The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt / Tropes S to Z

This page covers tropes found in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Tropes A to C | Tropes D to H | Tropes I to R | Tropes S To Z | Hearts Of Stone | Blood and Wine

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S

• Sacred Hospitality:
  • A variant can be heard in Skellige NPC chatter. A raider said that he had to rescue a Nilfgaardian soldier whose ship was lost since it's every sailor's duty to rescue anyone that is lost at sea. However, nothing stopped him from slitting the soldier's throat once they made it back to dry land.
  • The Bloody Baron may be an abusive drunk who allows his thugs to terrorize locals, but he definitely values in this and treats Ciri and Gretka with surprising kindness and is very grateful for Geralt's help. Should Geralt help him get his wife back, the Baron will try to become a genuinely good person by giving up drink, becoming less tyrannical, and leaving to take his wife to the best healer he can find.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • Invoked by the King of the Wild Hunt to threaten Geralt:
    King: Every decision you make will bring devastation. Each choice will lead to a greater evil.
  • This also happens to NPCs in Velen, since they're living in a literal war zone - do they send some children off to "gather mushrooms" or "follow the trail of treats", or let the entire family starve because there are too many mouths to feed? As it turns out, unlike the player might have expected, the "trail of treats" does exist and there's food and shelter on the other side. Unfortunately coupled with a very short life span, as the Crones simply fatten the children to be eaten.
  • A malicious spirit of a murdered druidess who has been killing people left and right promises to release a group of children set for sacrifice. Her price? Geralt has to release her. There is no good choice. Killing her means the orphans die, but letting her escape means she kills every man, woman, and child in Downwarren, besides ending in Anna and Phillip's deaths. And even then, one of the in-game books implies that the "murdered druidess" spirit is the spirit of the being that created the Crones.
  • Happens again in Reasons of State when Radovid is assassinated. Roche celebrates with Thaler and Ves by revealing they've made a separate peace with Nilfgaard that cedes Lyria and Aedirn to the Emperor as well as makes Temeria a vassal state. Dijkstra reveals he has no intention of surrendering to the Empire and intends to fight on, based on recent information from Geralt, but this would result in a unified North with Temeria firmly under Redania's control. Geralt can either save Roche and condemn three nations of the North to Nilfgaard's rule—or just leave them to sort it out themselves, which he's fully aware leads to Dijkstra's victory. The third option is not to take the quest at all, which leads to an outcome far worse than the previous two by leaving a totally insane tyrant to rule the North and burn/impale everything non-human or magical.
  • Ciri's ending is one for the player. Do you let her become a Witcher and run away with you at the expense of sacrificing all of the North to fall under Nilfgaard/Radovid/Dijkstra's heel? Or do you push her into a role she's never wanted right in the middle of all the politicking she's avoided all her life for the sake of stopping the war for good? There's no right answer either way.
• Sanity Slippage: Far from the manipulative Chessmaster of the first two games, King Radovid is suffering this. He's begun making bizarre metaphors about chess, betraying everyone around him, and engaging in Disproportionate Retribution wherever possible. It's implied that he was driven to madness by his fear of Philippa Eilhart's revenge, so he started burning all mages and nonhumans out of a paranoid delusion that they're all secretly conspiring with Eilhart. It does NOT make him any less dangerous.
• Sarcasm-Blind: The chamberlain that helps prepare Geralt for his audience with Emhyr.
  Geralt: So what now? Powder my nose?
  Chamberlain: (studies Geralt for a few seconds) No need. The gentleman's complexion is light enough.
• Save Scumming:
  • Pointedly discouraged. In general, unless reloading the last save after death, you will have to sit through a lengthy narration every time you load your game. It gets old really fast.
  • Backfired in the case of haggling. If you max out the annoyance meter and fail a contract negotiation, then reload the last save to try again, your first proposal will automatically be a Critical Failure and you'll be forced to accept the minimum reward. This appears to be the only situation where this applies, as you can Save Scum the hell out of any other situation. Even the Gwent Tournament autosaves between rounds so you don't need to start the whole thing over if you fail.
• The Scapegoat:
  • Members of the Church of the Eternal Fire take advantage of the chaos of the war to blame it on convenient scapegoats: mages, nonhumans, and, of course, witchers.
    Ambassador var Attre: How do men deal with fear? They seek reassurance... and scapegoats. The Church of the Eternal Fire understands this perfectly. And so it promises to improve the lives of its flock by pointing out the guilty. Who started the war? Who profits from it? Why, it's obvious - mages, elves, dwarves. In a word, any and all deviants.
  • In a sidequest, it's mentioned that a witcher (from the Viper school, same as Letho) in the White Orchard area was blamed for the disappearance of a child, taken and tortured, then died attempting to clear a wraith from a ruin to prove his innocence. It later turns out that a drowner had killed the kid. Oops.
• Saved by Canon: In the books, Emperor Emhyr var Emreis dies many years after both the saga and the games, implying he survives the events of The Witcher 3. Subverted thanks to the game having Multiple Endings. If Nilfgaard's invasion fails, Emhyr gets assassinated by his fellow Nilfgaardians. If it succeeds, he lives as Emperor of the North and South.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Bees will sting you. Bees will REALLY sting you if you thwack their hive with, say, the Aard sign. They will also really sting up foes. You can create your own hazard at a battle site with bandits set up near a beehive or two, and remember to clean up the swarm afterwards with Igni and help yourself to the honeycomb in the hive for a healing snack.
• Scavenger Hunt: A number of the sidequests that you can start are this. Most lead to caches of treasure and/or equipment that you may or may not need. A series of four in particular, however, have rewards that are too good to pass up: the rewards are the missing diagrams for equipment from the Viper, Cat, Griffin, and Bear Witcher Schools. One of the bits of free DLC adds Wolf School equipment to the list.
• Scenery Gorn: There are a lot of gruesome sites to be found, especially in No Man's Land, where dead bodies litter the earth and corpses hang from trees and gallows.
• Scenery Porn: If you can get away from the battlefields and execution sites, though, then you'll find many gorgeous vistas. Skellige in particular is a vibrant and beautiful place, with stunning views of boreal and alpine scenery. The Duchy of Toussaint stands in stark contrast to Velen's bleakness and Skellige's harsh, wintry environment by displaying a much richer color palette, suiting the area's World Half Full nature.
• Secret Room: There is one in Margrave Henckel's house as well as on the top floor of the tower of Fyke Isle.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • One of the trailers has an occasionally mocked shot of Geralt saying he was "killing monsters" when he kills an evil human. Naturally, a bit of in-game dialogue is a sardonic poke towards it.
  • Dijkstra is well aware he's been beaten with an ugly stick, and any attempts by Geralt to mock him over his looks will just cause him to cheerfully agree.
• Serial Killer: Geralt can end up hunting one down in Novigrad after the killer goes after one of his friends.
• Series Continuity Error: Nobody in or out of the game can decide what counts as a higher vampire, with the situation made even worse with the Blood and Wine expansion. Geralt's dialogue outright contradicts itself on separate occasions, the target of a contract identifies themselves as a higher vampire but is permanently killed and drops the essence of katakan (which is a lower vampire according to one of Geralt's lines), the image used in the codex entry of a higher vampire is of a lower vampire, and so forth.
• Serious Business: Gwent. People are willing to pay king's ransoms for the best cards of the game and even commit murders over them. Doubly so for dwarfs, who apparently invented the game. It's so sacred that when a man decides to host a tournament to promote the use of his newly invented fifth faction (Skellige) an armed mob attacks to prevent the "dissecration" of Gwent.
• Set Bonus: In Gwent, this is the Northern Kingdom's major gimmick. The points of "Tight Bond" units multiply by the number of them on the field and NK's Tight Bond cards are much stronger and more numerous than their closest competitor. Of course, this make them incredibly susceptible to Scorch effect which can knock out the entire set.
• Sexy Surfacing Shot
  • One of the first cutscenes in the game is Geralt in a Bathtub Scene. When he stands out of the tub, he shows off his body which is Covered with Scars.
  • When Geralt finds Keira Metz bathing in her private magical cave in Velen, there's a shot of her getting out of her bath before magically generating some clothes.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock:
  • Phillipa Eilhart got mode-locked into her owl form by a dimeritium shackle, and had to suffer being Zoltan's pet bird.
  • There is a vampire prison with a special magic-nullifying crow cage that prevents higher vampires from polymorphing into their natural mist form, leaving them stuck in a humanoid form.
• Ship Sinking:
  • Geralt/Ciri has a large fanbase, but when the Crones bring up the possibility that Geralt would find Ciri sexually attractive instead of a daughter, Geralt becomes noticeably irritated and shoots it down.
  • Avallac'h's interest in Ciri is so intense that several characters believe that his interests are personal. However, a woman met in Avallac'h's study (implied to be his lover) states that Avallac'h is disgusted by Ciri and has no interest in her whatsoever outside of her power (though there's some implication that she herself is jealous of how much time and attention Avallac'h is devoting to Ciri). Ciri is absolutely devastated when she hears this, which has sparked questions about whether or not she was hoping for a relationship.
  • The game offers the player the option of doing this themselves by choosing dialogue and making questing decisions that thoroughly end any romance between Geralt and Yennefer, or Geralt and Triss.
  • If Geralt attempts to romance both Triss and Yennefer, the game automatically triggers an event that sinks both ships.
• Shipper on Deck: Dijkstra is quite overt in trying to get Geralt and Triss to rekindle their romance.
• Ship Tease:
  • Geralt is teased with a lot of women, not all of whom he is able to take to bed.
    • Rosa var Attre flirts heavily with Geralt while the two are practice dueling, and she gives him an invitation that makes it seem as though something sexual is intended. But, when Geralt finds her later, it turns out sword lessons were all she wanted and her views on certain things are also a turn-off for him.
    • Margarita tells Phillipa at the end that Geralt has slept with all but three of the women currently on their boat. Phillipa says that, in Margarita's case, it's only a matter of time.
    • If Geralt breaks Vivienne's curse without Guillaume's help, he can find her again much later at Novigrad. She's very happy to be free of her curse and gives Geralt a feather that once belonged to her old self. As they part ways, she gives him a coy wink.
    • Geralt displays sexual chemistry with a number of characters who are never explicitly depicted as potential love interests, such as Tamira the herbalist in White Orchard and the aristocrat Ingrid Vegelbud.
    • Cerys is another; she and Geralt have great chemistry and asks him about his relationship with Yennefer a few too many times, but nothing comes of it.
  • Ciri can give a young man named Skjall his first kiss, and show clear signs of interest in him. Unfortunately, Skjall dies later. However, it's also possible to instead say Ciri has an interest in Skjall's sister, who doesn't react negatively to that at all.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Quite a few quests have endings that are not just pointless, but horrifically cruel. For example, the quest "Wild at Heart" ends with the reveal that the hunter's jealous sister-in-law is who caused his wife's death, by luring her to him while he was in werewolf form. The only way this doesn't end with more death is to end the quest by accepting the sister's bribe, thus never finding out what happened. Otherwise, the sister-in-law will confess to try and save her beloved's life, but he'll be so disgusted that he'll try to kill her. To stop him, Geralt must kill him, but even if Geralt lets him take revenge, the werewolf asks Geralt to take his life anyway. So you have to choose between a "Shaggy Dog" Story or two Shoot the Shaggy Dog stories.
• Shout-Out: See its own subpage.
• Show, Don't Tell: One of the things the game was praised for by Yahtzee, citing the sequence where Geralt is properly trained for his meeting with Emperor Emhyr.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Geralt's in-conversation Axii Sign animation is actually him spelling Axii in American Sign Language.
  • The "rest" animations between Geralt's attacks are actual German longsword fencing stances.
  • Ciri's unusual open-pommeled sword is based on a very obscure medieval Irish design.
• The Siege: The Battle of Kaer Morhen, where Geralt and all the allies he's gathered over the game fight to protect Ciri from the Wild Hunt.
• Sinister Whistling: Gunter O'Dimm, the mysterious, magical, and sneakily malevolent merchant in the DLC Heart of Stone has ominous-sounding theme music. You first hear Creepy Children Singing it as Geralt enters the town. Later Gunter himself whistle sit as he walks away tossing and catching a skull in his hand if he is able to collect Olgierd Van Everec's soul.
• Sky Cell: An Ard Skellig island has prison cells clearly inspired by the sky cells from Game of Thrones, as proved by the corpse of a Tyrion lookalike and some lines of dialogue taken from the show.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism:
  • Geralt is actually the idealist in this case, with Lambert having a massive Freudian Excuse for being The Cynic.
  • The game as a whole is fairly cynical, but the player has some control over how cynical. Which of the Multiple Endings you get is based on a handful of key interactions between Geralt and Ciri that basically amount to slight nudges toward idealism or cynicism.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Geralt and Dijkstra are relentless in this towards each other.
• Sneaky Departure: Ciri and Geralt sneak out of Kaer Morhen early in the morning to take revenge on Imlereth.
• Snowball Lie: A little girl on Skellige tells her older brother that their uncle abused her, because she didn't like said uncle because he smelled. Her older brother flew into a rage and killed the man, leaving him to face a painful execution by the rest of his village for his crime.
• Socially Unacceptable Collection:
  • Inverted near the start of the game, in the inn in White Orchard there's a Temerian crest as decoration, since the area is occupied by the Nilfgaardians the owner wants to take it down fearing they'll burn the inn down if they see it, later the locals notice and attack the innkeeper for her apparent lack of patriotism leading to a fight breaking out between Geralt and Vesemir against the locals.
  • During the quest "A Dangerous Game", Geralt and Zoltan try to steal a rare Fringilla Vigo gwent card from a collector. Initially one might think the collector collects gwent cards, which wouldn't be unusual. It turns out he actually collects Nilfgaardian Empire memorabilia.
• So Last Season: Except for a few pieces of armor and Aerondight, all your equipment becomes this in New Game +.
• Socketed Equipment: Tons of it. Almost every rare, unique, and/or high-level sword comes with one, two, or three sockets into which runestones can be fitted in order to give the weapon incremental boosts, or special stats. Same with armor and glyphs. Taken to an extreme with the "Hearts of Stone" DLC, where the visiting Ofieri "Runewright" can drill sockets into some items that don't come with them by default (then happily turn around sell you pricey stones or "enchantments" to fill them).
• Soft Water: While a sizable drop onto land can injure or even kill Geralt, a long drop into a deep enough body of water won't even scratch him. This makes the quickest way down from Kaer Trolde to jump off the bridge there and land in the channel below. Kaer Trolde by the way, is nearly at the summit of a mountain and the jump is listed in some walkthroughs as a "must-try".
• Sole Survivor: Early on in the game, Geralt travels to a Velen village to meet a Nilfgaardian spy who has information on Ciri, who was seen in the area. When he arrives however, he finds the village destroyed, its only inhabitant an old man being menaced by some feral dogs. After Geralt saves him, the man explains that the Wild Hunt attacked the village, tortured the information on Ciri out of the spy, then killed the villagers to cover their tracks; the old man only survived because he barricaded himself in his house and stayed silent.
• Space Compression: Downplayed in Velen where the encampments of the hostile armies are situated improbably close to each other, and although Novigrad is fairly reasonably sized for a realistic Medieval city, the countryside around it isn't remotely large enough to support its population. The trope comes more apparent in the Skellige Isles where each of the Isles is supposed to have its own, distinct cultural flavour and a semi-independent clan capable of sending out numerous longships full of warriors, but in-game all but the main isle are tiny and only contain small villages with a couple of dozen people at most.
• A Spy at the Spa: The bathhouse in Novigrad is run by Sigi Reuven, also known as Sigismund Dijkstra, former head of Redanian intelligence. Information is still his preferred currency to exchange for favors. He uses the bathhouse as a meeting ground for the heads of the big four crime syndicates in Novigrad. Before attending a meeting, clothes and weapons are stowed in cubbies in a separate room. When Whoreson Junior breaks away from the syndicate and sends his men to attack the bathhouse during a meeting, Geralt and the other three are forced to fend off the attack in nothing but Modesty Towels and some clubs the paranoid Dijkstra kept for self defense.
• Stewed Alive: What awaits Folan on Undvik by the hands of some rock trolls if Geralt doesn't come to his rescue during the latter's search for Hjalmar.
• Stolen Good, Returned Better: One early side quest involves fetching a frying pan for an old woman that some stranger borrowed and never bothered to return. When Geralt brings it to her, she is shocked to find it cleaned to a mirror shine when before it was covered in soot. Turns out the man was a spy who wanted to use the soot on the pan to make ink so he could write some letters detailing the movements of the Nilfgaardian forces.
• Story Difficulty Setting: The easy mode is called "Story Only".
• Stripperific: The DLC alternative costumes for Triss and Yennifer fall into this category; Keira's outfit is always like this.
• Strong Enemies, Low Rewards: The guards and soldiers in various cities and strongholds, in addition to outleveling Geralt, won't drop anything more than token loot if killed. The effort to dispatch them for next to no reward means that it's always in the player's best interest to avoid angering them, or to run if they do, rather than stand and fight.
• Succubi and Incubi: The Succubi in this game are an unusual variation of the trope in that they are almost universally Non Malicious Monsters, only killing people in self-defense or by accident. They're ruled by lust, but they don't drain living energy through the act. One even takes the effort to give a proper burial to an old man who came to her repeatedly in spite of his chronic heart condition.
• Summon a Ride: Geralt can call his horse, Roach, from anywhere in the world, and she will arrive in short order, even if she had to cross rivers, mountains and oceans from the other side of the map. This, combined with her invulnerability, is all for the sake of convenient gameplay. This is lampshaded in-game during the quest "Equine Phantoms" in the Blood and Wine expansion where Geralt now being able to understand Roach after taking a special concoction asks Roach about it, to which Roach simply states that she will simply go wherever Geralt is as long as he needs her.
• Super Drowning Skills: Shooting down some flying enemies (such as basilisks or wyverns) over water can result in them falling in and instantly dying, at the expense of you not getting any loot.
• Swamps Are Evil: Velen is home to a large bog ruled by the Ladies of the Wood.
• Sympathy for the Devil:
  • Par for the course with the series, as sentient monsters aren't typically presented as Always Chaotic Evil, but more as natural forces, non-malicious, and occasionally conflicted.
  • Some of the human characters invoke this, as well. For example, the Bloody Baron, a drunken brute who oppresses the peasants under him and beats his wife, is a human wreck who is too terrified to face the world sober, and tries to make up for his bad deeds with little acts of kindness, like giving a home to an abandoned little girl and being a Doting Parent, or giving a much-needed respite to a young lady on the run from otherworldly pursuers. He's a bad man, but one gets the impression that he knows it, sincerely wants to be better, and would if he weren't also a very weak person. Geralt can help nudge him closer to this path by showing sympathy when he tells his side of the story, then helping to save his wife.

T

• Take That!:
  • During the 'The Tower Outta Nowhere' sidequest, the mage trapped in the tower that is disturbing the daily life of Urialla Harbor tells you that, in order for him to get the tower to move somewhere else, he must recover control of it. In order to do this, you must get him Gottfried's Omni opening Grimoire, which contains among its pages the way to counteract the tower's Defensive Regulatory Magicon (in case you missed the reference, the grimoire's icon in inventory has "GOG.com" written on its cover). Yeah... subtlety, thy name is absent.
  • 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. Geralt describes this as perverse and says he'd rather not hear any more about their activities, and it's also notable that even Dandelion eventually bailed on her.
• Taking the Heat: At the beginning of the Skellige arc, Yennefer takes full blame for the destruction of Freya's Garden, even convincing the outraged priestesses that Geralt actually tried to stop her. Whether or not this is actually true depends on dialogue choices. While it does exonerate Geralt of the people's anger, the Freya priestesses and some guards will still chew him out over it.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Emhyr and Geralt can develop this sort of relationship.
  • Hell, any time Geralt works with the Nilfgaardians (and there are plenty of opportunities), every answer variation is nasty to some degree. It is literally impossible to be completely respectful and polite to the Nilfgaardian invaders.
  • The Battle of Kaer Morhen brings together multiple allies of Geralt who don't exactly get along with one another. To note:
    • The other Wolf School witchers cannot stand Yen and put off the rather urgent tasks she has given them (seen as her bossing them around) until Geralt arrives to assist.
    • Roche is still angry that Letho killed Foltest in the previous game and the two will not speak if both are recruited to assist. However, they'll still aid Geralt during the siege.
    • You can practically hear Triss and Yennifer gritting their teeth as Geralt returns to Kaer Morhen. As soon as Ciri leaves earshot, they start sniping at each other.
• Teleport Spam: Employed liberally by the more high ranking Warriors of the Wild Hunt in battle. Ciri's Flash Step eventually develops close to this, as well.
• Tempting Fate: During the quest 'An Eye for an Eye', in which Geralt and Roche need to save Ves from throwing her life away attacking a group of Nilfgaardians against orders. Roche notes that as rash and impetuous as Ves is, she's not stupid, and it's likely she'll try to attack the Nilfgaardians under cover of night. Cue Ves charging the Nilfgaardians in broad daylight with no armor, screaming like a lunatic with only two others as backup.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Geralt throws his silver sword to stop the last Crone escaping in the ending where Ciri dies.
• Thunderbolt Iron: Or Thunderbolt Silver. Many silver blades require meteorite metals, or even alloyed meteorite silver.
• Time Abyss:
  • The Ladies of the Woods are said to have been in the swamp longer than its oldest tree, and that they were already there when the elves first came. And the elves were there long before the humans and monsters showed up during the Conjunction of the Spheres, an event that in-game lore states happened one and a half millennia ago.
  • Even worse, according to the in-game book "She who knows" a being known simply as "The Mother" in the book came from "a faraway land" and was so lonely that she created herself three daughters out of dirt and water, and they lived together for many years until the mother lost her mind and the daughters killed her. It's implied the daughters are the Crones and the mother is the being trapped in the Whispering Hillock. And you may have just released it onto the unsuspecting people of Velen. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!
• To Be Lawful or Good: A problem that Geralt runs into a lot of the times as those players who are used to acting righteously will often have trouble figuring out which option is the "Good" one. The legal system in the Witcher universe is Draconian, prejudiced, and classist while unforeseen consequences often follow good-intentioned deeds.
• Too Dumb to Fool: The reason why Dijkstra's vault guardian is Bart the Rock Troll. Like most trolls, they have an intelligence level about on par with a four-year-old, so he'd be highly unlikely to have notions of greed for the hoard he's guarding. According to Bart's character entry in the glossary, it's a fad for Novigrad's elite to have such monsters guard their vaults.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Ronvid of the Small Marsh, an incompetent wannabe knight seemingly stalking Geralt and challenging him to duels. Both times, Geralt kicks his ass and he surrenders after taking only a few blows. The third time he meets Geralt, he ambushes him with a pair of hired goons not much more skilled than him. At this point, either convince him to go home with a strong Axii, or he dies.
  • In the Witcher Contract to take down the noonwraith known as the White Lady, you're told how a band of drunkards decided to go out into the field and try to get rid of the ghost by giving her sex. Now, do you really need to be told how badly this idea ends for them?
  • While in the village of Arinbjorn in Skellige, a couple of the local youth, Kori and Kraki, constantly harass Geralt for being a foreigner whenever they encounter him. After one confrontation gets serious, the lads pull out swords... and get cut down in a matter of seconds.
• Too Awesome to Use: An in-universe example comes in the form of the Mask Uroboros. It allows one to peer into the past, but unfortunately, it can only be used once. Worse, using it puts the Skellige Isles in danger of being flooded, which is all the more reason why Ermion keeps it under lock and key with the intention of only using it once the Godzilla Threshold has been crossed.
• Training from Hell: A part of the course for all Witchers, but in this game you can actually listen to a ghost of a witcher training young candidates and find the report of the Trial of Grasses. It says that from the group of five boys aged 8-10 three died during the trial (mostly due to stroke or multiple organ failure), one survived but had to be put out of his misery due to severe brain damage and only one survived unscathed enough to continue training.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: There is a bit of this with regard to using Axii in conversation, but fortunately it's seldom enough that it's not distracting. A number of conversations offer the option to Jedi Mind Trick someone into doing what you want. The few times it doesn't work, it's because there's a group of people present, and one of them notices you casting the sign and calls you out. But it's unpredictable, because sometimes it does work on groups, with no explanation given as to what the difference is. You just have to know, either from a guide or a previous playthrough.
• Trojan Prisoner: In one quest you put Triss in shackles to infiltrate a heavily-guarded outpost.
• Two Roads Before You: As in previous installments, the game is all about choice and consequences. For instance: Slay a monster and watch its worshippers be purged along with it, or allow them to all live, at the cost of the monster killing others? You may sometimes Take a Third Option, but it will carry its own consequences.

U

• Überwald: While the whole universe could be considered an example, the region of Velen has this in spades. Velen is a war-torn agrarian region with lots of forests, a creepy swamp ruled by evil witches, superstitious peasants, and all manner of eccentric magic users.
• Uncertain Doom: If you spare Gaetan, a member of the Witcher Cat School, during a Sidequest, he will reveal a hideout full of gear, which also contains a letter from another member, named Joel. Joel mentions that the Cat School was captured and destroyed, and although other members were killed, the fate of one Witcher named Schrödinger is unknown, meaning he is either dead or alive.
• Ultimate Blacksmith:
  • Yoana is the only Armorer in the entire game that crafts master-level armor such as the Witcher armors. Hattori is the only master swordsmith that can forge master-level weaponry such as the Witcher blades. Both are only available after you complete the multi-point quests which can only be started when you've leveled your character up high enough.
  • Both are outdone by the blacksmith of Beauclair in Toussaint in Blood and Wine who can craft grandmaster Witcher swords and armors.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
  • While Geralt can kill bandits and monsters in the wilderness to his heart's content, using his Witcher skills in urban areas results in him being labeled a monster. Even if someone is being attacked, they react in horror if someone gets cut down in front of them. This is doubly so when it's potentially someone's neighbor. There are several quests that end with Geralt receiving a What the Hell, Hero? for this too.
  • Think you can play Geralt like a suave ladies' man and romance both Yennefer and Triss at once? Go ahead, see what happens ^note You're still free to sleep with other women in sidequests, including prostitutes, as well as another sorceress in Kiera...
  • Using Axii on someone in a crowd of people will not go unnoticed, due to the obvious hand gesture associated with it. Bystanders will also often notice the equally obvious change in mindset in whoever the Sign was used on.
• Underground Monkey: Just about every enemy has at least one stronger, renamed-and-reskinned version of itself encountered at higher levels. Even for some of the few who don't, there are entirely separate monsters that serve essentially this function. The Contract bosses are almost invariably of the King Mook variety (complete with separate Bestiary entries).
• Underground Railroad: Triss is managing one for mages trying to avoid being burned at a stake in Novigrad with the aid of King of Beggars and Dijkstra.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Napp, a villager in White Orchard, who burned the village's forge (owned by a dwarf) down just because he served the Nilfgaardian garrison. Many of the villagers thought the dwarf was personally loyal to Nilfgaard and growing rich off their gold (neither is true). If Geralt brings Napp before the blacksmith, the dwarf yells that he served the man's mother for years and never charged her anything. He's actually angry enough that he calls soldiers over to punish him, not realizing that this means Napp will be hanged. ^note For interfering with the army's requirements, a capital offense in Nilfgaard. Upon realizing how everyone else will react, the smith opts to throw his lot in with Nilfgaard in truth.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: It's very easy to completely break the main quest by simply accidentally stumbling upon a plot-relevant destination. Performing story quests in the wrong order (with no indication given) often ends with prematurely stopping an entire questline, missing out on sections of the story and experience.

V

• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Thanks to the rise of Radovid, the Eternal Fire and their magic-hating ways have gained major influence in the north, particularly in Novigrad. Their armies of Witch Hunters locate any mages or creatures of magical power (no matter how harmless they are) and burn them alive at the stake. At the end of the game, we learn that helping the mages escape Novigrad caused them to move on to non-humans like elves and dwarves. Thus far, Witchers are not their targets, but only because they're useful in helping round up other creatures of magic. It's very clear that it's only a matter of time until they start going after Witchers too.
• Victory Sex: Most of Geralt's romance options (Keira, Yennifer, Triss, and Shani... with Syanna being the only exception) offer themselves to him after whatever the main conflict of their story arc is has been resolved.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • Encouraged regarding Ciri, as getting the Golden Ending of the game pretty much requires you to play Geralt as a good, supportive, encouraging father figure. This includes having fun daddy-daughter moments like a snowball fight in Kaer Morhen or trashing Avalac’h’s lab together after Ciri’s heart is broken by him.
  • Exploited regarding Priscilla, whose status as a Comic Relief Nice Girl and one-half of the game’s Beta Couple with Dandelion makes her easy to like, and thus when she’s assaulted and nearly killed by a local Church Militant serial killer, you’re set to go after the bastard who did it. The quest gives you a pretty convincing Red Herring, and if you kill them the quest ends and the real killer will become a Karma Houdini. It basically exploits how much the player wants to avenge Priscilla in order to bait them into making the wrong choice.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Enemies will attack Roach, who cannot be killed. If you're facing a situation with a tough enemy or large group of enemies, you can ride Roach into the middle of the fray and then hop off. Some of the enemies will go after your invulnerable horse, making things easier. This method also works to lure powerful enemies away from "Guarded Treasure" sites, allowing you to loot them once they've chased Roach far enough away that Geralt leaves aggro.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: If you kill too many cows in White Orchard, a powerful and high level monster will spawn and make short work of you. This was added by the developers to put an end to an exploit that was gained from looting cows.
• Viking Funeral: Once Geralt arrives in Skellige he witnesses King Bran's funeral. For extra points, one of Bran's lovers throws herself onto the burning boat as it is sent off to sea. It's stated that only Kings and great heroes are cremated, everyone else is buried.
• Villain of Another Story:
  • Radovid pretty much serves as the Big Bad for the political upheaval and rampant genocide of mages and non-humans in the North. This story runs parallel to the main plot of the game, and Geralt only gets involved with it when he absolutely has to. And fittingly, things are much better when Radovid dies, regardless of who wins the war.
  • Emperor Emhyr counts as one. He is responsible for starting a war that threatens everyone's way of life. Unlike Radovid, his role as a villain is more detached from the main story and, if anything, he spends more time helping the heroes than he does hindering them.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Lambert and Geralt, best encapsulated in an exchange made during an hours-long drink-fest near the end of the game.

W

• War Is Hell: The first part of the game includes visiting a massive battlefield, a ravaged village, and an occupied town. In White Orchard, Geralt also talks to a scholar who is going to the front lines in order to chronicle the war firsthand. Geralt suggests the book would be more historical if it focused on the rapes, horror, and despair. The scholar, of course, dismisses it as something no one would be interested in reading. Ironically, once you get to Velen you can find his corpse hanging from a tree and his manuscript can be looted and sold as vendor trash.
• Warm-Up Boss: Nithral, the boss of the “Wandering in the Dark” quest is by far the earliest named Wild Hunt soldier Geralt (and Keira) defeats and kills if the game’s played in the intended order. He is difficult to defeat but not much more so than other high-leveled enemies in Velen, with his only unique abilities being casting a protective shield whilst summoning Hounds (which Geralt and Keira will already have dispatched in great numbers in the previous section.)
• Weirdness Magnet: Geralt's line of work leads him into some situations that are bizarre even by in-universe standards. Examples include finding a cranky vampire who tells Geralt to just let him sleep, a village that worships a "god" who is upset at their offerings and is actually just a sylvan living in the basement, and a cartoonish attempt on Geralt's life by revenge-hungry sapient monsters.
• Wham Line: Ciri delivers an important one to Geralt.
  This is my story. You have to let me tell it.
• What Year Is It?: The official gameplay trailer features a scene where Geralt and another person open a sarcophagus and find a non-decomposed, apparently living guy inside it — a vampire, who then asks whether it's 1358 yet. Geralt replies it is not (the in-game year is 1272). The vampire then tells the two of them in no uncertain terms to leave him alone.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Letho becomes this to both Geralt and Nilfgaard both if you spared his life. He chose to disappear rather than continue his service to the Nilfgaard Emperor or rebuild the Viper school. When you encounter him in a possible sidequest, he states that the Emperor eventually decided to have him killed as a loose end and he's been hiding ever since.
  • There's an extremely literal example when Keira Metz transforms 3 mice into a pair of white horses for herself and Geralt. When Geralt invokes this trope, she replies that the spell has a literal 2/3 chance of success on each subject, so she always uses one more than necessary. She never actually explains what happened to it.
  • Priscilla is last seen recovering in a hospital, with Dandelion declaring they start a double act with him singing and her playing the lute. She goes unmentioned until the epilogue (where she's recovered with only a slight decrease in her vocal pitch, which Dandelion doesn't mind, and looks set for a Happily Ever After).
  • The third Crone, Weavess, manages to escape Ciri's assault in the endgame, but never makes a comeback if you complete the game with Ciri still alive. Should Ciri die during the second to last quest, Geralt himself will journey back to finish the job.
  • It's possible to kill Sigi Reuven aka Dijkstra during "Reasons of State", which means that his friend Bart the rock troll has no one to feed him or guard treasure for anymore. That is, unless you already killed Bart while chasing after Philippa.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: When trying to pursue Phillipa through Dijkstra's bath house as she's wrecking the place, you cut your way through several of Dijkstra's henchmen, charmed by the fleeing blind sorceress. You can cut down the also-charmed Bart the Rock Troll Vault Guard (met previously in the quest about Dijkstra's raided vault)... or because he's a named character, you can talk your way past the ultimately benign troll.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Geralt can do this constantly to Yennefer, who makes many morally ambiguous decisions such as joining Nilfgaard, robbing a close friend of the family, reanimating a corpse, and desecrating a holy shrine in the pursuit of Ciri. Yennefer's response is always some variant of I Did What I Had to Do.
  • Geralt can abandon Roche, Thaler, and Ves to be killed after finding out they've signed a treaty with Nilfgaard.
  • Yennefer gives Geralt one of these for his relationship with Triss while amnesiac.
  • This is the reason Triss and Geralt broke up between games; when Geralt got his full memory back, he realized she had been hiding things from him (such as Yennefer) so that they could be together. He didn't appreciate it, and broke it off. You can choose to reignite the romance during the game, though.
  • Geralt will sometimes hear this from NPCs if he kills someone in front of them, even if he has to in order to save lives. Early in the game, he loses access to a shopkeeper if he chooses to fight and kill a group of thugs who are harassing her; much later the same shopkeeper suddenly turns up to denounce Geralt in front of a group of people, though nothing comes of it.
  • Roche and Ves are decidedly angry at Geralt and question his judgement if he invites Letho to fight the Wild Hunt.
  • Ciri can give Geralt this if he accepts the coin for bringing her to Emhyr.
• White-and-Grey Morality: Present in the "King's Gambit" quest. Both Hjalmar and Cerys are good people who become effective rulers if either of them is elected king. If the quest is not completed, though, then Svanrige Tuirseach becomes king, albeit as a puppet for his scheming mother. Except that it turns out he's not quite as spineless as believed, and becomes a strong ruler in his own right, albeit one who forcefully turns Skellige into an absolute monarchy.
• Whole-Plot Reference:
  • The Bard on Board: "A Towerful of Mice" is basically Romeo and Juliet with curse and monster. It even complete with fake poison and Together in Death. It also fits closely with the legend of Prince Popiel the Second who locked himself in a tower to get away from his angry subjects and was eaten by mice.
  • The sidequest "Allfathers Eve" is based on the poem Dziady Dziady part 2 with the quest reenacting the ritual from the story and quoting the lines almost word for word.
  • Se7en : "Carnal Sin" is one, as it features a religious zealot ritualistically murdering people he sees as sinners in order to wake society up into being more righteous.
  • Fractured Fairy Tale: The play to draw out Dudu is one to Princess and the Frog. In-Universe, it's a retelling of how Ciri's parent met which in turn was making nods toward Rumpelstiltskin; Gretka (the little girl Ciri met in Velen) was clearly following the story of Hansel and Gretel, on her way to the house of child-eating witches following a trail of treat; Ciri herself played Snow White with seven dwarfs as her guardians during a magically induced sleep.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Elihal enjoys dressing up like a woman, among other types of people, to pretend to be something that he isn't. He's also a Nice Guy, a skilled tailor, and a good friend of Dandelion's. He also makes it very clear he's not gay, which is also the case for many crossdressers in real life.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Portals and doublets for Geralt. He hates the feeling of teleporting, often having the portal exit him far from the target destination, and formal wear makes him itch. Of course, he constantly has to travel by portal and both Yennefer and Triss request him to wear a proper tunic several times. One sidequest can add another thing to the list: extremely smelly cheeses.
  • Keira Metz abhors rats. Her sidequest is titled "Tower Full of Mice". Because of course it is. In fact, this is why she needs Geralt to go to the island and tower to retrieve the items she needs.
• Wide-Open Sandbox:
  • You are free to wander throughout the multiple regions that serve as the setting of Wild Hunt beginning early on, unlike previous games, where you were limited to specific areas depending on your point in the story, sometimes not until much later. Your only limitation is that particular missions or monsters encountered may be scaled beyond your current level, making certain locations and activities risky. Even then, however, smart use of weapons, potions and signs may make it possible to emerge victorious and, on easier difficulty settings, you often get plenty of warning if you're coming up to a fight you might not be able to win.
  • There are five distinct regions: the farmlands of White Orchard, the combined Velen-Novigrad countryside, the Nordic-style Skellige Islands, and the mountain pass containing Kaer Morhen. There are also a few smaller areas that are separate from the main regions. Installing the "Blood and Wine" DLC adds another massive region to the map: the duchy of Toussaint, a geographical and cultural pastiche of France and Italy. All of these areas can be freely traveled among via the game map's fast-travel system.
  • Most of the regions in the game world are massive, including Novigrad, one of the larger cities depicted in a game of this nature.
• Wife-Basher Basher:
  • When Geralt finds out that the Bloody Baron beat his wife, he does not hesitate to give the man a severe beating himself, and makes it clear afterward that he's utterly disgusted with what he's done.
  • Similarly, one of the few times Geralt legitimately snaps in the game is when finding out that Whoreson Junior more than lives up to his moniker. While not a "wife", necessarily, it's clear that harming women is a major Berserk Button for Geralt.
• Wife Husbandry: The Crones suggest Geralt has unwittingly done this with Ciri and that she and he would make a good couple. Geralt's reaction? He gets a look of visceral disgust and says, in no uncertain terms, 'No.' It's worth noting that, unless a certain mission has been completed prior to this in which Geralt actually sees an actual image of the beautiful woman Ciri has grown into, his last memory of her was as a child (discounting a few glimpses at some artistic portraits of adult Ciri). That said, it is possible to play the game in such a way that Geralt eschews romantic entanglements with others, leaving Ciri the only female shown giving him affection, and several sequences ( such as the snowball fight) could be interpreted different ways. The developers, however, appear to have designed a notwithstanding clause; even if you get the ending in which Ciri and Geralt end up together as partners in witchery, the closing summary indicates that they eventually go their separate ways, cancelling out any romantic Happily Ever After.
• Working with the Ex: Geralt with have to do this with Yennefer, Triss, or both depending on choice, as well as with Fringilla and Shani from Geralt's past. While Shani can be pursued during her quest, Fringilla wants nothing to do with Geralt.
• Worthy Opponent: Folan of Clan Tuirseach has a low opinion of most of the other clans on Skellige, and can find a reason to be dismissive of most of them. The only clan he'll confess to thinking of as "alright" is Clan Drummond, who he and his clan are supposed to be feuding with.
• Woman Scorned:
  • There's not one but two sidequests involving a woman who decides to get vengeance on their old flame by trying to harm the man's child with the other woman. Jonna from the "Nithing" Sub-quest was mad Lothar left her for a new family after ten years of being together, so she used a curse to try and kill his newborn son.
  • Another quest involves a woman in love with a Werewolf who secludes himself during the full moon. She tricks her sister (the werewolf's wife) into stumbling upon him during a full moon, which winds up getting her killed because, well, he's a werewolf. She'd hoped he'd scare her into leaving and she could take her place at his side. Upon learning this, the Werewolf wants to kill her and then commit suicide by witcher. You can save her if you're so inclined.
  • A minor version of this happens to Geralt himself if you try to chase a romance with both Triss and Yennefer at once - they offer him a threesome, but instead they team up to humiliate him and effectively dump him.
• World of Snark:
  • A good majority of the major characters of the game are almost as inclined towards deadpan snarking as Geralt, if not more so. This is especially true for Novigrad, where it seems that nearly every character is well-educated and vents their frustrations through incessant sarcasm. Even the loading screen gets in on the act.
    Loading Screen: When the time of the White Frost comes, don't eat the yellow snow.
  • Snark-to-Snark Combat: In overdrive when Geralt talks with Sigismund Dijkstra. It goes to the point where both have slight problems figuring out when the other is being sarcastic or not.
    Dijkstra: Oh, that famous sarcasm. I've missed it.
    Geralt: Really?
    Dijkstra: Mhm. About as much as I'd miss a knife in my knickers.
• Worst News Judgement Ever: A historical version where Geralt confronts a scholar about a planned book on war. Geralt points out that a book about it should reflect it without tales of glory, adventure, or otherwise prettying it up and instead focus on the day-to-day atrocities of war. The scholar says that such details are insignificant from a researcher's standpoint.
• Wretched Hive: Novigrad to the full extent, it is a city polluted with extreme hatred for anything non-human, serial killers, thieves, crime lords, bandits, corrupt guards, and generally the worst of humanity. Anyone that has anything to do with magic gets burnt at the stake for everyone's amusement, the city is run rampant with beggars and poor folk who must resort to thieving in order to survive, and the church of the Eternal Fire could very well be seen as the core-evil of Novigrad since their belief and hatred of magic users runs wild in the city and is solely responsible for all the sorceresses/witches/alchemists/mages/dopplers being burned at the stake, anyone who has a problem with this gets bullied and beaten or straight up butchered. Not to mention the church has the support of Radovid and his Witch-Hunters so the priests are untouchable.

Y

• Yandere: Jonna in "The Nithing", who decides that cursing Lothar's son to a cruel, agonizing death is a perfectly reasonable response to Lothar marrying another woman.

Z

• Zerg Rush: The general strategy for the Monster deck in Gwent, since nearly every monster card has the Muster ability that puts a lot of cards straight from the player's deck into the field at once. Scoia'tael cards can do this as well, though to a much lesser degree.

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