Imagine the game that The Witcher 3 would be if the cut content would remain. The Avallac'h VS Eredin storyline developed, the tension in Novigrad and a great scale battle between Radovid and Emhyr and the devastation of the Catriona Plague, that even would involve some characters like Iorweth. If the game it's great now, with this things would be the GOAT no doubt.
Game is already so long that many people couldn't finish it and you want even more? Also it is really hard to make long storyline interesting and without plot holes. Hearts of Stone, Blood and Wine were better stories than base game. Base Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty too.
i was waiting for Avallach’s heel turn as the “secret final boss” as the game progressed it looked like it was going towards that to me Ciri kept insisting she trusted him and Geralt obviously didn’t, the quest in his lab the female elves words etc, it’s seriously the only slight nick pick i have😭
@@WitcherGeorgeSecond this. I fully expected Avallach to have something subtle planned that Ciri would inadvertently assist in by stopping the end of the world. Something like you stop the wild hunt, she stops the frost and in his plan dies trying, then he stages a long-winded coup and takes over the elven homeworld now that Eredin is out of the running ( or _something_ ). I kept getting bad vibes off him throughout the ending, but had to be satisfied with "you're one part in a larger story that, sadly, you will never know the full part of because you're a bit player". Its sort of like a cliff-hanger but more like denied climax.
@@Your-Least-Favorite-StrangerI expected the same from Avallach. During my first play through, I didn't trust him at all and the last words of Eredin triggered a "I knew it!" effect. So when I was on my way to the tower, I was hoping another huge bossfight.
I really wish the production team wasn't rushed for the end act with Dykstra because it's such a sudden change of character with one of the highest IQ and tactical minds in all the Witcher universe. Just imagining how it could have played out differently had the CDPR team had a lot more time to work on that story line. Loving the Witcher 3 content
Maybe in the future we’ll get a Witcher 3 director’s cut with all the missing content and characters probably won’t ever happen but I’d be happy to play it!
The cut scenario Novigrad being attacked by Wild Hunt actually would change the whole landscape of the city buried by snow & corpses. So many moving parts & factors must be considered & the possibility of many failed quests if player actually skipped it. As for more Wild Hunt related quests. I remember in CDPR W3 forum there supposed to be a cut scenario where Geralt try to actively infiltrate Wild Hunt base as remember he was an ex wild hunt lieutenant too btw during his forced captivity (completely missed by so many players). This is the stuffs that would give more exposures to Eredin & his lieutenants, possible interactions & dialogues & flashback stuffs.
While I do wish we had a looot more content on Aen Elle elves, I didn't want Avallac'h to become the villains. I like his end goal and how we settled with him. I'm at least satisfied with how he was done, once baddie joining forces for a reasonable cause. I remember hoping I wouldn't have to kill him at the tower. 'Would they do the most obvious thing with him, oh they didn't'. Solas already put me trough that pain except the Bioware team were very discreet with the foreshadowing. Eredin blatantly lying was cheap. While they perfected the menacing part (I mean, woof that armor), there was a lot left to be desired. Book Eredin seems more interesting to me. Ge'els actually not partaking in the hunt seemed like a cool concept to me, I didn't expect him to behave like that. But Caranthir was a complete wasted potential especially with the buildup. All of the Wild Hunt characters in the Battle of Kaer Morhen were well flashed, pretty much perfect introduction. 3rd arc did feel rushed, with how well finding Ciri was done. I just recently beat the game for the first time, there were times you could feel like something was changed or not done to it's full potential even if almost every quest felt so fulfilling. The third Crone just reappearing at the 'bad ending' was also kinda disappointing to me. I wish they integrated her in another way even tho Geralt hunting her down was freaking cool as well. I missed having Iorveth, I hope we'll at least see him in Witcher 4. Playing Witcher 2 currently and I'm feeling the pain of them excluding him now.
As someone who is about to finish doing a Witcher saga and was writing out my thoughts for a pinned comment this was really interesting. I agree a lot that the Wild Hunt and Radovid assassination is some of the most undercooked parts of the game. I feel like the Grandmaster of Witcher 1 is their best antagonist and I hope the remake can flesh out Azar Javed even more and make the Professor's performs better. I like the DLC villains of Witcher 3 but they have less time to be developed compared to a full game
@@WitcherGeorge I'm hoping for improved W3 gameplay, potions effects lasting a bit longer, fix up some narrative hole, make Azar a little more ground, and that they don't try and put everything from Witcher 3 in there (all the armour sets and sword. It's a smaller scale area). Also hope they bring back Andrew Wincott (voice of Raphael in BG3) as the Grandmaster. Fingers crossed it's good and I'll keep an eye on your channel for updates
I've always liked the Wild Hunt despite what people say. I knew what potential they had, but I understand that it wasn't there in the game so of course people are going to criticise that. The game spent too much time on everything else.
They literally cut the character that had invested me in the witcher world. I barely played witcher 2 but Iorveth had me very interested in the witcher universe.
I honestly wanted more development with Siegfried of Denesle. When Hearts of Stone reintroduced The Order of the Flaming Rose, I had hoped we would find Siegfried someplace, maybe even have him join us at Kaer Morhen.
You are totally right that the story regarding the Novigrad, Avallach etc. could have been much more developed, however I'm glad it's not because if you look at the state of the modern games, almost every one of them is barely playable due to the bugs, bad performance or just stretched boring content. And the reason for that is over extending the scope of the game, bad resource planning and stupid executives. CD Project red could have gone with the numbers game of by extending this storyline we can gain xx amount of additional gameplay and the present the number of hours to the public and possibly make more sales. However if this have had happened, we might have ended up with something like Cyberpunk on launch or now relevant Dragons Dogma 2. I much more prefer quality games with smaller ambition than some bullshit like nowdays Assassin Creed is. Over ambition kills every project. Great video, thanks!
I don't really get how Wild Hunt even managed to find the world where Geralt and Yennefer were hidden, and how exactly Geralt was able to chase after them? Where did he find the Viper witchers? Can he travel between worlds too? Love your channel, you are doing a great job! Hope you will make a video about Fake Ciri and how it all works with Witcher 3 plot regarding Emhyr and Ciri becoming and empress
My only disappointment in Eredin, is we never got to tag team as Ciri and Geralt against him, for some reason Caranthir was the one who got into a handicap match while Eredin got defeated in a fair fight, which takes away from his final boss status.
He's not meant to be cool though, it's clear from the Witcher 2 that he's unstable and embodies everything that is wrong with the Northern Realms. Radovid postures as the saviour of the North but his sole redeeming quality is to be a great strategist. He's going to take over Temeria, betrayed Kaedwen and left them hanging without an Army, wants to exterminate all non-humans, burn all mages, apothecaries and herbalists at the stake and gave near-unlimited power to a Cult of bigoted zealots who revel in torturing people for fun. In comparison, it's not even far-fetched to say that Emhyr is a significant improvement, and a rather charismatic one at that.
Hey George, glad to see you making this video; I love the books and I really enjoy playing the games, that being said there's a lot of wrong with W3 in terms of story, characters, worldbuilding, plot etc. I appreciate your analysis
Agree and wish more people would address those issues, but usually it's just blind praise and nothing else. I believe you can love the game and also analyze and criticize it at the same time
I don’t get the Triss slander, Vesemir,Eskel and Lambert (his family) could told Gerard everything but they chose not to. It makes you think that they know Triss is the right one not Yen.
Would be a really cool idea if they did some sort of directors cut version where they fully develop all these storylines. It sounds like that game would be like 150 to 200 hours long or something which would be awesome
I agree with everything, but I don't think Avallac'h should be a villain. In the books, his goal was always to destroy the white frost and he thought it would need an Aen Elle + Ciri child to get it done. But between the books and Witcher 3, he learnt that Ciri could do it too. So he shifted from trying to force that super-child to getting Ciri ready to take on the white frost. He never wanted to invade other worlds or kill anyone, in my opinion. He's more like a "good guy", who has no issues to do whatever he thinks is needed to save his world. So I really liked how I was ready to fight him in the tower but he just puts down his weapons like "Nah, there's no logical reason to fight, please just let us give Ciri a good feeling to win her fight!".
The decision to change the White Frost from the books was always the change I found most interesting. I'm still not sure what it's supposed to be in the games. Eridin doesn't bother me because he always was a racial supremacist conqueror, and that's it. Even the idea he killed Auberon is much more downplayed and unlikely in the novels iirc. It was just an accident. I also wonder how much of Witcher 3 content got cut because of how bad CDPRs project management is.
I honestly don't like what they did with it. I feel like it was meant to be something entirely different by spirit, some sort of uncertain, vague threat from the long distant future, dark and inevitable like a simple climate change. Instead they made it into some kind of ice god that you can physically defeat somehow. Also the fact that Ciri can do it herself is contradicting to everything we heard about it prior to the last several minutes of the game
I replayed the witcher 2 recently. It's a real shame Iorveth isn't involved in the 3rd game at all. Maybe he will make an appearance in one of the next games
I don't think that the content was cut because of rushed development because they could have cut side content instead. The focus is always on the main quest. The decisions they made seem deliberate to me. Things change during development, including ideas and storylines. I think they realized that the Wild Hunt is simply not and could not be an interesting antagonist regardless of how much screen time you give them, and that it is better to focus more on the characters that we like than on villains. Otherwise they would risk bloating the story and making it all too convoluted. A simple, evil villain like Eredin can be quite effective if you want to keep the focus on other characters. I'm not even sad that Iorveth was cut. His storyline ended in The Witcher 2. There's no need or reason for having him around in Velen or Novigrad. Why would he leave Saskia? Roche, on the other hand, lost his country. It makes sense for him to be there.
In the books, at least for a bit, Eredin tries to ingratiate himself to Ciri, with witty banter, some taunting and even attempts at sparring. And some of it actually rubs off, i remember correctly. He's given nuance and tridimentionality instead of "scary guy bad". I love the games, but the Books are the pinnacle of these stories. I would LOVE to see people actually tackle these cut content on W2 and W3, via the modding and quest tools, one day. If i could, i'd definitely do it.
In the books, Eredin also lacks ambition to become a king, and is implied to have been surprised over what happened to Auberon. Just saying that the nuance he is given in the book does not translate into a usurper-king-tyrant we see in TW3.
Sadly, to me, the cut content surrounding the Wild Hunt to this day leaves me disappointed in the game, despite all its accomplishments. The third act is quite simply unfinished and rushed. We are told that Geralt has regained his memories of his time with the hunt, but as a player I know as much as I did in the very first game! I hoped with all my being that the enhanced edition would do what the other games did i.e. add loads of content. Loc Muine in Witcher 2 was notorious for how short and to the point it was so a full questline for both paths were added. The netflix armor quest was fun, but with all that Act 3 lacked in Wild Hunt it needed a lot more. I remember telling a friend at release that if you only play the main quest, you will be disappointed and sadly this disappointment has festered slightly. The writers failed, focusing on the second act to the exclusion of the final.
C'mon, there is no doubt that avallach is evil or have you forgotten that it was him that almost succeeded in convincing (Forcing) Ciri to go to bed with the previous king of the Hunt or that whole mission in Witcher 3 set in his laboratory???? Yes, he is helping Ciri, BUT, he is not inocent, we do not know his true reasons AND everything points to two options: 1st - He wants to father Ciri's babies AND 2nd - He wants to use Ciri's powers to his own goals So, yes, Avallach is evil, he might now be outwards evil, BUT evil nontheless
You guys are actually- actually sitting here complaining about the depth and choice impact in&around Novigrad.. take a step back and get some perspective.. you can play that city alone 4 completely different ways.. the game is 10 years old now guys. In terms of depth and story an player agency - this is the role model, not the example to complain about. Someone has lost the plot 😅
Seems everything about the political side of things was overlooked or just droped at some development stage, the Reason of State was the worst questline and a massieve let down for many, think some cutted character from past games, like Foltest's daugther(s), could had fixed that a bit in some way😒. Also I do think big chunks of story were just cut/lost, specially at the epiloge, cos the rushed involvement of Skellige in the final battle sideing with Nilfgaard, comes from nowhere into Avallach's plan🤔
I've been bothered by all these points for years Much as I love Witcher 3 for what it is, I've always loved Witcher 2 more for its tighter story, Witcher 3 is too loose plus all these missing bits
