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Warning: Major Spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt lie ahead.
Which ending to the base version of The Witcher 3 you get depends on a lot of things. There are the big obvious choices, along with a heap of smaller ones, and it’s the former that really shapes the final proper cutscene you get before the game paints a picture of the rest in storybook style. As it turns out, there was a little more to one of these final cutscenes, and a modder’s now restored it.
As with the majority of the more interesting works that’ve popped up as part of a Witcher 3 modding rennaisance over the last few months, this one wouldn’t have been possible without the REDkit modding tools. You know, the ones that’re providing a lot of cool stuff to help tide us all over while we wait for more news on The Witcher 4 and the other projects CD Projekt’s currently busy working on.
If you regularly pick the path in TW3’s main story that sees Ciri run off and become a witcher following the game’s climax, you’ll be familar with the scene modder Merigoldmaribor has revisited with their mod ‘Ciri Witcher Ending Restoration‘.
After Gerry acquires a new sword for her, he and his stepdaughter of sorts meet up at the inn in White Orchard for a quick chat, before heading out to begin a post-credits adventure we don’t get to see. As you can watch here, the original version cuts to black with Ciri shoving her new blade back into its sheath, before the narrator tells you about the consequences of the rest of your actions.
Merigoldmaribor’s mod restores an extra bit of the scene after that re-sheathing, which sees Gerry and Ciri actually get up and head to exit the inn. Geralt kicks things off by saying that either Yennefer or Triss – depending on which the player’s chosen to couple up with during their playthrough – awaits in Ellander. Ciri then responds: “We can meet her in two days if we hurry.” The pair approach the door, and boom, roll credits.
While working in a mention of Ellander is nice for lore-heads, given that it’s the duchy near Vizima where the Temple of Melitele that features in both the books and season two of Netflix’s The Witcher, I’d wager there’s unlikely to be much substantial to read into in terms of any future witcher games here, especially since it sounds from one of Merigoldmaribor and another modder MerseyRockoff’s comments that this unused bit was left in a “very buggy” state by CD Projekt.
If anything, all I’d say it potentially foreshadows is CD Projekt electing to include a nice reunion with your partner of choice or Ciri in the Blood and Wine DLC, which essentially serves as the proper ending point of any Witcher 3 playthrough now. But hey, who knows what even more hardcore fans than me might dig up.
Would you have preferred it if The Witcher 3 ending that sees Ciri become a witcher had concluded like this? Let us know below.