The Skellige Isles are an archipelago in the Great Sea, west of the Continent, and home to a proud seafaring people who answer to their own jarls and to no king of the North. The islands are all jagged cliffs, pine forests, snowy peaks and grey water, with longships in every bay and a drinking horn in every hand. Skelligers worship Freya and Modron, settle feuds with axes and sagas, and bury their dead at sea.

The largest island, Ard Skellig, is home to Kaer Trolde, the seat of Clan an Craite, where Geralt arrives for the funeral of King Bran and the contest to choose the next ruler. The candidates include Crach an Craite’s children, Cerys and Hjalmar, whose quests take Geralt from the ice-bound island of Undvik to a haunted village in the north. Further east lies Hindarsfjall, with the temple of Freya, the village of Larvik and the Garden of the goddess, while Spikeroog, An Skellig and the smaller isles hide pirate coves, drowned shipwrecks and old cairns. Ciri passed through here too, and her trail leads Geralt to Mousesack, the old druid, and to Avallac’h.

Skellige is also where some of the game’s toughest beasts live: sirens and harpies on every cliff, ice giants and ice trolls in the frozen north, the werewolf Morkvarg at Freya’s Garden, the Dragon of Fyresdal, and water hags like Abaya in the bays below Kaer Trolde. It is the place where Yennefer asks Geralt for help with The Last Wish, and for many players it is the most beautiful region in the game, as long as you do not mind a bit of rain and a lot of question marks in the sea.