ending message

[shiraz]

at the end it says you can keep playing but "everything is as it was before the game's last chapter" what exactly does this mean? does it teleport you to before the very last quest in white orchard, or...?

[Bite]

You can keep playing normally and exploring the world, but all the important characters have moved on. You're thrown back at a world which is at a state before the final mission and ending of the game.

[shiraz]

Originally posted by BuzzardBee:

It takes you back to Kaer Morhen right before the Something Ends, Something Begins quest.

thanks

[MACIORELLA]

Even when u kill Radovid at they still think he is alive after continuing the game, shouting long live Radovid etc...

[Captain Australia]

I haven't finished the game yet .. but that seems pretty weak.

Re-winding or un-doing story elements just to keep playing in the open world .. I don't like it. I'd much prefer that at the end, I can still explore, finish unresolved quests, maybe even have a few new post-story quests that are like ... "congratulations on finishing, do these quests and see some of the ♥♥♥♥ that happened"

But yeah, the state of the world ... exploring post-story would be an incentive instead of just .. lame, why would I want to do that, disconnect.

Example, if in my story, I rejuvenated Velen and turned it from a war-torn swamp into a pretty place with flowers and bunnies .. I'd like to be able to walk around through those meadows and cuddle the bunnies after the main story concludes .. not get some stupid message "ah, we've rewinded a bit .. go ahead and keep playing if you wanna"

Sorry, rant over.

[Big Boom Boom]

Because your choices never have an impact on the gameworld in the first place, or very very insignificant. Killing Radovid and doing the heist in HoS and you will understand.

[Bite]

Originally posted by Captain Australia:

I haven't finished the game yet .. but that seems pretty weak.

Re-winding or un-doing story elements just to keep playing in the open world .. I don't like it. I'd much prefer that at the end, I can still explore, finish unresolved quests, maybe even have a few new post-story quests that are like ... "congratulations on finishing, do these quests and see some of the ♥♥♥♥ that happened"

But you do get to see what happens with the world after the end of the game. That happens during the epilogue which, depending on your choices, can be up to several different outcomes that lead to different missions and even different (re-branded) environments with specific post-end game situations playing out as you travel.

The game doesn't "re-wind", the game ends as the credits roll after you play the epilogue (You can't replay main story missions, or side stories that are related to the major characters after the credits roll), the only reason you're thrown back into the world is because it's huge and it'd be a hassle to have to start over to soak in whatever you may have missed, plus, you can gear yourself up for NG+.

[v0]

Originally posted by BuzzardBee:

Originally posted by Captain Australia:

I haven't finished the game yet .. but that seems pretty weak.

Re-winding or un-doing story elements just to keep playing in the open world .. I don't like it. I'd much prefer that at the end, I can still explore, finish unresolved quests, maybe even have a few new post-story quests that are like ... "congratulations on finishing, do these quests and see some of the ♥♥♥♥ that happened"

But yeah, the state of the world ... exploring post-story would be an incentive instead of just .. lame, why would I want to do that, disconnect.

Example, if in my story, I rejuvenated Velen and turned it from a war-torn swamp into a pretty place with flowers and bunnies .. I'd like to be able to walk around through those meadows and cuddle the bunnies after the main story concludes .. not get some stupid message "ah, we've rewinded a bit .. go ahead and keep playing if you wanna"

Sorry, rant over.

The reason for it is because there are so many different possible endings, it would have made the final game 10x larger just to accomodate all of them post-game.

If Nilfgaard wins the war, you need to have the Black Sun everywhere. All of the Redaniain soldiers in most of the game must be gone, removed from the game and replaced by Nilfgaardian soldiers. And what of Skellige that was fighting alongside them during the Final Battle? If was Nilfgaard's intention to conquer the isles as well.

If Nilfgaard loses the war, who's in charge -- Dijkstra or Radovid? If it's Dijkstra, his men have to be everywhere replacing both the Nilfgaardian men and the Temerian guerilla fighters. Roche, Ves and Thaler would be dead.

There are three possible outcomes for who's the ruler of Skellige as well. If you supported Cerys, she's the Queen. If you supported Hjalmar, he's the King. If you supported neither of them, both are presumed dead and Birna Bran's son becomes King. He at first agrees to a deal his mother brokers with Nilfgaard but then he turns on them, killing them and going to war with the Black Sun.

Keira could be killed by either Geralt or Radovid, or goes off to find a cure for the Catriona Plagie with Lambert. Lambert could be killed during the Battel of Kaer Morhen.

If Geralt remains with Yennefer, they retire from everything and live a quiet life together, which I won't even comment on since it's so far out of character for Yen, it's nearly laughable, but that's what the game would have us believe.

If Geralt chooses to be with Triss, they're living happily in Kovir where she's advisor to its king and he's semi-retired from being a witcher.

The mages have either fled Novigrad or all been killed. If they've fled, the non-humnas who've remained are gathered up and slaughtered until the fate of the war is decided.

How do you accomodate so many different possible endings?

What CDPR chose to do instead because people tend to leave things unfinished for later on, is once they've completed the game, to leave the world open for exploration but knowing that so many different world states could exist, they chose to drop the player back when things were still relatively stable. Most of the primary NPCs are already gone from the game because this is an excuse to allow the player to simply go finish any remaining quests, contracts, undiscovered areas they may have left.

There's little else they could have done other than to insist that players do all that BEFORE tackling the last few remaining main story quests because after the final one, you would have to be thrown out of the game and forced to start a new one.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ really Lambert can die?? How? Also interesting I haven't thought of what if neither Hjalmar nor Cerys gets crowned... I don't think it's 10x longer but maybe 10% longer to adjust at least some key elements in world after final battle but looking at Act 4 devs clearly ran out of money or manpower or time or combination of those.

[Seerk]

Originally posted by maciora:

Even when u kill Radovid at they still think he is alive after continuing the game, shouting long live Radovid etc...

Not all the time, during the events of the current DLC it can be mentioned that he is dead.