Witcher 3: Wandering in the Dark quest should not be this hard
22 January 2021
As many people did during the ongoing pandemic, I also returned to video games. However, my rediscovered passion (I dropped out of it when I was a teenager) comes with a bit of a plot twist. Playing video games and being an information science researcher interested in researching algorithms, user experience, and pop culture writ-large, inspired me to start documenting my thoughts and ideas about video games here on this blog.
In this post, which is not at all an expert view, rather just a personal notes about facing difficulties in a game, I want to look at the case of one of the early secondary quests of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, called Wandering in The Dark. I love the environment design and immersive experience of this level, but I equally hated the frequency of facing difficult enemies so early on in the game without any sort of preparation or warning. As you’ll soon realize, this post is also a rather cathartic way of writing myself out of the mild “trauma” induced by this quest.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is probably not the easiest way how to get back on the proverbial horse of playing games but it was my first choice for many reasons. I am Czech, and Slavic folklore, which The Witcher draws from and encompasses so well, is what I’ve lived surrounded by since I was a little kid. I’ve read the first couple of Sapkowski’s books, I watched the original Polish TV show long before Netflix introduced Geralt’s white hair, coarse voice and “I don’t really care” attitude to the masses in its TV show released in 2019.
Witcher’s world is as much part of my upbringing and culture as it was for the Polish people. It is also one of the most praised video games in the industry offering all the aspects I like about video games: immersive experience; shenaningans of an RPG open world; storytelling on the scale of a feature movie; and multiple scenarios and endings based on the choices players make throughout the game (ok, I might have accidentally killed Keira, so what?).
This being said, The Witcher 3 can be also a rather difficult game if you, like me, are a noob. For instance, I had to figure out my way around PlayStation controller. I didn’t have any experience with playing the previous titles in the series which posed additional problems for me regarding controls, fighting, potion making, etc. However, the learning curve also made the game immensely enjyoable, at least once I was able to get the hang of it.
Where are we in the game?
If you completed all the side quests and points of interest (question marks on the map) in the White Orchard, you enter Wandering in the Dark in Velen either in the late stage of level 4 or on the verge of level 5. In the Witcher world, it means that you might have gained some experience with fighting packs of wolves or wild dogs, angry bandits, out-of-nowhere spawning drowners (I hate those guys!), or a group of ghouls scattered over a battlefield. But that’s about it.
Even though you’ve gone through everything in White Orchard tutorial environment, you’re not up to the quest resource-wise, knowledge-wise, nor mentally- or, God forbid, emotionally-wise. You have none or minimal fighting experiences, you don’t know much about potion making, nor fight tactics developed by facing a more advanced enemy.
White Orchard is one of the best onboardings genuinely incorporated into a game
Some of us at this stage also haven’t found their way to the Bestiary system of the game. The system as crucial for Geralt’s well-being and survival as is for Roach its tendency to be startled by everything that breaths. In short, you are facing this quest unprepared.
Level design
Since this quest is also a secondary quest helping drive the main story forward, there is no way how to avoid it, skip it, or in any other way pretend that it doesn’t exist. To make it even more challenging, as it shows during completing the quest, there are stages of it where you literally cannot leave the location to gather resources elsewhere, and come back to finish the job. This is especially frustrating when facing more advanced enemies. You run out of potions, health and food and before you know it, you face the big boss without anything that will save you.
What starts as a favor for your old friend, a sorceress Keira Metz, develops quite quickly into long hours sitting in front of the screen of you fighting, rolling, dodging, and using other tricks to defeat all the enemies lurking in the dark. Just for the illustration, you have to fight all these monsters in (more or less) this order before you can leave:
- bunch of drowners;
- one or two foglets (this is the first time you meet them);
- rats nests (because Keira, the powerful sorceress, is afraid of them…);
- more drowners, plus wraiths on a toxic yet explosive field of mushrooms;
- clones of Geralt and Keira (only if you fail to solve a Kelpie riddle);
- golem (big and angry one, takes ages to take down!);
- gargoyle (only if you turn in the wrong direction, takes ages to take down, too);
- White Hunt’s dogs coming at you from 3 portals while your movement is limited by a protective shield;
- Nithral aka the final boss of this level.
That’s a lot for someone who’s just started becoming comfortable walking in Geralt’s shoes, assuming you are just getting familiar with the game.
The problem is that the gameplay doesn’t let you take a break or take in some deep and much needed breaths. Just a glimpse at Reddit or comments section under any YouTube walkthrough of this quest shows you how frustrating this part of the game is for many. People abandoned playing the game entirely because of this quest. They just didn’t see a way to succeed in the game. They also probably thought that the game will get progressively more difficult which is (suprisingly) not the case.
In this level, every new location within the elven ruins you enter is hiding something lurking in the dark to get you and you’re not ready for it. Also, early on you realize that although you have a character/NPC accompanying you, Keira is rather useless. You have to do all the hard work on your own. This is one of the frustrating logics of many NPCs in The Witcher 3 game (and one of mine few critiques of this game), so it was nice to learn that even one of the gameplay designers from CD Projekt RED is aware of it.
As much as this level might have been a first rite of passage for a player, I believe this is also the one which makes people give up on the game and hate it in the long run. I’m glad I am the former example, although there were many moments I was inclining towards the latter one.
Fun fact from Google Trends
In December 2019, Netflix released a long-awaited The Witcher series (showrunner: Lauren Schmidt Hissrich) with Henry Cavill portraying Geralt of Rivia. It caused such a global hype that the sales of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt went 554% up [1] around the time of the TV show release. As a consequence and also an illustration that people struggle with the same places of the game even years after the original release, Google shows that the searching for the Wandering in The Dark quest went up too around the same time. Coincidentally, the same spike showed up for Wild at Heart quest. It is not that much of a surprise since this quest is the first time players runs into a werewolf. Especially his quickly recharging health bar is a problem to overcome effectively, usually only with the knowledge found online.
References
[1] https://www.pcgamer.com/the-witcher-3-sales-were-up-554-thanks-to-the-netflix-show/