Spoiler warning: this guide covers every major ending in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. If you haven’t finished the game and want to go in blind, bookmark this page and come back later. If you’re new to the game, our beginner’s guide is spoiler-free.
The Witcher 3 doesn’t have a single ending. It has a handful of big outcomes that combine into dozens of different epilogues: what happens to Ciri, who wins the war, who rules Skellige, who Geralt ends up with, and a few smaller fates along the way. The tricky part is that the choices that matter most don’t look important when you make them. Nobody tells you that a snowball fight decides the fate of the world.
Want a quick answer? Our Witcher 3 ending calculator lets you click in your choices and shows which ending you’ll get.
Quick answer: how to get the best ending
- Ciri as a witcher: make at least as many “positive” as “negative” choices below, and either skip the visit to Emhyr or make sure Nilfgaard loses the war.
- Ciri as Empress: take her to see Emhyr, make at least three positive choices in total (refusing his payment counts as one) and let Nilfgaard win the war.
- Avoid the tragic ending: never make three or more of the “negative” choices.
Ciri’s fate: the five choices that matter
Ciri’s ending comes down to how Geralt treats her in the second half of the game. Does he let her make her own decisions and be herself, or does he protect her, lecture her and treat her like a tool? The game quietly keeps score. At the end of Tedd Deireadh, The Final Age, Ciri flashes back to these moments before she steps through the portal to face the White Frost.
1. The snowball fight (Blood on the Battlefield)
After The Battle of Kaer Morhen, Ciri is grieving and struggling to control her powers. In Blood on the Battlefield you get a timed choice. Suggest something to lift her spirits and you’ll start a snowball fight: positive. Tell her to relax and that she doesn’t have to be good at everything: negative.
2. Visiting Emhyr and the payment (Blood on the Battlefield)
Before heading to Bald Mountain, Geralt can suggest a stop in Vizima to see her father, Emperor Emhyr. This choice doesn’t count as positive or negative by itself, but it decides which “good” ending is possible. Only Ciri who met Emhyr can become Empress.
If you go, Emhyr offers Geralt the rest of his reward for finding Ciri. Refuse the coin: positive. Take the money: negative. Ciri notices, and she doesn’t forget.
3. Avallac’h’s laboratory (Child of the Elder Blood)
In Child of the Elder Blood, Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer find Avallac’h‘s hidden lab, full of notes about Ciri as if she were a lab experiment. She’s furious. Tell her to go for it and help her wreck the place: positive. Tell her to calm down: negative. For once, smashing things is the mature option.
4. Skjall’s grave (Child of the Elder Blood)
Right after the lab, Ciri asks Geralt to come with her to find the grave of Skjall, the young Skelliger who died helping her escape the Wild Hunt. Go with her, which starts Skjall’s Grave: positive. Tell her there’s no time: negative.
5. The Lodge of Sorceresses (Final Preparations)
In Final Preparations, Philippa Eilhart and Margarita Laux-Antille want to meet Ciri at the Chameleon in Novigrad. Ciri is nervous. Let her go in alone: positive. Go with her: negative. If you stay outside, Yennefer lets you in on the fun: Ciri tells Philippa exactly what she thinks of her.
How the score works
Add up the positive and negative choices. If you have at least as many positive as negative choices, Ciri survives. If you have three or more negatives, she doesn’t come back. If you skipped the visit to Emhyr, only four choices count, and a two-two split still counts as a good result.
The last conversation with Ciri before she steps into the portal changes her mood, but it doesn’t change her ending.
The three Ciri endings
Witcher Ciri
Geralt tells Emhyr that Ciri died, and then meets her in White Orchard, where the story began. He gives her a new silver sword, and the two ride off to take a witcher contract together. It’s the ending most fans consider the “best” one, and it’s the one the sequels have built on: the next game stars Ciri as a witcher.
How to get it: at least as many positive as negative choices, and either skip the visit to Emhyr or make sure Nilfgaard loses the war.
Empress Ciri
Ciri takes her place as heir to the Nilfgaardian Empire. Geralt meets her one last time before she leaves for Nilfgaard, and the epilogue suggests she’ll be a very different ruler from her father.
How to get it: take Ciri to see Emhyr, make at least three positive choices out of five, and let Nilfgaard win the war. That last part means completing Reason of State and siding with Roche (see below).
The tragic ending
Ciri doesn’t return from her fight with the White Frost. Geralt, alone and grieving, goes back to Crookback Bog in Velen to take her medallion back from the Weavess, the last of the Ladies of the Wood. It’s a quiet, heavy ending, and it’s clearly meant to sting.
How you get it: three or more negative choices.
Who wins the war: Radovid, Dijkstra or Nilfgaard
The fate of the Northern Kingdoms depends on a chain of side quests in Novigrad. It starts with Triss and ends with a plot to kill King Radovid.
How to unlock Reason of State
- Complete Now or Never, helping Triss get the mages out of Novigrad. At the end, Dijkstra starts A Deadly Plot.
- Complete A Deadly Plot with Dijkstra and Vernon Roche. You also need to have started the other two assassination quests, An Eye for an Eye and Redania’s Most Wanted.
- At the end of Blindingly Obvious, deal with Dijkstra peacefully by offering information about the Emperor instead of fighting your way past him.
Do all that and Reason of State begins. Geralt helps lure Radovid onto the bridge to Temple Isle, where Philippa finishes him off. Then the conspirators turn on each other: Dijkstra wants to keep fighting Nilfgaard, while Roche, Ves and Thaler have already agreed a deal with the Empire. Geralt has to choose.
Radovid wins
If you never complete Reason of State, Radovid lives. He beats Nilfgaard, and Emhyr is overthrown by his own people. The North is saved from the Empire, but Radovid’s pyres keep burning. Mages and non-humans have a miserable time under him. With Radovid on the throne, the Empress ending is off the table.
Dijkstra wins
Complete Reason of State and walk away when Dijkstra turns on Roche. Roche, Ves and Thaler die, and Dijkstra takes power in Redania. His North pushes back the Empire and gets its economy running, but he rules through fear. For a Witcher 3 ending it’s oddly prosperous, and oddly bleak.
Nilfgaard wins
Complete Reason of State and stand with Roche against Dijkstra. Dijkstra dies, the deal with the Empire holds and Nilfgaard conquers the North. Temeria survives in name as a vassal of the Empire, which is as close to freedom as Roche was ever going to get. This is the only world state that allows the Empress ending.
Who rules Skellige
In King’s Gambit, a feast at Kaer Trolde turns into a massacre, and Geralt can help one of Crach an Craite‘s children investigate. Whoever you help takes the throne.
- Cerys becomes queen if you complete Possession and then help her in King’s Gambit. She rules wisely, and Skellige heads toward peace and prosperity.
- Hjalmar becomes king if you complete The Lord of Undvik and then help him. He leads raids against Nilfgaard, and his rule is stormy and costly for his people.
- Svanrige becomes king if you refuse to help either sibling. That’s exactly what his mother Birna was hoping for.
Romance: Triss, Yennefer or nobody
Geralt can end up with one sorceress, but not both.
- Triss: at the end of Now or Never, on the docks, ask her to stay and tell her you love her.
- Yennefer: in The Last Wish, after freeing the two of you from the djinn’s wish, tell her you still love her. The quest fails if you haven’t done it before bringing Uma back from Crow’s Perch, so don’t leave it too late.
- Both: commit to both and you’ll end up with neither. The quest It Takes Three to Tango is very funny for everyone except Geralt.
Your romance decides who you share the ending with, and in Blood and Wine it decides who is waiting for Geralt at Corvo Bianco.
Other fates worth knowing
- Keira Metz: in For the Advancement of Learning, talk her into going to Kaer Morhen and she’ll fight in the battle there. Let her go to Radovid and you’ll find her again in A Final Kindness, and it isn’t a happy reunion.
- The allies at Kaer Morhen: how many friends show up for the Battle of Kaer Morhen depends on the Brothers in Arms quests. The more help you’ve given people around the world, the more help you get back.
Hearts of Stone: Olgierd or O’Dimm
The expansion’s final quest, Whatsoever a Man Soweth…, gives you a straight choice about Olgierd von Everec and Gaunter O’Dimm.
- Save Olgierd: challenge O’Dimm to a wager for both souls and solve his riddle before time runs out. Olgierd walks free, and gives you his sword Iris as thanks. Save before the challenge, because failing means game over.
- Let O’Dimm take him: the pact is fulfilled and Olgierd dies. O’Dimm offers Geralt a reward. It’s the easy way out, and the game makes sure you feel it.
Blood and Wine: the fate of Toussaint
Blood and Wine has three possible endings, and the big fork comes in The Night of Long Fangs. Do you go after Syanna to hand her to Dettlaff, or do you seek out the Unseen Elder to force the vampire into a fight?
The best ending: the sisters reconcile
- Choose to find Syanna. Ask Damien where she is, and search the playroom with Regis.
- Read the governess’s journal in the playroom. The first two entries matter most.
- In the Land of a Thousand Fables, listen to Syanna’s story, and get her ribbon back from the Little Flint Girl.
- At Tesham Mutna, the ribbon saves Syanna when Dettlaff attacks, and you have to fight him.
- In Pomp and Strange Circumstance, look into the fifth victim, then talk to Syanna in her cell and remind her of what her sister did for her.
Get it right and Anna Henrietta and Syanna argue it out in front of the whole court and finally forgive each other. It’s the only ending where everyone you care about in Toussaint survives, apart from Dettlaff.
The middle ending: Syanna dies at Tesham Mutna
If you find Syanna but don’t get the ribbon, Dettlaff kills her at Tesham Mutna. You can fight him or let him go. Either way, the duchess throws Geralt in prison, which starts Burlap is the New Stripe. Dandelion helps get him out, and Anna Henrietta survives.
The bad ending: the duchess dies
If you seek out the Unseen Elder, or save Syanna at Tesham Mutna but fail to change her mind, Syanna kills Anna Henrietta during the ceremony at the palace, and Damien shoots Syanna on the spot. Both sisters die, and Geralt is left bringing flowers to the Temple Cemetery.
Who visits Geralt at Corvo Bianco
The last quest of the expansion, Be It Ever So Humble…, brings a visitor to Geralt’s vineyard, and it depends on the main game:
- Triss or Yennefer, if you romanced one of them.
- Ciri, if you romanced neither (or both) and Ciri survived, as a witcher or as Empress.
- Dandelion, if you romanced neither (or both) and Ciri didn’t come back. He also turns up if you start a standalone Blood and Wine game.
Which ending is canon?
CD Projekt Red has never officially called one ending canon, but the sequel has leaned toward one: The Witcher 4 stars Ciri as a witcher, so the Witcher ending is the natural bridge. That doesn’t make your ending wrong. It’s your Geralt’s story.
Try your own ending
Want to see where your choices lead without replaying 150 hours? Open our Witcher 3 ending calculator, click in your choices and see which ending you get. For more on the people behind these endings, see our pages on Geralt, Ciri, Emhyr and Radovid, or head to the quest database.
