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The Witcher 3: All Endings & Choices (& DLC)

A branch-by-branch guide to The Witcher 3’s endings, covering Ciri’s survival, the Northern war, Skellige, both expansions and the Corvo Bianco epilogue, with the choices that decide each one.

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Spoiler warning: this guide reveals the endings of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and its two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Read it after you have reached the endings, or if you are happy to know them in advance.

The Witcher 3 has no single ending. Its final state is assembled from separate branches: Ciri’s survival and future, the outcome of the Northern war, Skellige’s succession, and the self-contained endings of Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. A Corvo Bianco epilogue follows Blood and Wine’s credits. The map below lists what each branch can produce, and the sections that follow explain how to steer each one.

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Branch Possible outcomes What decides it
Ciri’s survival Alive or dead Counted choices on the Emhyr route
Ciri’s future (if alive) Empress, or the witcher’s path The Emhyr visit and the outcome of the war
Northern war Radovid stays in power; Dijkstra takes power; Nilfgaard wins The final confrontation of the assassination plot
Skellige succession Svanrige establishes a monarchy if the questline is ignored; other rulers depend on Geralt’s involvement Whether and how Geralt takes part
Hearts of Stone Olgierd saved, or claimed by O’Dimm Intervention in “Whatsoever a Man Soweth…”
Blood and Wine Sisters reconcile and both survive; Syanna dies and Geralt is imprisoned; both sisters die The route to Syanna and the handling of the sisters’ confrontation
Corvo Bianco epilogue Triss or Yennefer, Ciri, or Dandelion appears Relationship state and Ciri’s survival after the credits

Before you start: saves and quest order

  • Save manually before every major choice, and rotate several save slots. A guide’s prediction of an outcome does not guarantee that the save has locked it in.
  • Quest order and prerequisites can create edge cases. Check the order in a current guide before the Emhyr visit, the assassination plot, and the Blood and Wine route to Syanna.

Ciri’s fate: the five-moment tally

On the route where Geralt takes Ciri to Emhyr, the ending checklist counts five moments. Each one is either supportive or negative toward Ciri. Three or more negative responses lead to her death; fewer leave her alive. There is no on-screen meter, so you will not see a running count.

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Moment Supportive choice Negative choice
After Kaer Morhen, “Blood on the Battlefield” Suggest a snowball fight. Tell her she does not have to be good at everything. The checklist characterizes this as dismissive.
Emhyr audience Refuse his payment. Accept the coin.
“Final Preparations” Let Ciri meet the Lodge alone. Insist on accompanying her.
“Child of the Elder Blood” Tell her “Go for it” and let her vent in Avallac’h’s laboratory. Tell her to calm down.
“Child of the Elder Blood” Go with Ciri to Skjall’s grave. Tell her to stay focused on the mission.

The Emhyr audience only comes up if Geralt takes Ciri to him, so if he skips it, that moment drops out of the count. The checklist states its threshold for the full five-moment route and does not say how the threshold changes without that moment. Check a current guide for that version before relying on a specific count.

Empress or the witcher’s path

Surviving the tally is the first gate, not the whole answer. The witcher’s path is the other living outcome, and it applies unless both the Emhyr visit and a Nilfgaard victory occur. A living Ciri who was taken to Emhyr can still take the witcher’s path, provided Nilfgaard does not win the war.

The Empress outcome requires both conditions. To reach it:

  1. Keep Ciri alive through the five-moment tally.
  2. Take her to Emhyr.
  3. Ensure Nilfgaard wins the war. The checklist’s route is to side with Roche and his allies after the assassination. The Northern war section below explains the alternatives that stop this result.

The Northern war and Skellige succession

Northern war

These are world-state results shown in the closing slides, separate from Ciri’s own ending. They resolve in the final confrontation of the assassination plot:

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  • Leave the Radovid plot alone. Radovid remains in power, and Nilfgaard does not win.
  • Kill Radovid, then let Dijkstra take power by eliminating Roche’s group. Dijkstra rules, and Nilfgaard does not win.
  • Side with Roche and his allies after the assassination. Nilfgaard wins.

Skellige succession

Skellige’s succession is its own quest branch with its own ruler outcome. Ignoring the questline lets Svanrige establish a monarchy, and getting involved changes who ends up ruling. The guides behind this overview describe the ignored-questline result but not every alternative ruler, so confirm those against a current Skellige walkthrough before relying on them.

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Hearts of Stone: O’Dimm’s bargain

The Hearts of Stone ending is decided in “Whatsoever a Man Soweth…”, when O’Dimm comes to claim Olgierd’s soul. Geralt has two options:

  • Intervene to help Olgierd. Olgierd is saved.
  • Do nothing, or let the decision timer run out. O’Dimm claims Olgierd’s soul, removes Geralt’s scar, and offers Geralt a wish.

This ending is self-contained. It does not feed into Ciri’s fate or the Northern war.

Blood and Wine: one confrontation, several decisions

The Blood and Wine ending turns on how Geralt approaches Syanna. He can seek her through the fairytale route, or he can go to the Unseen Elder. The result then depends on how the sisters’ confrontation is handled. Several decisions made earlier in the story feed into that point, so the final dialogue choice is not the only condition.

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The guide describes three broad results:

  • The sisters reconcile, and both survive.
  • Syanna dies, and Geralt is imprisoned.
  • Both sisters die.

The branch contains irreversible steps, so read the consequence of each one before taking it.

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Corvo Bianco epilogue

The Corvo Bianco visitor is decided after Blood and Wine’s credits, based on Geralt’s relationship state rather than the expansion’s ending:

  • Committed to a single Triss or Yennefer romance: that character visits.
  • No partner, and Ciri survived: Ciri visits.
  • No partner, and Ciri died or vanished in the tragic ending: Dandelion visits.

This is an epilogue variation rather than a fourth Blood and Wine ending.

Editions and where the DLC fits

As of October 2026, CD PROJEKT RED’s official Witcher page lists The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered and the Complete Edition. The page says owners can update the game to obtain Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, and it describes the Complete Edition as the current offering in digital storefronts. Platform, region, and digital or physical format all affect what you can buy, so check the storefront listing before you purchase.

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What the evidence supports

The ending conditions in this guide come from a current third-party ending checklist and a community wiki rather than an official walkthrough. The Blood and Wine outcomes and the DLC overview come from a third-party guide. Specific dialogue options and thresholds are the details most likely to differ between versions, so verify them against the build you are playing. The guides cited here do not say how many players reach each ending, so this article gives no frequency figures.

Playtime claims for the expansions are publisher scope statements from 2015, not measured playtimes. CD PROJEKT RED’s 2015 expansion announcements described Hearts of Stone as a “10-hour-plus adventure” and Blood and Wine as a “20-hour-plus tale.” The same announcement quotes co-founder Marcin Iwiński with promotional language: “Both our expansions offer more hours of gameplay than quite a few standalone games out there.”

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