The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an almost impossibly huge game. A year and half after its release people are still talking about its missions and its secrets with continued relish, and for my part I have over 200 hours logged in it, the most of any game I've ever played shy of Civ 5. But for as grand and varied as it is, few reviews acknowledge that breathe, instead choosing to focus on the sum of all its disparate parts. I thought it’d be interesting to take the opposite approach and instead review it slightly differently: piecemeal, with a look at every single mission in the entire game.

I’ve always found the Witcher 3 to be a wildly inconsistent game, creating experiences that ranked among the greatest of all time and placing them along side some of gaming’s most confusing, backward, and annoying design choices. I thought it might be interesting to see how each of those experiences stacked up against each other, to see, mathematically even, if the Witcher 3 was more or less than the sum of its parts. So here’s the first entry in my impossible task to review every single mission in the Witcher 3: welcome to Wandering in the Dark, a Velen mission so bad it inspired me to start this very series.

Wandering in the Dark

Main Quest

This mission is interminable, the best example of the worst mission design in the Witcher 3. It’s framed around three main gameplay conceits: tackling packs of enemies, usually in groups of threes or fours, with environmental traps (poison clouds, freezing colds) to worry about; slowly, slowly chipping away the incessantly-long health bars of dungeon bosses using the same hit-hit-dodge combo; and finally searching for pathways and clues in the near-pitch darkness, stumbling around oddly-shaped boulders and spamming Witcher Vision until the blurry red outlines show up and lead you to the next section. At nearly an hour long, It reeks of filler, featuring none of the meaty, satisfying combat or conversations usually associated with the Witcher’s best missions. Choices are minimal, with a lone decision regarding what to do with Keira when she faints poorly explained and incomprehensibly implemented (what exactly does it want me to choose between?); interactions between Geralt and Kiera are slim, with little being revealed about either character other than at the very beginning and very end of the mission and; and the combat has some of the worst design in the entire game. Let’s recap.

It begins with you and Keira heading over to a mysterious-elf-who-just-might-have-seen-Ciri’s dungeon home in order to question him, but you arrive to find the Wild Hunt already ahead of you, searching for the same man. What transpires next is an hour-plus chase to catch them, involving non-functioning portals, nests of rats, a sorta-outta-nowhere protector Golum, the most boring ancient Elven dock imaginable, poison gas, the White Frost, a bunch of poorly explained magic, and finally a showdown with Nithral, a C-tier Wild Hunt stooge who wields a dope axe and can regenerate health. While all those pieces sound alright on paper, monotony soon sets in as each encounter brings neither engaging conflicts nor emotional payoffs to the table. Indicative of the laziness of the design is an abysmal encounter in the later fourth of the mission, when the Wild Hunt opens three portals to the White Frost and forces you and Keira to close them before moving on. To stave off the White Frost, Keira opens a shield around the both of you as she attempts to close the portals. You need to defend her as exactly seven (or eight — around that number) of Hounds of the Wild Hunt come out of each portal, one portal at a time. The whole encounter goes like this: fight four Hounds and kill them; fight three hounds and kill them; Keira closes a portal; rinse, repeat twice. The exact same enemy, the exact same attack pattern, over and over. Once you’ve killed one Hound of the Wild Hunt, you’ve killed ‘em all.

Some things of mild interest do still happen, however. This is the first mission where we get to see Avalac in the flesh, after all, and what an anit-climax it is. For one of the most mysterious and motivating forces in the entire game, here he’s little more than a riddle generator, offering up mysterious clues to help Ciri find him. Which, by the way, feels inconsistent: the Wild Hunt is ahead of you in the dungeon the entire time, but Keira mentions that “no one but Ciri and you [Geralt]” would be able to decipher the riddles. Guess not! Because the Hunt totally did. I understand the desire to keep the character in the dark, but so little information is given about him here that I was initially confused if his character was actually important or not.

I can imagine going through this mission on your first playthrough might hold some excitement, as it’s your first real one-on-one with a member of the Wild Hunt, but without that anticipation the mission, and the eventual fight against a Huntsman, really falls flat. That final fight, by the way; oof. Nithral’s got an invincibility shield that he’ll summon twice during the battle, once at 2/3 health and once again at 1/3, both times regenerating him back to full health and sicking another septet of Hounds on you. Hey, remember how fun they were to fight earlier? They’re even better now! The battle takes the ‘fight the same encounter three times’ philosophy from the White Frost encounter and pushes it to its rote extreme. (Also of note: every time you bump into Nithral’s invincibility shield during this section — which can happen a lot, since the Hounds will frequently hang out inside of it — Geralt will get flung back and Keira will yell “GERALT!”, which got pretty funny to hear over and over again in the span of about 15 seconds). It’s also weird how it’s this mission that adds the Erdin entry to your Character journal, despite the fact it doesn’t mention him once.

On top of all that, a lot of dialogue, animation, and effects are really not great. Keira’s protective White Frost shield looks flat and undynamic, an animation where she faints into Geralt’s arms looks straight-up terrible, and the whole affair ends with minimal conclusion (what did the Hunt find? Who is the elf? What does he want with Ciri? Nada). The nicest thing you can say about Wandering in the Dark is that it introduces you to the Witches of Crookbag Bog — both in name and in quest — which offer up some of the best missions in the game. Here’s to them, and better missions ahead.

One White Wolf out of Five

This is a really great concept a great read, and I'm totally jealous I didn't think of it first. Keep them coming!

Meh this is actually one of my favourite quests.

You are a hero.

Huh, I really liked this mission..

I remember loathing this mission when I played it. Cool concept, I will be sure to read on as you write on.

I kind of disagree with most of what you said aside from the boss encounter design which is undoubtedly one of Witcher 3's biggest flaws. A few things to note, gas in fights aren't something for you to worry about but to use as a tool. You're meant lure the Wraiths and Drowners into the gas and blast it with Igni to obliterate their health bar. The near pitch darkness is easily fixed by using a torch or cat potion which would also fix your awkward stumbling around odd-shaped boulders. I also don't follow your train of thought in how things like the Golem comes out of no where or the magical projections making no sense. All of those things have a justified existence in the quest by either gameplay or story context and in most cases both (projections were to guide Ciri, the Golem is there as a protector in case someone other than Ciri worked out how to get in, hinted by "Zireal not recognized".)

As for interactions between Geralt and Keira I also think you've entirely missed the mark. You learn several things about Keira, things like she's cowardly when faced with real danger (witnessing the Wild Hunt reflected later by her position in the mage war), she has an irrational fear of rats (which also provides a nice comic relief moment) and was only doing anything for Geralt to fulfil her own desires (Magic Lamp not the Elf like you stated, Keira has no interest in the Elf). She had no actual intent to selflessly help Geralt and only helped him because of mutual benefit (this is hinted at early in the quest and comes to fruition with her later quests, it's good writing.) The interaction between the two when she faints is also very clearly gauging the players interest in vicariously 'romancing' Keira through Geralt which is yet another thing that comes into play in later quests. It would come off as contrived, however throughout the whole franchise several sorceresses perform similar spells to what Keira did and almost all of them near feint at the end of it. Keira also states that she has a powerful intuition and that she has "some veeery good feelings about [Geralt], for instance. In several domains." that dialogue is clearly trying to nudge the player into the romance option while at the same time hinting at her ulterior motives. This is even further alluded to when she talks about "two types of men" at the very end of the quest.

Back to the boss encounter, although I agree with the poor boss design point you made you also missed an entire component of the boss fight in that you can close the portals with Dimeritium bombs. Their description states they block magic and preventing the casting of it. Using them along with Keiras magic in this fight and the white frost portion prior closes the portals instantly.

You also mistakenly assume that this is supposed to be the unveiling of who the Mysterious Elf is. It's not an anti-climax there was no climax intended here, this was a breadcrumb trail quest that served the purpose of developing the relationship between Keira and Geralt, alluding to Keiras motivations while also providing a plot vessel to the Crones of Crookback Bog. As for inconsistencies you seemed to have missed the dialogue at the very start of the quest where it's stated that portal magic had been blocked by Avallac'h but The Hunt uses a different type of navigational portals than the traditional ones that Keira and most mages utilise within that sphere. The Hunt merely teleported ahead, they didn't have to deal with any of Avallac'hs riddles there is no inconsistency here. I also have a hard time believing someone questioning whether the Mysterious Elf is important or not. The dialogue through the projections very obviously allude to a close relationship or knowing cooperation between Ciri and the Elf, and the puzzles laid out by the Elf for Ciri require personal knowledge to solve.

So yea like I said, I strongly disagree with your point of view and based on what you wrote I feel like you flat out missed a lot of what this quest divulged which ultimately made you totally miss what it was even about.

Good luck on your review quest though. I'll be glad to read the final one in the year 2028 or something.

Great, great idea for a blog. This is one of the more memorable quests in the game for me; really good name, very long and not very satisfying experience. I disliked both major sections of the game that featured hiding in a witch's protective bubble (I think there were only two) and Cat Potion or otherwise I've never found much charm in caves; I rode the Gamma sliders harder in Witcher 3 than any game ever, and I'm a Playstation player! I'm also guilty of having no idea who Avallach was when he was officially introduced to the story (as in, rescued from his deformed husk). I'd noticed the Mysterious Elf in the character glossary but could never remember what introduced it to the conversation or what real importance it had to the story I was following.

Like @ivdamke points out, however, the final battle is a bit less frustrating if you just throw bombs at the portals; this was a valuable lesson to learn for the pivotal battle at Kaer Morhen later.

Then again I also just finished the main story and side quests about a month ago, a year and a half after I originally bought the game. So maybe, at one point, I did know...the mysteries of memory!

@ivdamke: The only weird thing I found in the quest, is the countermeasures where meant to stop everyone except the one party they where trying to elude. What's the point of it all if you know the only people searching for you can just teleport past it. He could've just as well put a couple of subtle signs for Ciri, instead of giant holograms. And maybe a illusion or barrier to hide the front-door, like he did the backdoor.

@ivdamke: Really good critique of my critique! The Dimiritium Bomb thing absolutely blew my mind, since I thought it was only useful on magical enemies and not magical elements in the world.

I also think I poorly explained my displeasure with the Keira/Elf interactions. I think overall, yeah, they do further things, but without any of the flair or pizzaz that is usually associated with Witcher 3 quests. Each interaction in the quest feels really plodding to me, with the Elf's role especially being really dull and offering no real insights into his character throughout the whole time, even though this is his introduction. And while I think the Keira fainting bit is pretty obvious after the fact, the two choices it gives you in the moment (I forget their exact wording) are pretty obscure and in the moment I had a hard time figuring out what I was actually choosing between.

Same thing for the part with the Golem: sure, it makes sense, but it feels like one boss fight too many, and is reaaaaalllly not fun on Death March. Fighting him felt much less necessary than fighting the Hunt, who you've been chasing the whole quest, and it didn't feel like he was guarding anything memorable.

@cabelhigh: Yea, to be fair about the Dimeritium bomb it doesn't tell you directly that it does that like most modern video games do. It's very similar to older RPGs where you learned things like that through mild hints in descriptions and then thinking "maayyybe it will work" and trying it. I can see being disappointed if you were expecting pizzazz but I don't feel like that needs to be in every quest. This was a more subtle set of interactions that helps setup and emphasise the more dramatic story beats. I feel like The Witcher 3 wouldn't be half the game that it is if it was lacking the more subtle quests. I don't need a game to ram what its trying to tell me down my throat and I certainly don't need everything to be bombastic or dramatic every single time. One of the biggest things I appreciated from The Witcher 3 was its willingness to just have quests based around very minor interactions. Quests like Fencing Lessons with the Nilfgaardian ambassadors daughter or The Play's the Thing's numerous moments from Priscilla's song performance to basic interaction with all the NPCs involved. People called that pacing problems, I see it as a very integral part of world building.

@aktivity: That's one thing I can't explain, I may have missed something too but yea it does seem odd because Avallac'h is very aware of The Hunts abilities.

This is a great quest and only my opinion matters.