The beloved action-packed RPG is full of mythical monsters, but these quests went the extra mile in the name of horror....and heartache.
*WARNING: Contains spoilers for The Witcher 3 & Hearts of Stone DLC expansion*
Despite being released in 2015, The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is still the game on everyone's lips.
And rightly so. With sumptuous world-building, memorable characters, multiple endings, dynamic combat mechanics, and stellar DLC which adds whole new dimensions to an already sprawling map, it is widely considered the best RPG of all time (with its crown only recently contested by The Last Of Us Part 2).
True, the XP graft may be grueling, but it makes it oh so worth it to get your hands on the mastercrafted gear as you watch hero Geralt of Rivia go from basic to brawny in a mere 140 hours of gameplay.
Leave me alone. I'm funemployed.
Amidst the swashbuckling and adventure, however, the writers have planted some seriously creepy quests. Quests which are a true testament to the malleability of horror, complemented by the writers' artful incorporation of it into the game at key moments to heighten emotional intensity.
Here is a rundown of the top 3 scariest missions in The Witcher 3 (and what makes them so deliciously horrific).'
3) The Whispering Hillock / Ladies of the Wood
Let's kick off with an offshoot quest of an offshoot quest: The Whispering Hillock.
As if the haggard child-eating Crones wallowing in the swampy marshlands beneath Downwarren weren't a grim enough prospect, what about the fact that you need to make an impossible decision which has dire consequences either way?
Whilst on a mission from The Bloody Baron to find and return his missing wife and daughter (who we later learn are not missing but are on the run from their abusive home lives), Geralt meets a group of Orphans. They live in the middle of a dreary, dangerous bog, overseen and supposedly looked after by a crotchety older woman they call Nan who is immediately distrustful of our nomadic hero.
As you traverse the swamp in search of the Baron's family and your daughter Ciri, you come across a truly gruesome sight- a living, throbbing heart, buried at the base of an old tree at the top of what fearful townsfolk call The Whispering Hillock. The entity pleads with Geralt to free it, saying that the Ladies of the Wood- the more misleading moniker given to the three Crones by their worshippers- trapped it there.
In a damned-if-ya-do-or-don't scenario, Geralt can choose to free the spirit or to kill it.
Killing it in accordance with the Crones' wishes will result in the death of the orphans of Crookbank Bog. This seems especially cruel, especially if the player chose to have Geralt bond with the children by play hide and seek with them in a recent quest. However, in exchange for the kids' lives you will be able to find the Baron's wife and restore her to him. He will swear that he is a changed man and will strive to help his wife recover the parts of herself she lost whilst undertaking the Crones' bidding.
If you choose to free the spirit, thinking it the lesser of two evils compared to the Ladies of the Wood, the orphans will be spared- but the village of Downwarren will be razed to the ground and the Baron will never find his beloved Anna.
Bittersweet, sure, but why is this quest scary?
With the quest panning out fairly early in the game, this disappointment serves to disarm the player and render them helpless to ameliorate the situation. It reminds them that in the world of The Witcher, all actions have consequences.
The frustration of the choice having no clear "good" outcome has made this set of quests a topic of heated debate. Unnerving, uncomfortable, and inherently unsatisfying, the game refuses to give you the pleasure of a victory.
It is a pivotal moment in the story, one which shapes your playthrough and leaves you steeling yourself, unsure of what will be asked of you next and hoping that you don't need to kill more kids.
2) A Towerful of Mice (Fyke Isle)
Still my favourite side quest to date, A Towerful of Mice takes place after Geralt spends an unforgettable night with his friend and potential fling, the sorceress Keira Metz.
Making your way through this abandoned Mage's tower on the remote, desolate Fyke Isle, with only the ominous green glow of a mystic lamp to illuminate your surroundings, the tower's ghosts reveal there is a lot more to the structure than rot and mice.
Geralt comes across Annabelle, the ghost of a woman who met a tragic and painful end when she was eaten alive by vermin when the townspeople stormed the tower in defiance of the cruel experiments conducted behind its walls by the Mage.
She begs him to carry her bones to her beloved the next town over so she can be finally laid to rest. However, trusting pleading spirits is a dangerous game, so Geralt can either agree to her wishes or choose to fight Annabelle instead.
This mission stood out to me not only for the tragically romantic plot and nod to my favourite poem by Edgar Allen Poe, but because of the stunning visuals and sound design.
The scenes are mired in a thick green smog, one which allows even the smallest on-screen movements to take on an ominous quality. Paired with the atmosphere of the tower itself, worn floorboards and draughty masonry groaning under the weight of so much death and tragedy, you have a perfect gothic horror setup.
The visual motif of sickly acid green contrasted by black smoke is repeated whenever spectres or wraiths appear in the game, uniting A Towerful of Mice and similar spooky quests in order to prevent any inconsistencies with the tone of the game as a whole.
1) Scenes from a Marriage
By far the most chilling quest of the Heart of Stones expansion pack, Scenes from a Marriage takes Geralt on a world-bending adventure through a dead divorcee's fragmented memories. Upon entering her haunted property, Geralt must step through a painting (which, you guessed it, she made herself) into a surrealist world populated by wraiths and ghostly arachnomorphs.
Through piecing together snapshots of Widow Olgierd's marital breakdown, he helps her lonely spirit move on- and uncovers the tragic backstory of how her beloved's dabbling in the dark arts caused him to lose his humanity, lose his love for her, and develop a de facto heart of stone.
By Jasmine GW