Spoiler Warning: This text incorporates some spoilers for the ending of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt alongside a handful of minor spoilers from The Witcher guide sequence.
A Witcher 3 modder has found and restored an enormous chunk of gameplay lower from the beloved role-playing sport’s ending by developer CD Projekt.
This prolonged ending, outlined by YouTuber xLetalis and modded by glassfish777, begins after protagonist Geralt’s battle with Witcher 3’s primary antagonist, Eredin of The Wild Hunt. Geralt is pulled away from this battle after his victory by potential companion and highly effective sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg within the precise sport, however within the lower content material as a substitute wakes up in a tent, being seen to by two medical doctors.
A restored cutscene right here reveals the pair betting over whether or not or not Geralt lives, and the witcher wakes up along with his personal snappy response: “I am going to take that wager.” He finally leaves the tent and encounters Yennefer in a scene with various dialogue relying on if gamers entered a relationship together with her or fellow sorceress Triss Merigold.
Geralt can ask who gained the conflict right here, and Yennefer responds by explaining the Skelligans fled the conflict after the loss of life of Crach an Craite, whose loss of life throughout the battle wasn’t talked about once more within the full sport.
Subsequent scenes present simply how a lot CD Projekt scrapped right here, as whole teams of miscellaneous background characters are fitted with their very own dialogue. Some are veterans of Cintra, for instance, a narrative from the guide sequence and Nilfgaard’s first enterprise north, whereas others have distinctive dialogue about murdering somebody.
Geralt then attends Crach’s funeral, assembly Triss on the best way. This too has various paths relying on who turned the brand new king or queen of Skellige. Additional interactions present a dialog between Yennefer and Triss and Geralt assembly The Lodge of Sorceresses.
It is this remaining level which has essentially the most dramatic story change to the principle sport and basic Witcher lore, nonetheless. The Lodge is actually a secret society of highly effective sorceresses who search to manage the myriad international locations of The Continent from behind the scenes, solely featured briefly in Witcher 3 as Geralt reunites them to assist battle The Wild Hunt. After the battle, nonetheless, it is not talked about once more. However Yennefer betrays The Lodge on this model.
She does have a posh relationship with its members, instructed all through myriad books and video games, however Yennefer’s resolution comes as a part of a deal to avoid wasting Ciri, as she primarily sells them off to Nilfgaardian emperor Emhyr var Emreis, who seemingly plans to kill them.
Geralt can reply in three alternative ways, which once more unfold to grander repercussions, however he would not seem like notably proud of Yennefer whatever the choice chosen. Witcher followers will probably lengthy debate whether or not or not this could have occurred within the sport, and why it was eliminated within the first place.
This sequence happened instantly after what’s primarily the ultimate boss battle although, and previous one other intense scene the place Geralt and Yennefer rush throughout an island as monsters emerge from portals throughout them, so it was maybe simply lower for the sake of pacing.
This deleted content material is the primary main discovery following the discharge of REDkit: an official modding software for Witcher 3 launched by CD Projekt in Could 2024. The developer introduced REDkit in November 2023, saying “it is going to mean you can create your individual experiences within the sport by making one thing fully new or modifying present quests and content material.”
It did not say something about followers digging up its personal scrapped content material, nonetheless, and extra does exist. CD Projekt has beforehand commented on lower missions associated to Iorveth from The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, for instance, so maybe followers will revive that and different sequences too.
REDkit has in any other case been used to create some wild and wacky mods for Witcher 3, together with one which lets Geralt experience an infinite fiend as a substitute of Roach and one other that recreates the unique sport in Witcher 3’s engine forward of an official remake.
Mods would be the solely new content material coming to Witcher 3 going ahead, after all, as whereas the sport obtained a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection X and S replace in December 2022, it in any other case will not get any extra official content material as CD Projekt focuses on its wealth of different incoming tasks.
The extremely anticipated subsequent mainline Witcher sport, codenamed Polaris, is presently in growth however will not arrive till 2025 on the absolute earliest, and doubtless later. There are two different Witcher video games on the horizon too, together with the aforementioned remake of the unique Witcher and a multiplayer spin-off.
Picture Credit score: xLetalis and glassfish777 on YouTube
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll speak about The Witcher all day.