Bewitching Narrative: The Power of Choice in The Witcher 3
At its core, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a game about choice, which seems a little counter-intuitive. Witchers have explicitly defined roles in society — they are emotionless, apolitical monster hunters. As players move through the game, they learn from non-playable characters that some common conceptions of Witchers are that they are cruel and motivated purely by coin.
Players begin the game by controlling Geralt, a legendary Witcher and the protagonist of the game. His goal, and the goal of the game is to find Geralt’s adopted daughter, Ciri. The Witcher 3 is a sprawling open-world RPG, meaning that there are hours of narrative quests and sidequests standing between the player and the end of the game.
In the Continent, the game’s world, Witchers must go through the Trial, which mutates their bodies and gives them hyperactive senses that allow them to become superhuman hunters — and as one interaction with Lambert (another Witcher) late in the game reveals, not all Witchers voluntarily became so.
With a profession where agency is so often denied, the developers at CD Projekt Red could have easily condensed and given players a similar lack of choice in gameplay. By doing the opposite, however, and giving players more agency through quests and dialogue options, the result is meaningful gameplay that allows players to not only determine what quests they will take on, but what kind of Witcher they will be.
These decisions are essential to gameplay experience, while other choices made throughout the game are critical to narrative experience. The driving plot is chasing Ciri, who disappeared and has reappeared after fifteen years. Ciri is a descendant of Elder Blood, which gives her the power to manipulate space and time. It also makes her a target of the Wild Hunt, a supernatural army that would use her power to overtake the Continent.
Once Geralt reunites with Ciri, the choices are much more impactful on the game’s main narrative and players can get multiple endings to the game based on the choices they make late in Act II and throughout Act III of the game.
The idea of player and character agency is a recurring theme throughout the game. Most notably, it is brought up by Ciri, who (probably rightly) feels that the powers granted to her by her Elder Blood and her royal parentage have robbed her of agency. Between being forced to flee from the Wild Hunt (among others who want to steal her power) Ciri is also faced with the possibility of inheriting her father’s throne.
There are a number of outcomes players can achieve for Ciri, and two that are considered “good” or “bad” endings. In the “good” ending, Ciri becomes the Empress of Nilfgaard or a Witcher and things end happily with Geralt. In the “bad” ending, Ciri disappears. For Ciri to become Empress, players must complete a series of quests, including forcing her to see her estranged father in Vizima.
This is where player, narrative, and character agency coincide. Searching “Ciri Witcher or Empress” pulls numerous threads debating the best possible fate for Ciri. Central to this debate is the question of what Ciri would want and which ending would give her a life she would be content with.
I didn’t expect to care so much when I played this game. What makes it so compelling? As I played, I continually circled back to the idea of choice. Though the sprawling, open-world structure weakens the narrative urgency of the main storyline, one thing TW3 does exceptionally well is foster compassion by building empathy for the characters players meet, whether they have a major or minor part in the story.
The first time I noticed this was in an early side quest where Geralt kills a wraith who is poisoning the water in a local well. When the time comes for payment, the contract poster mentions that he’s paying you with his daughter’s dowry, and though it’s often repeated that Witchers don’t work for free, I couldn’t accept his money even though I knew I was supposed to.
This quest was kind of a one-off that occurred early in the game, but it’s an example of the way empathy and compassion influenced my gameplay. Not only do the choices players make matter for major narrative events, but they matter in the relatively less important side quests. Quests like “Family Matters” and “An Invitation from Keira Metz” kick off subplots for major secondary characters. There are drastically different outcomes available for each depending on the choices Geralt makes.
A large part of “Family Matters” focuses on Geralt tracking down the Baron’s missing wife and daughter. In order to do this, Geralt has to deal with a botching — a (bear with me) zombie fetus haunting the Baron after it was miscarried by the Baron’s wife, Anna. To resolve the issue, Geralt can turn the botchling into a lubberkin, and the botchling will die peacefully. On the other hand, Geralt can decide to attack the botchling, which turns it into a much larger, more powerful monster and a more difficult fight.
Though the Baron is directly at fault for the situation, the context affected my choice to turn the botchling into a lubberkin and give the family peace. Throughout the game I found myself making the choice that I hoped would be less emotionally painful, something that’s surprisingly difficult. In addition to the agency the game affords, the outcomes often have a ripple effect that reaches other parts of the game. With the Keira Metz side quest (which is played relatively early in the game) the outcomes are Keira dying at the hands of Witch Hunters, or going on to aid Geralt in the Battle at Kaer Morhen and curing the Plague.
The unexpected reach of the quest decisions is the final aspect of choice that makes TW3 a compelling game. Unlike Mass Effect or Star Wars: The Old Republic, there’s no morality alignment system that tells players if the decisions they’re making are morally aligned with Witcher beliefs. Choosing which quests to take on and, more importantly, dialogue options means that the player is guided by what they think is right at the time. This, coupled with the rippling effect these choices have, means that the full outcome of the decision isn’t known right away.
The five decisions in acts two and three of the game that determine Ciri’s final fate perhaps have the most extensive ripple effect. In one of the final cutscenes, Ciri tells Geralt that her choices are her own, and Geralt watches as she sets off to destroy the White Frost that threatens their world. It seems more than a little ironic that Ciri emphasizes the importance of making her own choices without being at the center of the gameplay — even though she drives the narrative, Ciri is more concept than character for half of the game. Her assertiveness is a fitting conclusion to her story because it finally forces both Geralt and the player to recognize her as her own being.
It’s a fitting ending for a game that is based so heavily on choice and their consequences, and a surprisingly realistic one. I both loved and hated that I was never certain what the outcome of a specific decision would be. The reach was often equally pleasant and heartbreaking, adding to the game’s already considerable emotional heft.
It also created an immersive gaming experience that felt incredibly well thought-out. Being able to decide what kind of Witcher I was not only influenced the story, but my gameplay, and this is true for everyone who plays the game. Every person who plays this game will have a different mindset about it, and their own conceptualization of what it means to be a Witcher. The great thing about the Witcher though, is that those conceptualizations are reflected back at them with tangible consequences.
