History YMMV / TheWitcher3WildHunt

** The trope is enforced by the game itself. Starting each and every new game, Geralt will get a "starter" Northern Kingdoms deck. It will take a long while before players will collect enough cards from the other decks to even begin using them ''at all'', much less have a reasonably powerful deck to play with. By the time it's finally possible to try playing with other decks, players will probably have already assembled an all-powerful Northern Kingdoms deck and know all the tricks for it, while there will be few people even left to play with (or, at least, not for any substantial reward). It's possible to assemble a Northern Kingdoms deck capable of winning 85-90% of the matches in the game reliably (depending on the difficulty settings) before you even reach Novigrad.
** As for the main game, Quen is a godsend from the very start, particularly on higher difficulties. When things kill you in three hits on Death March from the beginning, being able to take an extra hit or two and conserve much needed healing items is invaluable. Be prepared to use the majority of your stamina on that single sign.

** Triss Merigold, after being turned in to a statue and tortured at the end of ''Witcher 2'' (which Geralt may or may not save her from), she broke up with Geralt because she believed he would always go back to Yen. Then Radovid's WitchHunt began, Triss lost her home, her friends, and was forced to lead an unwanted UndergroundRailroad. Depending on Geralt's choices, she may have to watch her friend Keira Metz die horribly on a spike, be tortured (again), and forced into a SadisticChoice, which leads to the death of a sympathetic inn keeper or two innocent mages.

** Triss Merigold, after being turned in to a statue and tortured at the end of ''Witcher 2'' (which Geralt may or may not save her from), she broke up with Geralt because she believed he would always go back to Yen. Then Radovid's WitchHunt began, Triss lost her home, her privilege, her friends, and was forced to lead an unwanted UndergroundRailroad. Depending on Geralt's choices, she may have to watch her friend Keira Metz die horribly on a spike, be tortured (again), and forced into a SadisticChoice, which leads to the death of a sympathetic inn keeper or two innocent mages.

* WakeupCallBoss: The Werewolf in Velen, which can be fought as soon as you leave White Orchard -- relatively early in the game. If you fight him at a low level you'll get a nasty surprise as the thing regenerates health at a ridiculous rate and hits like a truck all while dancing around any careless attack you make. This boss is how the game tells you that you ''really'' should not try to take on a quest with a big level difference unless you're very, veeeery prepared for it.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler: The ArcVillain of ''Blood and Wine'', Syanna, planned to murder all she feels wronged her (including her own sister), and seduced TheHeavy to act as TheDragon for her. That said, she was ostracized, exiled, and had to fend for herself all because she was born at the wrong time. That, combined with her sister living the good life (and feeling betrayed by said sister), had her decide that "they think me a monster, a force of evil, well, ThenLetMeBeEvil"]].

** ''WebVideo/SuperBunnyhop'' [[https://youtu.be/CXWbUJXAVE0?t=11m argues that]] it's a pretty good, unofficial ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda''. Funny enough, the success of ''Wild Hunt'' inspired many of the system mechanics ''Breath of the Wild'' had.

* TheScrappy:
** Hattori, for conning Geralt to doing his bidding. Even worse that if you want the blacksmith of Novigrad to open and having the only Master Blacksmith (at least before Blood and Wine, which introduces the Grandmaster Blacksmith in Toussaint) at your service, you have to make sure Hattori survived the whole ordeal.

** Ciri acts ''very'' friendly to a waitress named Bea, hugging her, saying how great it is to see her again, and buying her a gift so Bea will have something to remember Ciri by. Even Geralt picks up on the subtext and lightly teases her about it. The player has the option to remove ambiguity by having Ciri state that she prefers women (though the player can also chose to avert the trope and have her show interest in a male character instead).

** 4 staple enchantments have emerged in Heart of Stone: Levity which turns all worn armor light, Deflection which deflects all arrow, Preservation which retains armorer's and blacksmith's bonus indefinitely and Severance which gives your swords more range when performing Whirl & Rend. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone using enchanting without at least one of these, probabbly all three.

* AngstWhatAngst: The ability to challenge so many characters to Gwent, even after dramatic moments, leads to this, sometimes overlapping with {{Narm}}. For example, during the "Bloody Baron" storyline, [[spoiler: Phillip Strenger can witness the murder of his corrupted miscarried daughter and lash out at you angrily...then immediately agree to play cards with you if you challenge him while he's walking back to his house. This particular case may be justified, however, in that the Baron does say he's ''always'' in the mood for Gwent...]]

** Olgierd von Everec in the ''Heart of Stone'' DLC. Was he always a cruel cutthroat, who nonetheless loved his wife dearly but had this one redeeming aspect taken away by his deal with Gaunter O'Dimm, or was he a decent, if not completely righteous, individual completely corrupted by O'Dimm turning his heart to stone? He's shown to have been a decent husband to Iris before the effects of his deal took hold, and Olgierd's brother Vlod regards him with nothing but love, indicating he once had good in him, but Vlod himself is a careless brigand and casual lawbreaker with little respect for boundaries, so how good a judge of character he is hardly convincing, not to mention they were leading a gang of cutthroat outlaws (though when this started is up for questioning; did he form the gang after losing his heart, when he lost his fortune, or even before that?). He made a DealWithTheDevil, but only because events far beyond his control pushed him into a desperate bargain to regain what he lost, and he certainly didn't intend for the deal to come with the loss of his heart; after that point, he was NotHimself and its hard to judge how much of his resulting callous sociopathy is him being an asshole through-and-through and how much is the result of what would logically happen if someone is given immortality but prevented from being able to have any positive feelings. Tellingly, when he regains his mortality and ability to feel, he immediately renounces his past wickedness and is consumed with guilt for what he's done, but is this his true-self finally reemerging or a HeelFaceTurn?

* RetroactiveRecognition: Before she was a ShoutOut to Snow White, Creator/JoWyatt was Sleeping Beauty in [[VideoGame/FableI another RPG.]]