@lelcar: Well it was several months since i made these descisions (although im playing the outcome now) but isnt the thing that you choose Triss and then Yen and then Triss and then Yen again and even though they are "Clear with the situation" they are kinda fed up on you by this point. Im pretty sure that if you focus your efforts throughout the game one of them will fall for you. (Until Geralt wakes up with "amnesia" and a new chick in Witcher 4 that is, maybe even in the expansions who knows)

Yeah I got the bad ending. I didn't realize it was the bad ending, I just thought it was the ending. Then I went online to discuss the ending with other people, and I found out I got the bad ending. I'm gonna go back and see the good ending, but I didn't hate the bad ending. I especially like the epilogue. It was a nice way to tie up the end.

Of the five choices that impact the ending, I thought three of them were really obvious which one was the "right" choice. Furthermore, if you don't visit the emperor, I think that is a point in your favor, so you don't even have to worry about that one.

Whether to go with Ciri to see the sorceresses was one that I got wrong. After the second game I didn't trust them at all, and I was ready to fight back if I had to. The other not so obvious choice was whether to tell Ciri to calm down or trash the lab, and I'm so glad I decided to trash the lab. Yeah, it's immature, but it leads to probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire game, and it's a GREAT bonding moment between Geralt, Yennifer, and Ciri.

Though if I had gotten the bad ending, then I would've been pissed too, so I understand where you're coming from.

Yeah, I got this ending as well, I wouldn't say it was a "bad" ending, just an unhappy one.

I wish video games hadn't trained us to look at multiple endings the way we do. Sure the happiness of the characters varies wildly between the different outcomes, but you shouldn't feel punished because your story concluded with people dying or being unhappy. In fact I think the "bad" ending is the most consistent with the tone of the story, no Witcher ever died in their bed after all. I want us to get away from the idea that a story with an unhappy conclusion is a punishment, sometimes that's the best way to end a story.

@hunter5024: I think a bad ending has to be more of a walk off move in storytelling. If I think of games with good sad or bad endings they involved some choice perhaps but mostly were linear (Red Dead Redemption, Last of Us, Walking Dead). Any time you start getting more endings involved and more of them are positive than negative and people are invested in the characters most are going to want to see a good ending. If two of the endings were negative (say the Empire ending and the games current bad ending) I think that could be more interesting to your point. Either way I do agree with your point I even wanting a good ending here especially if there were two. Hard not to.

I apparently fucked up 3/5 now that I see what ending I got. Kinda pissed off because all my choices felt like I just wanted more info or I didn't want shit to get blown up. Fortunately I know what choice I can change, because I simply didn't want to see the lab blown up in case it would cause fallout later on.

It took me about 2 hours to fix the ending, but I did and now it's done. The markers/flags for the ending should have been different things because I didn't feel like any of them were negative except for that obvious one with the money.

@golguin:But that's what makes them interesting. If they were heavily telegraphed then why not just give you a Deus Ex/Mass Effect 3 door effort and be done with it? By obscuring the importance of the choices they give them much more impact. Parents don't get to pick and choose how their kids turn out. They don't know what things will have an impact and what will be ignored. I guess that must be part of the low level terror of being a parent? All you can do is try your best and hope they turn out ok.

Almost every game which has multiple ending has a clearly delineated break or marker or whatever to let you know that is is GOOD and this is BAD and then you get to pick. How dull. Why should this one be like those onee? In a game that can make feel sympathy for a man who beats his wife into a miscarriage don't you think throwing out all of the greyness and laying your options bare is a bit weak?

Maybe you don't and that's fine, to each their own etc. etc. This game was probably a bit of a bummer at the end for you. But plots in games that are actually intriguing and surprising are few and far between so I'm glad the Witcher did it the way it did.

I don't know, maybe once we breakdown any game's process of having the decision lock into place for whatever ending you end up getting, maybe they all look flawed. But, I did like how the ending comes about through Ciri's actions, and her actions are informed by (more or less) what kind of father you were in the amount of time you spent with her before her final showdown.

It all fits into The Witcher as a franchise, both games and novels, basically subverting the trope of you (in the novels the star) not being the chosen one, but being the man standing behind the chosen one and serving as leading voice with where the chosen one may go, or do.

I just finished the game, after not playing it in 6 months or so. I don't know if I got the "good" or "bad" ending, but everything wrapped up nicely and everyone seemed happy. Geralt and Yennifer retired together in the north while Ciri became a successful witcher. That seems pretty good to me. Is there a better one?

@plasmaduck: There are three endings. You got the one that is probably best for Geralt, but not best for Ciri. In that ending she goes off to learn how to become heir to the empire because she thinks she can make more a difference.

I disagree that the Ciri as empress ending is better for her. She most certainly can do more good for the world in that ending, but I think she'd be much happier as a witcher. I ended up getting the Ciri becomes a witcher ending and absolutely consider that as my favorite of the possible endings.

Yeah that seems better to me. I never got the idea Ciri wanted to be empress. She seems way too carefree for that. Though if there ever was a followup I guess there would be complications since the epilogue suggested she got quite famous, meaning the emperor would probably find out she survived. In any case I felt satisfied, especially since most of my friends who played the game got a "bad" ending.

First time I finished the game last summer I got the worst ending, with regards to ciri and the romances. Was pretty pissed.

Recently did a NG+ playthrough, making sure I got the "best" ending. Turns out that one was a bummer too.

Not nearly as pissed this time. I've learned that such is just the way the world is in the Witcher universe.

It's just you, learn to make proper decisions. I played the game completely blind and got the best ending and a proper romance choice, only now am I finding out there are worse/bad endings (like the empress and Ciri's death).

You really have to try to get the bad endings, I find it funny that people think barking orders at Ciri are not obviously bad choices. I got negative points from going with her to the sorceress' lodge, but still got the best ending so the game is pretty lenient about this honestly.

That's false, you think Ciri being depressed is good for her? The argument can be made that it's the best for the empire, but not at all Ciri. The best ending is objectively the one where Ciri becomes a witcher.

Hopefully someone still uses this forum... been playing this game on and off (5 total game restarts) since the game 1st came out. And I for the life of me cannot keep Ciri alive. No matter how many "positive" choices I make. And as far as other sites advise, Ive done all the listed positives. Unless I missed something in between any of them. And cant find anyyy walkthroughs to help guide me!

Heeeellllppp!?!?!

At the end of the day its a story, a tragic or bad ending isn't necessarily a bad thing, this is just how your story went, it was a journey, no need to be mad about it.

I haven't played the Witcher series (yet), but I do have something to say about the nature of bad and good endings. I agree with the notion that not every ending should be happy and rainbows, but I also hate the idea that a game can demand how many hundreds of hours from the player and then spit in their face at the end.

For example, Persona 4 is a phenomenal game, but it falls into the exact same trap. After 104 hours, I get locked into a bad ending and essentially kicked out of the game because I didn't make the extremely specific choices the developers wanted me to? SCRRRRREEEEWWWWW that. After that amount of time, I think I'm entitled to some kind of satisfying conclusion, even if it's not exactly happy. Luckily I had a save right before the cutoff, so I was able to jump right back in and fix my mistake, but MAN was I livid.

I understand that some games wish to be more than just games and want to push their stories in different directions than just "You saved the day, hooray!" But developers need to understand that at the end of the day, their games are still games and players need to feel that their games, especially gigantic timesinks like Persona and Witcher, have adequately rewarded them for the effort that they've put in. If not, it can be an extremely souring experience (see Mass Effect 3).

It's a tough line to walk, but I don't think telling the player to go screw themselves because of a few minute choices throughout a hundred-hour long or more experience will ever be a good solution.

I think they nailed one aspect really, really well: parenthood isn't about having it your way, and it's not about them having it their way either. What it sounds to me is all us players making choices that we think serve Geralt's needs. But really, the narration actually makes it about someone else, and we as the protagonist become a temporary bystander that can shout advice, or wrest back control. It's tough, because we as players are not really used to making choices based on someone else's needs, and especially because they treat these needs like a person would: unspoken, mildly inferred, and madly thematical.

I liked those choices. I also liked them because so many of us keep treating Ciri like a predictable NPC, and expect our choices to always be right.