K-SCORE: 69
Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: CD Projekt
Spoiler Level: Very Minor
“while fighting the final villain Geralt was just pounding back chicken sandwiches mid furious combat”
The accolades heaped on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt were incredibly numerous. This was a highly regarded, in most ways of measuring, the most highly regarded game released in 2015. That it was makes me feel out of touch with the gaming world. It’s a good game. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t the start of an angry diatribe about an all-around shit product like Assassin’s Creed 3. But still I find the praise either alarmingly high or simply heaped on too early from people that liked the potential they saw in the first few hours of gameplay and didn’t have either the time or energy to finish it. It’s deeply flawed, and it’s flaws are extreme versions or paradigms of new sadly common problems in today’s massive RPGs. I hope that ten years from now I can look on games like this, like Skyrim, like Dragon Age: Inquisition, like the Souls series, and so many more and laugh. I’m happy to play a big game, but that doesn’t mean big games are allowed to be bloated with crap content and mechanics nor does it mean they’re immune to this essential tenet of game design, which is that fun derived from gameplay should closely match the length of the experience. Despite many triumphs in The Witcher 3, it is guilty as any of being big because it’s blubbery verging on obese instead of being muscular huge all over.
Narratively, The Witcher 3 is great. It lacks the sophisticated, awe-inspiring story of a game like The Last of Us or the pitch-perfect humor of something like Portal 2, but it still has a very good story supported by great never-annoying characters. Geralt surprised me right from the get go. All of those thousands of dialogue options and I almost never felt choosing one was inconsistent for who he was, made me like him less, made me feel out of control of the meaningful choices, or was out of tone for a situation. He’s always gruff, always good-hearted, always maintains a sense of perspective for his situation at any given time, and is clear regarding his principles. The fact that he is more clever than I expected and had a very dry sense of humor gives him staying power as a character you’re controlling and following for a hundred hours or more.
“Inventories... are now the magically expanded cities worth of crap of megalomaniacal psychopaths whose sole purpose in life has become taking everything, every weapon, every article of clothing, every book, all of the world’s food, all of the world’s resources, literally everything that has ever belonged to another living being or nature herself and carrying it all around everywhere presumably to gloat he has it all and the rest of society has nothing.”
The others are good too. Yen, Triss, Ciri, Sigi Dijkstra, Roche, Zoltan, Dandelion, Priscilla, Vesemir, Keira, Philippa, A’vallach, The Blood Baron, Cerys and her family, and many others are characters I liked. Even if their personalities aren’t one-hundred percent charming, they’re clear, realistic, knowable people, many of whom developed. Packing this huge world with so many good characters is part of what sustained me. Some make you want to leave them on the side of the road immediately and with others it feels like no amount of time is too much, just like people in your lives, so that The Witcher 3 had so many was vital to its success. And when you spend that much time with them, the stakes of their stories go through the roof. For me, that’s one of the most satisfying things about storytelling and why I’m so dedicated to it. I want to feel invested. No one cares the fate of short story protagonists. Harry Potter by book 7, Frodo at Mount Doom, Pam and Jim by the end of season 2 - you care because all the little moments along the way allowed you to really know them. So that ended up being my favorite element of The Witcher 3.
Some aren’t so good, namely the antagonists. Thankfully I didn’t quite feel like the dragon killing asshole of other RPGs but largely I don’t understand who The Wild Hunt are or what makes them so wicked. I needed way more of Ciri’s plight or repercussions to her not running from them in order to be convinced that these were ultra villains worth so much time studying and trying to destroy. They’re bad, sure, but their plan involving The White Frost is never really explored or rationalized and what they are (elves? undead?) never really develops so I didn’t feel any kind of need or desperation in any conflict relating to them. Eredin is the final villain and I couldn’t think of anything he’d done other than weird teleporting and I wasn’t really sure what he even looked like until I killed him.
The whole thing was about saving this world from annihilation by magic and these evil Wild Hunt riders but what are you really saving? Ugly villages packed with poverty, racism, rape, murder, and general despair. I could have used more hope, or alternatively a complex discussion on the challenges associated with changing things on a societal level.
That ties into the world itself. It’s okay. Not great. Maybe a bit too realistic as fantasy worlds go. Especially Velen and White Orchard. Those are gross swamps of lands with the most simplistic of structures that are not fun at all to explore. Skellige and some story locations are better visually, but usually came at the cost of getting around easily. It’s way too hard to avoid difficult-to-climb cliffs, annoying waterways, or trees that are barely present graphically but nevertheless stopp you in your path, especially on horseback. Riding a horse feels like trying to steer a car when someone else has a twitchy foot pounding on the gas and brake pedals.
The combat is another of the game’s strengths, but imperfect. I played on the hardest difficulty and found it very satisfying for a meaty chunk of the middle of the game before I was overpowered, but after I was gearless and useless. Matching signs with dodges and sword slashes was enough to keep me engaged for the majority of fights. It did get old at the end. The fights generally stop being variable so in addition to being over-leveled with the best available gear, I’d become too practiced at each encounter. My hundredth water hag kill is boring. By the end, the only way I could really enjoy the combat was on unique boss fights or by killing that skull-leveled archgriffin on some random little island who gave basically no reward. Everything else was just too easy, even on Death March difficulty, and that was the for that last twenty hours of my time with the game at least.
There were other aspects of combat are all varying degrees of shit awful. Potions in games are almost never even a little bit fun. It’s odd to have a character who is in the middle of furious fighting at a fast pace instantly drink some marginal buffing magic potion. The Witcher 3 also employs the antediluvian gameplay mechanic of featuring food that restores health. I had a joke that the best food (even though it was functionally identical to all other food) was the chicken sandwich, so I saved them up. At the very end while fighting the final villain Geralt was just pounding back chicken sandwiches mid furious combat. And they’re healing his wounds completely. One-biters. Fixing sword slashes bloodying his torso. There are also buff potions called decoctions that came in an absurd number of varieties. All the combat is too easy already. I wasn’t about to figure out what marginal buff they gave, if that was helpful, and then continually replenish my supply and keep that buff up. That’d be crazy, so all effort on their design was wasted. Ditto the wasted effort on oils and bombs. Why? If they’re not substantially helpful or a chore to utilize, cut them from the game.
“the loot glut has to stop”
The gear’s a problem too. This is way too common and hints at my big final point in this review. I don’t care about the gear except if it looks cool or does something noticeably different. The incremental stat bumps, damage, damage-reductions, resistances, weight, sign intensity - whatever - I hate it all because I can’t notice a difference. It becomes a task of sorting through it and figuring out what is best and what level range I should use it and so on. Thankfully I figured out that the best gear is just the green crafted witcher gear so I focused on those entire sets and fairly early on ignored everything else, just using the other drops as a revenue stream.
The other combat tool was the crossbow. Now, I’m hoping someone can disprove my thesis here, but it’s my belief that The Witcher 3 crossbow is the worst ranged weapon in any video game that I actually had to use for an extended period of time. It has very low, nearly meaningly damage and an aiming function that is totally out of sync with where the bolts actually fly. This I came to realize slowly since you can only see the bolt at all on maybe one in twenty shots. And even when you glimpse it mid-flight it, it disappears when it nears its target. There is no excuse CD Projekt Red could have for letting such an obviously terrible mechanic bog down and mar their fast-paced action.
Geralt’s beard grew in over time. Never seen that before. A satisfying detail.
Who the hell came up with the haggling system? It’s literally a visual slide bar of annoyance.
Is there any variability in the quality of the opponents in horse races? If so, I couldn’t tell because they were all inhaling the dust kicked up by my horse’s galloping hooves.
The only thing more poorly designed than the crossbow is the little sailboats. Wow. Sailing around Skellige for hours collecting meaningless loot underwater in smuggler’s caches will make you question what you’re doing with your life. Whatever developer idiot decided to randomly autopopulate the whole sea surrounding that huge map should not be given unchecked responsibilities in the future. I could have ignored them, but I have that completionist compulsion and I don’t like to assume unexplored or incomplete parts of a game aren’t worth my time. Better to have evidence it was in fact a waste. And if I’d left them all, I never would have found that archgriffin… who gave me no reward.
I liked the bestiary and character sheet but hated having to scroll to find new entries and it would have been even better if that flavor text was somehow read to me so I didn’t have to stop playing to access it. Play Bioshock devs.
The game has a lot of what people call mature content. The sex scenes are mostly weird or lame (though I liked and chuckled at the Yennefer unicorn one), but hey, it’s largely unexplored territory in gaming. It’s another thing people will laugh at looking back. But the bloody violence or really despicable people everywhere in the world of the The Witcher is really wonderful, not because those are wonderful things, but rather because a story not shying away from mature content isn’t censoring itself nearly as much and is free to explore a wider breadth of possibilities. Plus, it’s somehow enjoyable to have a big sword fight in a bathhouse of topless women.
Gwent’s a decent mini game and having the cards match the world’s famous people was clever. The system for getting all the cards was bananas bad and made me thankful I was careful about it from the start. Still though, the game could have done without Gwent entirely, or somehow cleverly integrated into something. Gwent/Bestiary might have been a good idea.
Penultimately, The Witcher 3 had a problem with its pace. Development was such a massive undertaking that I think CD Projekt Red didn’t know how large their game would end up being. Lots of the later content feels rushed compared to earlier stuff. So much detail went into exploring Geralt’s relationship with Keira Metz, for example, or the whole backstory with the Strenger family. Those quests are long and complicated. I liked them, but that made it weird when there are only a couple things with much more important characters like Triss or Vernon Roche. It was as if one day some exec put a release date out and the development team said, “alright one side quest per character max now.”
From my perspective as the consumer, I wish it hadn’t been like that. I don’t want a longer game. It’s already too long. But I wish some of the stupider secondary quests, petty squabbles of strangers, and meaningless gray question mark exploration had been cut to allow room for diving deeper into the game’s great characters.
“Whatever developer idiot decided to randomly autopopulate the whole sea surrounding that huge map should not be given unchecked responsibilities in the future.”
If there’s one aspect of this review I could shout from the mountain tops, it would be this: The loot glut has to stop. Holy Ganondorf Batman have things gotten out of control in games in recent years. Inventories are more than just overflowing bags, they’re more than cluttered basement in the houses of hoarders, they’re more than warehouses of people who want to start a business selling things but aren’t sure what. They are now the magically expanded cities worth of crap of megalomaniacal psychopaths whose sole purpose in life has become taking everything, every weapon, every article of clothing, every book, all of the world’s food, all of the world’s resources, literally everything that has ever belonged to another living being or nature herself and carrying it all around everywhere presumably to gloat he has it all and the rest of society has nothing.
Games have been rewarding players with loot for decades as a simple system of progression. We’re past that era now, or should be. Story revelations, justice, unexpected and interesting repercussions, sexy cutscenes, and skill points are some of the effective ways The Witcher 3 rewards players for dedicated play. The loot is a chore that couldn’t be completed. It is the Phantom Tollbooth demon making Milo move grains of sand with a pair of tweezers. Dealing with all the garbage the game shoved into your arms is a burden that weighs the experience down to the point where, had it been the game’s only flaw, I’d still likely never play through it again.
You got so much shit you didn’t need that I stopped reading the names of new items at the end. I assumed I didn’t want it even when I had no fucking clue what it was or what it did!
This gargantuan problem is exacerbated, firstly, by the fact that it has up one of the worst inventory lists I’ve ever seen. Everything is shown as a tiny square icon with an unhelpful picture and incomplete item description. Scrolling through these icons has a noticeable delay and you can’t jump between categories of loot, find totals of things you have on vendor or crafting screens, or sort anything manually. There are automatic sorting systems that didn’t help at all. I’m pissed off I have to deal with an inventory that needs to be sorted in the first place. Who is out there playing games for the pure joy they get from tallying their herb supply? Who likes games because they allow you to make decisions like how many white wolf hides to break down into crafting components and how many to leave on the side of the road?
Secondly, selling the gear to vendors is as annoying as possible. Vendors have an extremely limited amount of total gold to give you for all the crap you’d accumulated roaming the wilderness or city streets. So you either have to sell to multiple vendors or exchange your stuff for stuff the vendor has. My personal choice was to buy up precious gems from the vendors since they seemed rare and weighed nothing so I could get rid of five nine pound suits of armor and carry around a flawless diamond instead without risking becoming encumbered. To make matters worse, not all vendors bought all items. You couldn’t sell swords to an alchemist supplier. That just wouldn’t be real. And they offered different prices for the same stuff!
Not that I cared about that. I had no idea how to spend my gold. It costs a tiny amount to repair things and I could have used items instead, but didn’t because I wanted more money in the vendors’ pockets. I spent money on everything I thought might be useful once. Actually I bought anything I thought had a greater than one percent chance of being useful once. At one point I purchased thirteen mushrooms just because I’d never seen anyone selling mushrooms before. Still I was so rich I really should have been buying businesses left and right, property, servants, maybe equipping peasants with top-quality gear for a revolt against their asshole monarchs.
The loot glut in The Witcher 3 is so bad that I decided to spend this morning writing down everything that was in my possession after I beat the game and got the platinum trophy yesterday. It took me two hours just to type out the list (I know - time well spent). I had to listen to the Poscast to keep myself entertained as I transcribed it all into a shopping list format. I swear this is 100% real. Maybe I could call your attention to the 3 dried fish steaks not to be confused with 4 dead fish. How about the book titled: Tyromancy, or The Noble Art of Cheese Divination? I had 106 lengths of string in a game that features spools of twine, thread, and wire as items. 43 cyclops eyes?! A cyclops’s defining feature is that it’s monocular. 72 lesser blue mutagens and 1 lesser red mutagen. The mutagens didn’t stack; I had to count those. My favorite item though was the stack of notes written by a frustrated warrior. And all of this, all of that shit down there, it’s but a fraction of the total amount I picked up.
Some might argue that having the stuff out there creates the illusion of a filled world. Is it really more realistic though to have bookshelves in a house containing a mug of Vizima’s Champion and a pile of alcohest powder than bookshelves you just can’t interact with? Some might argue that I didn’t have to pick this stuff up. To that I plead ignorance. Not ignorance of the loot glut problem. I saw it when I saw the prologue fields were populated with herbs. Ignorance as to what would be useful and what wouldn’t be, of how much I’d want to craft, of how much I’d need gold, of what was in any given container. And once you open something up, in a video game, sadly, it’s just as easy to hit X to pick it up as it is to hit O to leave it behind.
The Witcher 3 had some great characters, good story, a large and interesting, well-populated world, and a lot of enjoyable combat, but boy oh boy did it need to hit the metaphorical treadmill. It was fat with superfluous or poorly designed content, and well-beyond morbidly obese with unnecessary, uninteresting loot. I’m only going to play a few games in a given year and this one was worth it, but just barely given the commitment, and I certainly don’t understand or appreciate the heaps and heaps of praise The Witcher 3 has received when it’s bogged down by all these problems.
INVENTORY BY THE END:
Equipped:
1 ursine silver sword - mastercrafted
1 ursine steel sword - mastercrafted
1 suit mastercrafted ursine armor
1 pair mastercrafted ursine gloves
1 pair mastercrafted ursine trousers
1 pair mastercrafted ursine boots
1 ursine crossbow
1 Potestaquisitor
11 torches
1 Zerrikanian horse blinders
1 Zerrikanian horse saddle
1 set Zerrikanian saddlebags
1 leshen trophy
4 superior samum bombs
4 superior dragon’s dream bombs
5 superior thunderbolt potions
5 superior swallow potions
3 superior White Raffard’s decoction potions
11 chicken sandwiches
Carrying around everywhere:
1 Griffin Silver Sword - mastercrafted
1 Griffin Steel Sword - mastercrafted
1 Feline Silver Sword - mastercrafted
1 Feline Steel Sword - mastercrafted
1 suit mastercrafted Griffin Armor
1 suit mastercrafted Feline Armor
1 pair mastercrafted Griffin Boots
1 pair mastercrafted Feline Boots
1 pair mastercrafted Griffin Trousers
1 pair mastercrafted Feline Trousers
1 pair mastercrafted Griffin Gauntlets
1 pair mastercrafted Feline Gauntlets
2 greater Chernobog runestones
1 Devana runestone
3 greater Devana runestones
2 greater glyphs of Aard
3 greater Dahzbog runestones
3 greater Triglav runestones
4 greater Svarog runestones
3 greater Stribog runestones
2 greater Zoria runestones
1 greater glyph of Yrden
3 Chernobog runestones
2 lesser glyphs of Igni
1 glyph of Axii
1 lesser Svarog runestone
3 greater Morana runestones
1 lesser Zoria runestone
1 lesser Triglav runestone
1 Dazhbog runestone
2 lesser glyphs of Axii
1 lesser Chernobog runestone
1 lesser Veles runestone
3 lesser glyphs of Quen
4 lesser glyphs of Aard
18 amateur’s armor repair kits
16 amateur’s weapon repair kits
2 master’s armor repair kits
2 journeyman’s weapon kits
1 foglet decoction
1 griffin decoction
1 water Hag decoction
1 wyvern decoction
1 basilisk decoction
1 nekker warrior decoction
1 wraith decoction
3 Pops’ mold antidotes
1 grave hag decoction
1 nightwraith decoction
1 leshen decoction
3 killer whale potions
1 cockatrice decoction
1 katakan decoction
1 chort decoction
1 ekimmara decoction
1 earth elemental decoction
1 werewolf decoction
1 fiend decoction
1 noonwraith decoction
5 superior cat potions
1 ancient leshen decoction
1 succubus decoction
1 alghoul decoction
1 ekhidna decoction
1 arachas decoction
5 superior tawny owl potions
5 superior Maribor Forest potions
5 superior white honey potions
1 forktail decoction
5 vials superior black blood
4 superior blizzard potions
5 superior Petri’s philters
1 Reliever’s decoction
1 archgriffin decoction
5 superior golden oriole potions
2 vials drowner pheromones
3 full moon potions
2 hunk of werewolf meat (inexplicably stored separately)
4 superior dancing star bombs
4 superior devil’s puffball bombs
4 superior moon dust bombs
4 superior dimeritium bombs
4 superior grapeshot bombs
3 enhanced northern wind bombs
2 dimeritium bombs
2 grapeshot bombs
2 samum bombs
1 Hornwall horn
1 jug superior beast oil
1 jug superior elementa oil
1 jug superior insectoid oil
1 jug superior specter oil
1 jug superior vampire oil
1 jug superior hanged man’s venom
1 jug superior cursed oil
1 jug superior relict oil
1 jug enhanced necrophage oil
1 jug enhanced draconid oil
1 jug enhanced ogroid oil
1 jug enhanced hybrid oil
1 square container of Wolven Hour
2 bottles Beauclair White
7 bottles Dijkstra Dry
8 bottles Mattina Rose
10 bottles Est Est
46 bottles Erveluce
1 jug of water
8 olives
2 candies
2 roasted chicken legs
19 potions from Tir Na Lia
4 apples
2 pieces fried meat
1 ham sandwich
7 loaves bread
1 serving dried fruit
16 hunks raw meat
16 grilled chicken sandwiches
4 pitchers cow’s milk
3 servings dried fruits and nuts
8 grapes
6 raspberries
3 eggs
7 pitchers goat’s milk
7 carafes apple juice
9 pieces of cheese
5 baked potatoes
1 onion
1 loaf burned bread
2 sweet buns
35 mugs Rivian Kriek
3 tubs butter
6 bananas
11 blueberries
3 pears
1 jar exquisite honey
1 mutton leg
2 bowls fondue
4 bowls mutton stew
3 hunks pork
46 mugs Redanian lager
10 dumplings
1 jar honey
36 mugs Kaedweni stout
26 mugs Viziman Champion
1 bushel potatoes
2 pieces gutted fish
10 strawberries
4 pieces honeycomb
2 grilled pork steaks
2 carafes raspberry juice
1 bottle vinegar
3 dried fish steaks
5 baked apples
13 mushrooms
1 magic lamp
1 wolf mask
1 harlequin mask
1 bird mask
1 phylactery
1 set of the decoctions of the grasses
1 lizard figurine
1 bull figurine
1 bushel Hjort’s herbs
1 stack mysterious notes
2 letters of safe conduct
1 squirrel tail
The Eye of Nehaleni
Niellen’s key
1 cloth doll
1 book titled Moribundia: The Vampire’s Last Likeness
1 book titled Tyromancy, or The Noble Art of Cheese Divination
2 bottles wine from Toussaint
1 bundle of burdcock
1 fragment of a silver cylinder
1 silver lid
1 short letter
1 letter to Caleb Menge
1 stack Balton Dubis’ notes
1 perfumed letter
1 unsent letter
1 agate
1 pair damaged eyes
1 Eternal Fire letter of safe conduct
3 warrants
1 letter about treasure
1 script
1 letter to lighthouse keeper
1 distiller’s letter
1 distiller’s log
1 padlock key
Morkvarg’s journal
1 cursed fang necklace
1 bottle forktail spinal fluid
1 silver monocle
1 lever
4 dead fish
2 cage keys
1 key to prison
The key to Vigi’s cage
1 stone medallion
1 defier’s oren
1 magic trinket from Yennefer
9 pairs dimeritium shackles
1 lump pure silver
1 set tableware
1 chunk lead
3 piles ashes
1 wolf hide
1 deer hide
19 old bear hides
4 piles fiend dung
36 monster brains
32 monster ears
26 monster eyes
37 vials monster blood
50 monster bones
61 vials venom extract
26 vials monster saliva
9 monster tongues
14 clumps monster hair
29 monster hearts
20 monster teeth
27 monster livers
17 chunks dimeritium ore
40 monster claws
3 monster hides
2 monster eggs
1 flawless ruby
28 chunks glowing ore
5 dimeritium ingots
2 flawless sapphires
3 flawless amethysts
3 flawless gems amber
30 cuts cured draconid leather
9 vials monster essence
17 bags powdered monster tissue
1 flawless emerald
2 flawless diamonds
16 glowing ore ingots
13 monster feathers
20 siren vocal cords
3 infused crystals
3 emeralds
66 cuts hardened leather
51 pearls
3 gems amber
9 cuts meteorite silver plate
12 rubies
12 amethysts
122 hardened timber boards
40 piles infused dust
20 black pearls
35 cuts dark steel plate
29 chitinous shells
27 dragon scales
7 sapphires
74 infused shards
10 endrega armor plates
2 diamonds
3 piles Zerrikanian powder
3 dark steel ingots
7 meteroite silver ingots
27 stoppers powdered pearl
31 chunks dark iron ore
45 piles emerald dust
42 piles amethyst dust
76 steel ingots
28 piles amber dust
11 stoppers black pearl dust
37 piles diamond dust
24 piles silver
20 piles ruby dust
22 chunks meteorite ore
49 silver ingots
53 chunks silver ore
18 gold nuggets
34 piles sapphire dust
13 meteorite ingots
30 steel plates
23 dark iron ingots
1 chunk gold ore
1 silver plate
148 leather scraps
15 balls wax
106 lengths string
81 bundles fiber
81 spools thread
68 bolts linen
33 lumps resin
198 leather straps
79 lumps coal
44 spools twine
79 jugs oil
170 cuts cured leather
134 cuts timber
65 iron ingots
93 fur scraps
96 chunks iron ore
24 coils rope
80 spools cotton
33 nails
8 vials dye
47 bolts silk
58 coils wire
13 lengths steel line
24 bottles sap
13 feathers
5 foglet mutagens
25 wraith mutagens
3 nekker warrior mutagens
1 nightwraith mutagen
6 wyvern mutagens
2 basilisk mutagens
1 cockatrice mutagen
3 water hag mutagens
2 katakan mutagens
4 fiend mutagens
1 leshen mutagen
3 ekhidna mutagens
3 werewolf mutagens
1 arachas mutagen
2 archgriffin mutagens
1 forktail mutagen
30 clumps elemental essence
43 vials essence of wraith
17 wine stones
5 clumps optima mater
27 stoppers lunar shards
11 griffin feathers
13 stoppers fifth essence
11 necrophage hides
12 vials rotfiend blood
4 foglet teeth
32 alghoul claws
32 harpy talons
17 water hag teeth
3 gargoyle hearts
4 piles gargoyle dust
10 endrega embryos
21 pieces crystalized essence
4 wyvern hides
12 wyvern eggs
6 cockatrice eggs
3 vials basilisk venom
3 basilisk hides
47 vials water essence
2 clumps nightwraith hair
1 vial dark essence
4 forktail hides
1 ekimmara hide
4 lumps leshen resin
13 vampire fangs
3 werewolf hides
4 vials werewolf saliva
4 pairs arachas eyes
1 golem heart
6 fiend eyes
7 troll hides
43 cyclops eyes
6 erynia eyes
27 locks of lamia hair
9 vials devourer blood
1 griffin egg
27 vials ghoul blood
71 drowner brains
49 bags specter dust
72 drowner tongues
24 servings alghoul bone marrow
20 nekker eyes
38 nekker claws
40 vials nekker blood
19 harpy eggs
31 harpy feathers
16 endrega heart
3 grave hag ears
6 vials vampire saliva
1 cockatrice stomach
2 vials arachas venom
22 white myrtle petals
28 hellebore petals
4 balisse fruit
54 bottles Nilfgaardian Lemon
90 stalks cortinarius
27 leaves crow’s eye
49 fool’s parsley leaves
26 blowball flowers
34 berbercane fruits
59 celadine flowers
41 containers alchemy paste
116 empty bottles
79 piles alchemist powder
20 sprigs ranogrin
3 bottles redanian herbal
89 sprigs ribleaf
42 sprigs wolfsbane
61 containers dog tallow
35 sprigs verbena
128 bottles alcohest
21 sprigs honeysuckle
65 stalks puffball
144 sewant mushrooms
37 stoppers ducal water
22 ginatia petals
46 wolf livers
84 moleyarrow
18 piles Stammelford’s dust
113 sprigs han fiber
56 beggartick blossoms
3 branches buckthorn
9 piles green mold
92 bottles Temerian Rye
21 indistinct purple lumps bryonia
146 bottles dwarven spirit
11 stoppers quicksilver solution
25 hop umbels
30 sprigs pringrape
27 sprigs hornwort
38 piles sulfur
29 stalks longrube
29 piles saltpeter
26 mandrake roots
16 stoppers phosphorus
30 clumps bloodmoss
8 blades bison grass
72 lesser blue mutagens
15 tubs bear fat
6 sprigs allspice
28 leaves nostrix
37 less green mutagens
15 pieces calcium equum
10 ergot seeds
22 sprigs mistletoe
10 bottles Mahakaman spirit
11 bottles cherry cordial
2 greater blue mutagens
2 greater green mutagens
3 bottles Mandrake cordial
8 arenaria flowers
1 lesser red mutagen
1 notice titled: Griffin in the Highlands
1 list of prisoners
1 city secretary’s diary
1 report
1 illustrated atlas of insectoids
1 crumpled letter
1 essay titled: Radovid V - Defender of the North
1 stack a frustrated warrior’s notes
1 book titled: Heroes of Skellige: Otkell
1 book titled: Heroes of Skellige: Modolf
Stored in my magic trunk:
1 viper silver sword
1 viper steel sword
1 blade from the bits
1 winter’s blade
1 blunt sword
1 warrior’s leather jacket
1 suit witch hunter’s armor
2 shirts
2 elegant courtier’s doublets of different styles
1 skellige tunic
1 elegant skillige shirt
1 pair elegant Nilfgaardian shoes
1 pair Skellige festive slippers
1 pair Nilfgaardian trousers
2 pairs Skellige breeches of different styles
1 feline crossbow
90 split bolts (that do 13-15 damage)
56 split bolts (that do 9-11 damage)
9 exploding bolts
80 blunt crossbow bolts (that do 9-11 damage)
63 blunt crossbow bolts (that do 7-9 damage)
26 tracking bolts
8 broadhead bolts
2 noonwraith trophies
2 griffin trophies
1 nightwraith trophy
1 grave hag trophy
1 cockatrice trophy
1 foglet trophy
1 succubus trophy
1 ekimmara trophy
1 chort trophy
1 wild hunt hound trophy
1 wyvern trophy
1 leshen trophy
1 water hag trophy
1 wraith trophy
1 forktail trophy
1 ekhidna trophy
1 fiend trophy
1 katakan trophy
1 nekker warrior trophy
1 earth elemental trophy
1 archgriffin trophy
15 master’s armor repair kits
11 master’s weapon repair kits
38 journeyman’s weapon repair kits
5 journeyman’s armor repair kits
1 Xenovox
1 rose of remembrance
1 talisman
1 snake figurine
1 broken mask of Uroboros
1 pile incense
1 crones’ doll
92 nails
The key to Yennefer’s room
2 dimeritium shackles
16 piles fisstech
2 ornate swords
43 spheres glass
63 piles ashes
2 Nilfgaardian Special Forces insignias
2 Temerian Special Forces insignias
4 Redanian Special Forces insignias
3 bouquets flowers
1 Melitele figurine