Shout Out / The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

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• Shout-Out to Shakespeare:
  • During the quest to retrieve the Mask of Ouroborous in Skellige, Geralt must place an object in the open palm of the statue of a man lost in contemplation in order to open a secret passage. Placing a skull (to no avail) prompts Geralt to say: "Hmm... I guess you're no indecisive prince."
  • One of the drunk patrons at the Kingfisher (famous for its stage) mutters "To puke or not to puke, that is the question...".
  • At the end of Reason of State, Dijkstra will reveal himself onstage and say, "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. That but this blow might be the be-all and end-all here."

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

• A rock troll somehow recruited into the Redanian army will sing snippets of Redanian marching tunes. His name happens to be Trollololo.
• Some guards will do an impression of Beavis' and Butthead's air guitar riffs.
• During the "Scavenger Hunt: Cat School Gear" quest you fight a golem beneath Temple Isle. Whilst exploring the caves you can find an 'Invoice for a Golem' from a one 'Jehuda Low'. Judah Low ben Bezalel was a real Polish and Czech rabbi who was credited with a creation of a golem in 17th century Jewish folk tales.
• At one point, Geralt's long time friend, Zoltan Chivay, tells you you've "got my axe!" Zoltan is a dwarf.
• When going over some of Dandelion's previous paramours, Zoltan mentions how one lass had strange tastes that involved them roleplaying as people named Anastasia and Christian.
• The "Lord of Undvik" quest in Skellige has several aspects that are reminiscent of King Kong. It takes place on a remote abandoned island with a ruined settlement on the beach and a massive wall erected to keep something out - said something turns out to be a giant version of if its species (in this case an actual giant) that rules the island. Undvik also looks a bit like a giant's skull, just like Skull Island looks a bit like Kong's...
• In the village of Larvik on Skellige there's a noticeboard there's an advertisement for any men wishing to join 'Leif' on sailing west to what lies across the ocean. This is a direct shoutout to Leif Erikson the Icelandic explorer who is considered by some to be first European to land in North America.
• The achievement obtained by winning a fist fight without getting hit by your opponents is called "Fist of the South Star", a reference to Fist of the North Star.
• An early quest involves investigating the vandalism of several roadside shrines to a local goddess. The vandals turn out to be students of a certain Master Friedrich of Oxenfurt who believe that "the gods are dead".
• Prostitutes in the game's brothels will inform you that "it's a material world and they are material girls."
• During the "Fencing Lessons" quest, Rosa Var Attre runs away from Geralt towards a tavern when Geralt remarks "Girl just wants to have fun."
• When sneaking into the Var Attre villa, Geralt runs into Edna Var Attre who tells the guard that Geralt is Fredrick Francis De Bergerac, Rosa's fencing instructor.
• At the docks in Novigrad it can happen that Geralt runs into a sailor who asks "Why's there never enough rum?".
• Random children will sometimes ask Geralt if he "is a wizard?"
• A number of in-game conversations refer to Game of Thrones:
  • The Bloody Baron's appearance, mannerisms, and habits greatly resemble Mark Addy's portrayal of Robert Baratheon.
  • In the keep-turned-prison Kaer Almhult, you can find the corpse of a halfling with dark blonde hair, dressed in a red tunic. The cell has no bars, just a big hole with a great view on the nearby deadly cliffs instead of one of the walls.
    Geralt: Sky cells... nice idea for a prison without bars. Shame he didn't know how to fly.
  • On occasion, you might find a steel sword (or the associated crafting diagram) named Longclaw.
• The same building of Kaer Almhult contains a note talking about the Ancient Ones, finishing off with famous gibberish line "'Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn'".
• Geralt encounters one bounty hunter named Djenge Frett. He asks for help in tracking three notorious Grossbart brothers named Hegel, Manfried and Jesse. Two former ones are the eponymous protagonists of the book The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington who lent the name to the third brother.
• The bookshop in Novigrad has books that reference other franchises, such as Necronomicon and a vampire romance novel dig at The Twilight Saga.
• Some peasants in Velen will mutter "War... it just never changes."
• When meeting the crime lords of Novigrad, apparently Cleaver had called Whoreson Junior an uncle-fucker.
• After you find Ciri, she tells about a world she spent six months in, where everybody has "metal in their heads" and wage war from afar through some sort of megascopes, and instead of horses everybody has flying wagons. Many have taken this to be a Shout-Out to CDProjekt Red's upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.
• Taking Keira Metz up on her offer after helping with "A Towerful of Mice" has her transmute 3 white mice into a pair of white horses, much like a certain fairy godmother had done.
• For that matter, the circumstances in which you find Ciri are reminiscent of Snow White: A comatose princess in a lonely hut in the company of a band of seven dwarves? One of the dwarves is even a narcoleptic nicknamed Sleepy!
• The fate of the tower owner in Towerful of Mice is a shout out to the Popiel, legendary pre-Christian Polish ruler (commonly referred to as 'king') who antagonized his subjects to the point of rebellion and died devoured by mice during the ensuing siege of his tower (that happens to be located on an island in the middle of the lake). Due to translation issues, it is more obvious in original version of the game though.
• In Towerful of Mice you investigate haunted tower with a lamp where certain Alexander was experimenting on people.
• One of the leaders of the Wild Hunt is named Caranthir. As if there wasn't enough references to Tolkien's works.
• During Yen's segment of the "Final Preparations" Quest, the man you are meeting is the only person to ever escape Oxenfurt Prison. His name? Abbe Faria, the old priest from The Count of Monte Cristo. He also pulled the same Body Bag Trick to escape that Dantes did in the book.
• You can encounter a female bandit leader nicknamed Little Red who happens to be a werewolf. She doubles as a Mythology Gag to the short story "The Lesser Evil", which features a female bandit leader Expy of Snow White.
• Geralt is given a quest to help cure a druid of his muteness. Turns out it was actually a vow of silence.
• When traveling through Novigrad, Geralt might overhear a conversation between two beggars wherein one laments to the other that he was rudely and without consent healed of his leprosy by a passing healer, effectively destroying his livelihood.
• In a notice board in Ard Skelling, a post talks about sightings of a white whale. The poster's name? Ismael.
• In a cemetery in Velen, where Geralt kills a Grave Hag and saves an impostor witcher from a ghoul, going into the crypt and emerging from it causes the two angel statues standing guard to shift position while you're inside.
• Quentin Tarantino:
  • While in Novigrad, you can take on a mission to help a master swordsmith named Hattori. He says that he will "Make you a sword that can kill the gods!" and even runs a dumpling shop since he retired from swordmaking.
  • In Crow's Perch, if you go down the stairs of the fort, you'll hear two guards mentioning something familiar:
  First guard: Well, bring out the gimp.
  Second guard: Think the gimp's sleepin'.
  First guard: Well, guess you'll just gonna have to go wake him up now, won't you?
  • After finding the dead Zed in his home, Zoltan asks if he caused Geralt any trouble: "Zed is dead."
  • Also, in the "A Deadly Plot" quest, Thaler is travelling disguised as a cobbler. His wagon bears great resemblance to the one used by Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained but with a giant wobbly shoe on top instead of a tooth.
• The Champion of Novigrad, in the "Fist of Fury" sidequest, is a rude elf with the name Durden the Tailor.
  • Said elf also quotes A Knight's Tale before the fight
• You can meet three human-eating trolls suffering from terrible flatulence. Their names? Joe, Jesse and Dodger.
• Skellige male inhabitants will often shout "This is SKEEEELLIGEEE".
• "Where the Cat and Wolf Play" can result in a rather depressing letter showing that the Cat school has been destroyed - but Schrodinger's status is still unknown.
• One of the books that can be found in the game world is titled How To Avoid Colossal Vessels.
• When you walk by them, some children will remark: "Jeepers creepers! Look at those peepers!"
• Sometimes guards remind you there's to be "No lollygaging!"
• During "The Play's the Thing", the man you speak to to hire ushers for the play promotes a fight between Geralt and the fighter in the ring with "Killer Instinct versus Primal Rage!"
• When staging a fake mugging he can rescue a potential patron from, Dandelion creates a vigilante identity for himself: The Crimson Avenger.
• The "Carnal Sins" quest is a huge reference to Se7en, as it features a religious zealot ritualistically murdering people he sees as sinners in order to wake society up into being more righteous.
• You can occasionally hear a guard saying "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe go fuck yourself."
• One of the fistfighters along the way to the championship is called Georg Georgius. The bookie running the fight is called Claytop. Both are shout-outs to Snatch.: Gorgeous George is a boxer and Brick Top is an Ax-Crazy gangster running illegal boxing matches. In the Polish version, another fistfighter in Novigrad is called the Gypsy, a shout out to Brad Pitt's Snatch character.
• During the "Whispering Hillock" quest, the black horse you use to free the imprisoned nature spirit will be named Black Beauty if you stand near it after the quest ends.
• There's an ekimmara in Byways called Sarasti.
• A quest in Novigrad has you remove a "curse" from an abandoned house by killing the Earth Elemental that lives underneath it, named Therezane.
• An early quest to find an arsonist is titled "Twisted Firestarter".
• If you talk to one of the bandits in the Tavern of White Orchard just before starting "The Incident at White Orchard", he will threaten to "Rip off your melon and shit down your neck"
• In Belek, you can pass by a hidden cave with a snow hare standing in front of a pile of bloody bones. Thankfully, it doesn't attack you on sight and merely ignores you.
• In Velen you can pick up a book of poems by Gonzal de Verceo, a reference to the Mediaeval Spanish poet Gonzalo de Berceo.
• If it starts raining while you're walking around Novigrad, you may hear someone break into a few bars of Singin' in the Rain.
• Peasants will occasionally say that they are “hungry like a wolf”.
• Bandits in Novigrad will say "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
• During the "Defender of the Faith" quest, you can choose to beat up the Hollywood Atheist students who are destroying shrines. If you do, one will say, "Repression! Attack the system's lackey!".
• In Velen you can find the grave of a witcher named George in Dragonslayer's Grotto.
• Throwing a Northern Wind bomb at an enemy to freeze them, then shooting them with a crossbow as a killing blow to shatter them prompts Geralt to quip "Hasta la Vista."
• The Polish name for the "Missing Persons" quest, "Ktokolwiek widział, ktokolwiek wie" is named after a Polish TV show about missing persons.
• During the quest "The Great Escape," you can find a list of prisoners. One of those listed is a member of the Emperor's Elite Palace Guard, named Sardukhar.
• Irina Renarde's bio mentions that she's performed in the plays Love in a Time of Contempt, The Barber of Kovir, and Seven Brides for Seven Emperors.

Hearts of Stone

• In a treasure hunt quest, at one of the undiscovered locations, there's a story of a prisoner finally being freed from prison and going to find some loot a friend stashed away for him. The letter you find on his corpse was written by someone with the initials A.D.
• A fire eater that's rather clueless about animals named David Artensborrow.
• There are new "Fallen Knights" enemies who repeatedly quote Mad Max: Fury Road, using the following exclamations while attacking:
  "Witness me, brothers!"
  "I am witnessing you, Brother!"
  "I live, I die, I live again!"
  "Oh, what a day... what a lovely day!"
• Near the end of Hearts of Stone, during the quest "Whatsoever a Man Soweth", Shani convinces a guard to let her pass by reminding him she fixed him up after he took an arrow to the knee.
• You can purchase a painting called "Starry Night over Novigrad" by an artist named van Rogh.
• Geralt can come across a corpse torn apart by wild boars, and makes a comment straight out of Good Omens:
  Geralt: This little piggy ate raw and steaming human flesh.
• During the quest "Scenes from a Marriage", Geralt finds a portrait of Olgierd and Iris Von Everec and says "Happy families are all alike."
• The Arc Villain of Hearts of Stone, Gaunter O'Dimm, is a full-on expy of Randall Flagg, who once went by the name Walter O'Dim and, like Gaunter, is an immortal Humanoid Abomination with a dozen nicknames who draws people into deals that never work out for them. He also has more than a little (including his name) in common with Leland Gaunt of Needful Things, as a demonic, itinerant merchant who sells you your heart's desire for a pittance and a favor, and gets your soul in the end.
• The main story of "Hearts of Stone" is a loose adaptation/shout-out to a Polish legend "Pan Twardowski". The titular Mr. Twardowski enters a pact with the devil, exchanging his soul for dark powers. There are multiple versions of this legend, and many works based on it (one of the most popular is a light-hearted ballad by a well-known Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, entitled "Pani Twardowska"). The devil, Mephistopheles, can only claim Twardowski's soul under a certain set of circumstances. First of all he can approach the sorcerer only in Rome, so Twardowski avoids Rome. He doesn't, however, avoid taverns, and eventually enters one called "Rome". The legend recounts ways in which Twardowski tries to outwit Mephistopheles by giving him a series of seemingly impossible tasks, just like von Everec did, with the difference, that the devil must fulfill them all by himself. Not to mention, that in other versions of the legend, Twardowski was using a magic mirror. Gaunter O'Dimm is also known as Master Mirror, and near the very beginning of the game, he mentions that he used to sell mirrors. The "meeting on the Moon" is a shout-out to the place where Twardowski got stranded in the end. And if that wasn't enough, von Everec himself (with his exotic outer coat, lopsided hairstyle, and signature open-guarded saber) is designed to look like a classically Sarmatist Polish nobleman, much like Mr. Twardowski would have been.
• In the quest "Open Sesame!", amongst the curios on display in the Borsodi Auction House is a "Goblet of Fire".
  • One of the associates you're recruiting for "Open Sesame!", Hugo Hoft, is found dead after being tied under water.
    Geralt: Hugo's sleeping with the fish.
• Brunwich's name, map description, and the wedding taking place there all reference Stanisław Wyspiański's play, The Wedding, which was loosely based on a real life wedding reception in a village of Bronowice Małe. Polish version is even less subtle with the shout-out, naming the village Bronovitz.
• The soldiers guarding the Borsodi auction house, Lance Corporal Vatslav and Private Kleiner, are homages to the main characters of the British TV series Red Dwarf, with Vatslav's preening and pedantic air copying Rimmer and Kleiner's more relaxed attitude mirroring Lister. In their scene, Vatslav utters a line from the show's first episode right before Vimme Vivaldi, a dwarf, walks into view.
  Vatslav: "Kleiner! Need I remind you of the penalty for insulting a superior?!"
• At the auction, one of the lots on sale is a small statue of a bird that may or may not contain a great treasure that can be obtained by breaking the statue.
• When Geralt requests his aid for the Battle of Kaer Morhen, Zoltan says Geralt can on him and his axe.

Blood and Wine

• There is a side mission where you search a graveyard for the grave of a mage. One of the other graves honors one of the Continent's◊ greatest heroes.
• In the tourney sidequest, the final champion is a giant of a man called Gregoire de Gorgon, who hides his face with a helmet and has taken a vow of silence.
  • You can run into a little girl in Beauclair who tells that her brother gave her a sword that she calls Needle, and asks if the winter is coming.
• A peasant may stroll past singing the words "I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me".
• Another peasant may sing "And I say, hey, hey, hey, what's going on?" from the 4 Non Blondes song "What's Up". ...Or perhaps the infamous He-Man parody.
• A memo on the notice board at Plegmund's Bridge◊ mentions a certain Sir Leeroy. It went exactly the way you imagine.
• One quest has you transported to a magical fantasy world. Under one of the bridges in this world, you can find a red pepper.
• A napping bank teller in Beauclair's bank can be heard muttering "Catch-22" under his breath.
• Upon arriving in Toussaint, Geralt witnesses a knight charging at a windmill, only for it to be revealed he's charging a giant who smashes through the windmill. The quest log even references "tilting at windmills". As an added bonus, Don Quixote attacked windmills because he believed they were giants, but here there's a literal giant involved.
  • The aforementioned Giant is called, of course, Golyat.
  • The windmill itself is named Dulcinea, after Don Quixote's love interest.
• A similar literary shout-out is a side-quest called "Waiting for Goe and Doh".
• One of the main quests is named La Cage au Fou, after La Cage aux folles.
• The modus operandi of the killer in Blood and Wine shares a resemblance with that of killer in Se7en. The latter killed people who committed one of the Seven Deadly Sins in ways that mirrored or punished their sin. The killer in the DLC kills knights who broke the five chivalrous virtues of Toussaint in ways that mirror or punish their infraction.
• One of the fist fighters you encounter is a guy called Mancomb. He wears his blond hair in a ponytail and is famous for insulting his opponents as he brawls - and the insults rhyme.
• One of the sidequests deals with one Professor Moreau. For bonus points, his megascope recordings show that he bore a great resemblance to Marlon Brando, who played Doctor Moreau in one of the adaptations of the story. And black panthers are all over his lab.
• A character named Smigole Serkis has lost his precious... spoon.
• Geralt can end up following a will-o'-the-wisp in an illusory fairy tale land. Should he do so, it directs him into a dark cave, with a sword struck into a campfire in the middle. If it wasn't immediately obvious, lighting the fire causes Geralt to slump down at it just like one does countless times in the other incredibly popular Dark Fantasy RPG franchise.
• The achievement for developing a new mutation via research is Weapon W, based on Weapon X that gave Wolverine (a mutant) his adamantium skeleton.
• A prayer found in a cave sacred to Lebioda is a mother wishing her son a safe journey to Kovir, and hoping that he finds a wife who's "well-born and with ample tracts of land."
• Regis' hideout is in the Mère-Lachaiselongue Cemetery (Mother The Long Chair Cemetery). This is a reference to the real life Père-Lachaise cemetery (Father The Chair), Paris' largest cemetery and the burial place of many notable French figures.
  • A certain "Jymm Morrisonn" is buried in the Mère-Lachaiselongue cemetery.
• The Majordomo of Corvo Bianco is named Barnabas-Basil Foulty. Basil Foulty -> Basil Fawlty. Note that this Basil is far friendlier than his namesake.
• During the quest "Beyond Hill and Dale", you find a magical book, which is triggered by the phrase ''Expecto Ludum''. Once read, Geralt is transported to a magical land of illusions, where you have to follow the yellow brick road and fight the Wicked Witch.
• You may hear scribes muse to themselves that "the pen is mightier than the sword" applies only if "the sword is very small and the pen is very sharp".
• One book about Higher Vampires describes how they differ from most people's preconceptions, including the one about being destroyed by sunlight. It then, entirely unprompted, goes on to say that sunlight definitely doesn't make them shine or glow. Or sparkle.
• A certain fist-fighter Geralt encounters is very tall, very well-muscled, and has short cropped blonde hair. Real name: Bridget. She's slightly taken aback by Geralt's egalitarian feelings on kicking ass (or getting his ass kicked).
• Your final prize at the end of Blood and Wine is a device called the Mutagenerator. It looks an awful lot like the Flux Capacitor.
• A quest involves Geralt getting stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare trying to get permit A38, which he needs to access his bank account. To get Permit A38, he also needs form 202 to get said permit, and is lead to a bureaucratic merry-go-round trying to get either. The entire scenario (including the name of the two forms) is drawn from one of the tasks from The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, where the 8th task was to acquire Permit A38 in "The Place That Sends You Mad".
• The construction of the statue of Prophet Lebioda, especially all the backhand economical deals and the leaflets to gather support for the endeavour are clearly based on Christ the King statue, which by itself is a Fountain of Memes in Polish pop-culture.
• Maximus Makrinus, a knight who will have his vengeance, in this life or the next. After his son was hanged (squealing like a girl) and wife raped and then hanged too, he was killed in his briefs, unable to defend his family... but his ghost butchered the hanza responsible for it and is all-powerful combat champion. He's also prone of quoting direct lines from Gladiator when engaged.
• A gang in Toussaint has three named members - Selina as the leader (with a cat motif), Bruce, and Robin.
• The achievement for Geralt getting a medal from the Duchess of Toussaint is called "Last Action Hero".
• One particularly subtle shoutout can be heard in the "Blood And Wine" main menu theme song. The first phrase of vocalized melody (starting around 1:42) is a transposed quote from "Libera Me" by Elliot Goldenthal. It's just one phrase, so it might be a coincidence, but it would make sense, considering the expansion's general theme.
• A sidequest has Geralt being told by Roach that "I'll be there for you-ou-ou as the world falls down".
• A note can be found on a corpse near a den of Giant Centipedes, in which a lady by the name of "Bella de Gunness" asks her fiance to kill a centipede (or two) in order to prove his love for her and to have wedding slippers made from the monster hide.
• In the Northeastern portion of Toussaint, there's a guard that had been killed by the panther he'd "adopted". Their names, of course, are Calvin and Hobbes.
• The quest for the nigh-apocalyptic finale of Blood & Wine is titled "Night of the Long Fangs", an obvious reference to the Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany.
• One of the later quests is named "Pomp and Strange Circumstance", after the musical piece by Edward Elgar.
• The Orlémurs cemetery just outside the walls of Beauclair contains graves with inscriptions referencing Azeroth and Thedas.
• In your travels, you may encounter an angry bear wearing a red shirt and will have honeycomb and a jar of honey on its carcass after you cut it down... Oh bother.
• One may hear random citizens singing In the forest, the mighty forest, the brown bear sleeps tonight...
• The Duchess responds to protests that she's breaking the rules of the Hare Hunt with "I am the rules!"
  • This could also be a reference to King Louis XIV of France's supposed declaration, "I am the State".
• In one of the Hanza bandit camps, Geralt can find a letter with a speech that is amalgamated from Tyler Durden's speeches in Fight Club
• The quest "Portrait of the Witcher as an Old Man" is an obvious play on James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
• A peasant at one of the vineyards can be heard singing the tune of Simon & Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa", with different animals in the lyrics.
• In the Olive Grove you can find a diary left by a certain Sir Christophe Dugarry.

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