrative of the episode. Killing the emperor and ending the Sith reign is a completely different and arguably even more challenging goal that nees additional preparation and context building. That's why the classical Star Wars was a triology and not a single movie.
Now back to Witcher 3. It's pretty weird how much Star Wars and Witcher have in common here. The similarities between Ciri and Luke are striking when we look at their development and character design in Episode IV and Witcher 3. Both have immense powers that make them special in their worlds but both cannot fully control their powers until the very end. And in both world there is actually a bigger thread than just the goal at hand: in Star Wars it's the reign of the dark side of the force and the Sith, in Witcher 3 it's the assumed apocalypse of the white frost. But while Star Wars builds up tension and pacing in clear and thought out patterns with "rising" goals in three movies, Witcher 3 wants to achieve the same in only one work but with the weird idea that the first goal should be explained in depth and tried to be achieved in 100 hours while the big end goal is never actually pursued, but achieved in the last 2 minutes of the game (without having any direct control of the outcome but that's a topic for the following passage). Compared to that every achievement in the game before looks indeed like kindergarden. The one person who seemed to be weak only one moment before just saves the world in the next without explaining how the suddenly had the power to do so and how she did it in detail. That's not only a weird deus ex machina moment, it's a pretty unbelievable and baldy written one as well (which of course is based on the lacking structure of pacing here).
2.) Choice and consequence and the ending
You cannot really write about the end of Witcher 3 and the narrative structure (and outcomes) in the past bits of the game without talking about choice and consequence. First, let's define them. Having a choice means that you as the player reflect about what you're about to do when you do it. It's about thinking what might happen if you choose option A or B and about thinking what feels right or wrong, good or bad, fitting or unfitting for the character you want to roleplay. Consequence on the other hand is the realization of the impact of something you did previously. One good example for that is Chrono Trigger in which stuff that seemed like small and unimportant bits turned out to be remembered and important in the end. So if you chose to steal something from somebody at a certain time in the game you will get to see the consequences later in the game. For a "good" consequence mechanic there need to be certain prerequirements: first, a clear chain of causality that makes consequences and the corresponding previous actions or decisions comprehensible, second, a display of what the change you initiated means to the world and third, the realization that players should never feel too repelled for some decisions they made before by making uncomprehensible or arbitrary links between events or certain situations (which goes hand in hand with the clear chain of causality).
So how does Witcher 3 perform here? Well, even though choice and consequence are different mechanics they often work together, especially in role playing games. When we look at the very end of Witcher 3 and the scene in which Ciri goes through the portal between the worlds we can constitute that there is no real choice there left. It's pretty much a consequence-only scene. That's actually quite the opposite of the ending in Mass Effect 3, in which the final scene is almost completely choice-only (both are based on a deus ex machina ending though). The question now is: does the prerequirements for good consequences work here? Is there a clear and comprehensible chain of causality? And beyond that, is the respective consequence itself comprehensible compared to the rest of the work? Let's start with the first question and the chain of causality: the outcome of the ending and the respective following epilogue is pretty much dependent on a few specific decisive moments in the game, specific dialogue choice situations in particular. That poses another question about good choice situations that must be answered first: does the player have a fair chance of evaluating the possible consequences of his actions while being in the specific choice situation?
To answer that we must look at the specific choice situations here. To limit the amount of text (more could be evaluated later), let's stick for now to the five choice situations that determine whether Ciri comes back from the white frost (the assumed "good/neutral" ending) or whether Ciri doesn't come back (the assumed "bad" ending). The ending is therefore based on
1) How you react after Vesemir is dead and Ciri is uncertain about herself and her abilities.
2) How you react when Ciri wants to go to the witch sabbath to kill Imlerith.
3) How you react when Ciri is called to the lodge of sorceresses.
4) How you react when Ciri wants to destroy Avallac'h's lab.
5) How you react when Ciri wants to visit Skjalls grave.
The base line for all these choice situations is that Ciri will come back if you "push her self-assurance and support her decisions and desires" in all these situations. That sounds pretty comprehensible. But it's actually not that simple. Rather than making the ending dependent on moral decisions, it's dependent on psychological decisions, on how Geralt behaves as a father. The problem here is two- or even three-folded. First, there is a difference between the psychological assessment of the player and the one CDPR envisioned for the ingame characters. Second, the decisions follow rather general psychological rules without acknowledging and respecting the context of the respective situation. And third, a conflict between assumed character and desired outcome.
Let's take for example the situation in which Ciri asks Geralt whether she is allowed to destroy Avallac'h's lab after she found out that the Aen Elle (at least the lady) actually hate her. Well, what's the problem here? First, it doesn't sound very much like Geralt to allow such a thing in general, especially if you're a witcher or want to be a witcher. There is no point in destroying the lab. And even if you think as a father it sounds pretty weird to actually join Ciri in destroying the lab. "Live out your aggressive feelings in the very instant you feel them?" Doesn't sound like an adivce many father would give their children for a good reason. Another point is that Geralt and Ciri aren't alone, but accompanied by Yennefer, a character from whom is known that she lays pretty big focus on how a sorceress (and Ciri) should behave (a point that is in general constantly underdeveloped in the game by the way).
Or take the situation in which Geralt is asked whether he wants to accompany Ciri to the lodge of sorceresses. Again, CDPR assumes that letting her go alone empowers here self-assurance. But is it that clear? I think that's highly debatable again, because it's again a psychological decision about complex human feelings and behaviours. The problem here is that there is a predefined outcome for a debatable question that could be interpreted in many way, by both the player and the ingame characters. It's easily as thinkable that Ciri is happy that Geralts want to accompany her and support her. In no way it MUST mean that Geralt wants to supress or control her. In a good and uncomplicated father-daughter relationship there is actually no big difference in such a situation. If Ciri wanted to go alone she should say so and only if Geralt insisted to come with her she feels controlled by him. But even then it's understandable if you take the whole backstory and chain of events (from both books and games) into account.
Another example is the situation in which Ciri is uncertain about her abilities and her place in the world. In CDPR's mind Geralt acts against her self-assurance and against her free will if he tells her to relax and that she doesn't have to be perfect - and if he invites her to drink with him. Now what's the problem here. The problem is context. Quite shortly before this situation there is a rather extensive situation in which Geralt drinks extensively with the other Witchers. It's obviously a "Witcher ritual" to drink that way when they come together in Kaer Morhen. That ritual isn't depicted as a bad thing, quite the opposite. It's depicted as a part of the behaviour of the Witchers in the wolf school. So back to the choice situation. What should the player think in this situation? From a modern "conservative" perspective you might think that giving a young lady something to drink doesn't seem to be the best idea. Ok, point taken. But is that the only way of possible thinking here. It's not. If you think in the context of the world and the situation offering Ciri a drink in this situation seems like a natural choice since apparentely this is a common ritual of the witchers to deal with problems. To drink together and have fun, forgetting the problems of the world. Ciri wants to be a witcher of the wolf school, both book readers and game players should know that she actually at least partially sees herself as a witcheress. So why not offering her a drink? Why not "taking out fuel of the situation", advising her to relax and calm down. Again, in this situation the choice situation and the outcome isn't clearly alined in way that makes sense for everybody in the given context of the situation.
Ok, what does all of that mean for the ending and the "big consequence"? I talked about the chain of causality. Obviously there is a problem with this chain of causlity if the outcomes of the events that consitute the chain feel arbitrary and even guided by some predefined and qutie rigid psychological thinking pattern of a game creator. Let's have a look at that Chrono Trigger example I brought up earlier. Stealing something from a poor person is a moral decision, a moral choice. It's quite easily to say that it's not a "good" action. So if you get brought to justice later or even if people just despise you later on that seems like a natural and comprehensible consequence (if for example you were seen while you stole). Clear chain of causality and comprehensible outcome. The problem with the ending in Witcher 3 is that the question which ending and epilogues you get depends on rather "small" decisions in the world that don't feel really meaningful once you have to decide on them and whos outcome doesn't seem all that transparent and comprehensible. Even worse, some of the much "bigger" decisions - at least some that feel bigger - in the game have no consequence at all. The only difference if you decide to kill a king for example is a different 15 seconds video in the epilogue. Neither is it of any importance if you love Yen or Triss for example. I guess one of the problems here is that CDPR wanted to avoid clear right or wrong moral decisions. But they took it too far. The situations that decide about the outcome are so subtle and difficult to assess that not only the outcome of the choice situation itself but also the big consequence feels arbitrary. And in the end that has a huge impact on the satisfaction of the player who wants that his actions have clear and transparent consequences or at least consequences that seem comprehensible in the respective context. That's imo not the case for everyone and everything here for the reasons I mentioned above in the respecitve examples. And that very likely leads to many players feeling repelled at the end of the game, getting an ending and epilogue that feels unjustified and incomprehensible.
3.) The epilogues
Now, let's talk a bit about the epilogues which are quite important to the narrative since they are the last experience people have in the game. What's their quality? What's their goal? Are they satisfying?
Well, that's of course a debatable question again, but I think it's safe to say that the epilogues don't serve the "This story is about Geralt's personal quest" goal all that well. Well, let's have a lood at the different epilogues. There are three different possible epilogues or endings. An assumend good one, a neutral one and a bad one.
Let's start with the bad one. In the bad one Ciri never comes back from the white frost and Geralt travels back to the swamps in order to kill the last crone and to get Ciri's witcher medaillion back (actually Vesemir's one). In the last take Geralt gets the medaillion but seems suicidal (because of grief?) and the house gets swamped with monsters. So what's the problem with this gameplay epilogue. Well, first it never explains what happens to Yennefer or Triss although - if Geralt is in a relationship with them - they are quite important to both Ciri and Geralt. Second, Geralt feels completely out of character in this ending. Why is that so? Well, the issue is that Ciri sacrificed herself in that ending but it was her free will. Nobody killed her. Nobody forced her to do what she wanted to do. So why the suicidal grief? Maybe Yen is so mad at him that he didn't prevent that that she left him as well. Problem is: we don't know because the game doesn't tell us. So in the end, this epilogue really feels like a punishment for "bad" choices down the road instead of a logical and neither good or bad outcome of the events. But there is also a really good or positive element in this epilogue. It's the only epilogue in which Ciri doesn't come back. It's the only epilogue in which the deus ex machina moment isn't all that bad in itself because it's not used as final climatical achievement but as a way to let the end open - very much in the tradition of Sapkowski if you think at the end of the books.
So what about the bad and neutral ones? Well, their basic problem is that Ciri comes back from the white frost which - like described above - destroys the whole story pacing and structure with a weird deus ex machina moment. And then, neither the "Ciri becomes a true witcheress" nor the "Ciri becomes emperess" outcomes seem really believable and "in character" after all. Ciri can't be a real witcher because she is no mutant. She has no super fast reflexes, no improved sight and she cannot drink potions. Of course, in the gameplay sections she just auto-heals herself and uses her never-explained "fast forward" skill all the time (more on that in the next chapter). But from a narrative point of view that doesn't make much sense. And Ciri as the empress of Nilgaard? Well, I don't know, it just doesn't sound like the Ciri from neither the books nor the game. But it's maybe - all in all - the most believable outcome of all - excluding the deus ex machina moment.
What all epilogues miss is a satisfying description of what happens to the ones Geralt has an emotional connection to. No word on Dandelion. No word on Triss or Yen if you love the other one. No word on the lodge of sorceresses. Most of the videos in the epilogues are about political outcomes (even thought the game should be about Geralt's personal quests) and even those are lacking. Take for example the events on Skellige Islands. Right before the end there is both an upcoming civil war and a Nilfgaardian invasion established in the narrative. No matter which epilogue you get, no word on these events in the epilogue videos which seems weird. Why establishing a civil war right before the end if you just ignore it in the epilogue?
4.) Character writing and design
There are certain problems with character writing of main characters that extend the problems with the overall storytelling and the story pacing towards the end of the game. Most of it is bearable but it just stand for a huge amount of lost potential in terms of storytelling.
The most obvious one is Eredin, the king of the White Hunt which is clearly the biggest villain in the game. In theory, there are two types of possible arch-type villains, the narrative villain and hte force-of-nature villain. While they have different traits and motives, they share one definite element: both can't just be "evil" for the sake of being the evil force in the game. The force-of-nature villain usually represents a certain form of challenge to the hero, like the embodiment of chaos. By defeating and dealing with the villain the hero tests himself and his believings. The narrative hero is even more complex. It's a fleshed out person that has believable human motivations and feelings and a complex set of values and convictions. The problem here is: Eredin is neither one or the other. Throughout the whole game he stays blank, like the big evil in the background that is just needed to have any kind of goal. The same is true for the rest of the Wild Hunt. Imlerith is actually the very same narrative and gameplay element as Eredin, just with another skin. Eredin just feels lacking, especially compared to other characters of the game. Just take the Bloody Baron and compare his complex and believable character design and writing to Eredin's one. It's like two completely different levels from to different games. Even Eredin's second man in state, Ge'els has more characters and complexity, only because a single quest is dedicated to him and two minutes of cutscenes are granted to give him at least some space for character exploration.
Then there is Ciri, the second main character. Well, it's probably the hardest character to write and design in the whole game and I do feel with CDPR. Ciri isn't written or designed all that bad but she has some obvious flaws imo. First, her specific experiences don't seem to have a rather big influence on her (speaking of the books here of course). Especially everything sexual is rarely a topic although it's actually a quite important theme for Ciri since "everyone wants to abuse here sexually". It's probably not only a problem with character design her, but with the very tame game design in respect to sexual topics in general. Rape, sexual abuse and psychological abuse and stuff like that is not a topic in the game although it is a natural element of the books and quite important in the case of Ciri. Like a typical blockbuster game it has no problems with open violence but it doesn't feature sexual violence or other forms of human suffering (By the way, people always die at once without suffering. You never hears somebody crying in pain if you cut of an arm or a leg. That's actually pretty disappointing from an immersion and believability point of view. Why open visual violence but no acustic suffering?). So Ciri seems to be a bit tame in that regard while she mostly feels like a teenager although she should already a young adult. Her behaviour seems imho more fitting to a 15 or 16 year old girl (like she was in the books) than to a young woman who has gone through hell on earth already. Another huge problem is the lacking explanation of her skills. What's that "fast forward" skill? She has basically no other skills than opening portals to other worlds in the books. She cannot cast magic anymore. So why isn't that explained? I get that it's a nice gameplay feature. But it's just weird to have no single line of explanation for that, especially for people who know Ciri from the books. After all, her abilities and all things magic are a complex matter in the books while they are mostly a prop in the games. That might have been well suited as long as the story was just about Geralt but with Ciri entering the stage things changed and magical stuff should be put on a whole other level in narrative terms.
Another shortcoming in terms of character writing and design is the three-point relationship between Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer. Especially the relationship between Ciri and Yennfer is extremely underdeveloped. And in one of the only scene in which it is shown Yennefer behave's completely out of character. I think the choice situations in the relationship between Ciri and Geralt which determine the ending also don't add to a well written relationship between them as you could imagine after reading the books. After the really well done scene in the house when Geralt finds here and thinks that she was dead their relationship stays rather cold. I guess a problem here is that games in general have a very hard time to deal with already existing relationships. Every major relationship in the game (Yen-Geralt, Triss-Geralt, Ciri-Geralt, Yen-Triss, Triss-Ciri, Yen-Ciri,...) feels like it had to be build up anew intead of just continueing it. It's most obvious in the Triss-Geralt relationship, but it's basically the same for each one. The problem is that it feels out of place for the parent - child relationships between Geralt and Ciri and Yen and Ciri. This relationship shouldn't be needed to be build anew. But since CDPR uses the relationship between Ciri and Geralt to exactly do that it's hard to avoid.
Another problem with Yen and Triss in particular is that their character and motivation feel underdeveloped and that they don't feel in character with the books. Yen's strongest motive should be that she wants to be mother at all costs. That's what drives her. That's why she had so much conflict with Geralt. That explains her special relationship as step-mother to Ciri. That explains her "new" relationship to Geralt. None of that is fleshed out in the game which seems to be a huge lost chance to me, especially since female-centered themes are rarely explored in big games. Yen is always only important in connection to Geralt but not really as somebody on her own. And Triss' biggest problems are her guilt feelings for being in the lodge and her hidden desire for Geralt. It's a bit better handled in that case but stil underdeveloped. While I agree that the respective romance quests and scenes are rather nice and imo belong to the best quests in the game, I think especially in the ending they stay blank and underdeveloped. Why the hell do we take Philippa with us for the search of the sunstone? Why not Triss or Yen, depending on whom we love? That could have been a perfect location and time to finally explore their relationsship before the end. Instead we have to travel with Philippa, a character that has some importance of course, but a character who isn't nearly as important as Triss or Yen. And why is there no bigger conflict between Triss or Yen if you decide for Yen, for example?
Besides from the obvious sorceresses, the other sorceresses feel underdeveloped as well, with the one exception of Keira Metz. But both Margarita and Fringilla feel rushed and pointless. They are both introduced rightly before the end and they don't have much purpose besides being used as staffage. It doesn't help her of course that the sorceresses and the lodge aren't even mentioned in the epilogue...
5.) Ciri as the defeater of the White Frost?
--> http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-spoilers!!!?p=1761767&viewfull=1#post1761767
6.) Choice re-evaluated: where is the player agency?
--> http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-spoilers!!!?p=1777814&viewfull=1#post1777814
So that's about it for now. There is of course more the topic (there always is) but I think the stuff I've written almost bursts the limit for a forum post or thread. I know it's a huge wall of text and I know that some or many might disagree with a whole lot of stuff I pointed out here. That's not a problem since I like good discussions. But please don't answer with any one-liners or anything like that that indicates that you aren't really interested in the topic or only want to dismiss me or my writing in general without arguments. If you want to reply please read what I've written first and answer to the topics at hand. Otherwise there can't be a good discussion.
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