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The Witcher 3 Endings Explained: Conditions, Choices and Save Points

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has no single "pick your ending" moment. The final outcome is built from several separate threads: what happens to Ciri, who wins the war in the North, who rules Skellige, how Geralt's love life ends, and how the two story expansions wrap up. This guide covers the exact conditions for each thread and the moments where a manual save will spare you a full replay.

Heads up: full spoilers for the base game, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine follow.

Every ending at a glance

Thread	Possible outcomes	What decides it	Save before
Ciri	Witcher, Empress of Nilfgaard, does not return	five conversations with Ciri, the visit to Emhyr, the outcome of the war	Blood on the Battlefield
The North	Radovid, Dijkstra or Nilfgaard wins	the plot against Radovid, siding with Roche or Dijkstra	Isle of Mists
Skellige	Cerys, Hjalmar or Svanrige	which candidate Geralt backs	King's Gambit
Geralt	Yennefer, Triss or alone	which romance you complete	The Last Wish and Triss's quests
Hearts of Stone	Olgierd saved or his soul taken by O'Dimm	whether Geralt steps into the final wager	the final quest of the expansion
Blood and Wine	sisters reconcile, one dies, or both die	the ribbon, how you deal with Dettlaff, the talk with Syanna	The Night of Long Fangs

These threads are only loosely linked. A happy romance will not save Ciri, and choosing the King of Skellige has no effect on the war on the mainland, so it makes sense to plan each one on its own.

Points of no return: where to save

Autosaves can easily overwrite the moment you need, so keep a few named manual saves before these quests:

Before you pick up Uma. Yennefer's romance is sealed in The Last Wish, which has to be finished before Geralt collects Uma. A later save will not bring that scene back.
Before Triss's quests. Her romance runs through A Matter of Life and Death and Now or Never. Keep a separate slot for each.
Before Isle of Mists. The game warns you about this point of no return. Finish the early steps of the plot against Radovid, Triss's storyline and the Skellige succession first.
Before Blood on the Battlefield. This is where the key conversations with Ciri start, and where you choose whether to visit the Emperor in Vizima.
Before Final Preparations and Child of the Elder Blood. Two of the five decisive choices sit here.
Before Reason of State. This Act III quest is best finished as soon as it appears, before the final war chain begins.

The expansions need their own saves: before the last quest of Hearts of Stone and before The Night of Long Fangs in Blood and Wine.

The five choices that decide Ciri's fate

There is no visible meter, but the logic is consistent: Ciri responds to trust, not control. Supportive answers let her make her own call. Controlling answers try to decide for her.

Moment	Supportive choice	Controlling choice
Blood on the Battlefield, after Kaer Morhen	cheer her up with a snowball fight	suggest a drink and tell her she cannot be good at everything
Audience with Emhyr (if you go)	refuse payment for finding her	take the money
Final Preparations, meeting the Lodge	let her talk to the sorceresses alone	go with her
Child of the Elder Blood, Avallac'h's lab	let her vent and wreck the lab	tell her to calm down
After the lab	agree to visit Skjall's grave	say there is no time

How many supportive answers you need:

If Geralt took Ciri to Emhyr, there are five choices and Ciri returns with at least three supportive ones.
Without the visit, the payment question never comes up, so four choices remain and two supportive answers are enough.
Three controlling answers lead to the tragic ending either way.

The safest approach is to pick the supportive option every time rather than play the threshold. Two choices trip people up: walking Ciri to the Lodge feels caring but counts against you, while letting her smash the lab counts in your favour.

Ending 1: Ciri becomes a witcher

This is the most direct good ending. Ciri has to survive the fight with the White Frost, and the road to the throne has to be closed.

How to get it:

In Blood on the Battlefield, head to Velen without visiting the Emperor.
Pick supportive answers in every remaining conversation.

If you already went to Vizima, this ending is still possible. Ciri becomes a witcher as long as she survives and Nilfgaard does not win the war, meaning Radovid or Dijkstra comes out on top.

In the epilogue Geralt tells Emhyr that Ciri is dead, then has a special silver sword made in White Orchard and gives it to her at the inn. The scene with the Emperor is misleading, so wait for the inn before deciding how things turned out.

Ending 2: Ciri becomes Empress

Three conditions must line up: Ciri returns, Geralt took her to Emhyr, and Nilfgaard wins the war. The visit alone is not enough.

Step by step:

Before Isle of Mists, complete A Deadly Plot, An Eye for an Eye and Redania's Most Wanted, the Roche questline against Radovid.
In Blood on the Battlefield, choose the audience with the Emperor and refuse his payment, which counts as a supportive answer.
In Act III, during Blindingly Obvious, stay friendly with Dijkstra and give him information about Ciri. This unlocks the next stage of the plot.
In Reason of State, help remove Radovid, then side with Roche, Ves and Thaler against Dijkstra.
Give Ciri at least three supportive answers out of five.

In the epilogue Ciri tells Geralt she will take the throne, and they say goodbye. The coronation itself is never shown. It counts as a good ending because Ciri lives, but the farewell is bittersweet.

Ending 3: Ciri does not return

With three or more controlling answers, Ciri does not come back from her fight with the White Frost. Her death is not shown directly, but the game frames this outcome as a tragedy.

A set of choices that reliably leads here: a drink instead of snowballs, going with her to the Lodge, stopping her from wrecking the lab and refusing the trip to Skjall's grave. If you visited Emhyr, taking the money adds one more strike.

In the epilogue Geralt returns to Crookback Bog, kills the last of the Crones and recovers Vesemir's medallion, which Ciri had been wearing. The scene cuts as monsters close in, leaving Geralt's own fate open. Romance and political outcomes still play out as normal.

The war in the North

The fate of the North gets its own epilogue slides and depends on how Geralt handles the plot against Radovid.

Outcome	What to do
Radovid wins	stay out of the plot by skipping A Deadly Plot or Reason of State
Dijkstra wins	help remove Radovid, then side with Dijkstra against Roche
Nilfgaard wins	help remove Radovid, then protect Roche, Ves and Thaler from Dijkstra

A Nilfgaardian victory matters only for the Empress ending. For the witcher ending, either of the other two outcomes works. If Nilfgaard wins, the Emperor agrees to restore Temeria's former lands.

Skellige: the new ruler

There are three options. Help Cerys an Craite or Hjalmar an Craite through the Clan an Craite storyline and King's Gambit, and your chosen candidate takes the throne. Ignore that storyline and Svanrige becomes king. This choice has no effect on Ciri or on the war.

Geralt's love life

Yennefer. Return her feelings in The Last Wish and do not start a romance with Triss. In the epilogue they settle down together.
Triss. Confess in A Matter of Life and Death and confirm it in Now or Never without returning Yennefer's feelings. Geralt leaves for Kovir with Triss.
Alone. Happens if you romance neither, or try to romance both. In the second case the two sorceresses give Geralt a memorable send-off and he ends up on his own.

Tip: make a manual save before the second confession, watch the scene with both sorceresses, then reload to keep the romance you actually want.

Hearts of Stone: Olgierd's fate

The first expansion launched on 13 October 2015. Geralt fulfils three wishes for Olgierd von Everec on behalf of Gaunter O'Dimm, and the ending is decided when O'Dimm comes to collect Olgierd's soul.

Olgierd is lost. Geralt stays out of it and O'Dimm takes the soul.
Olgierd is saved. Geralt wagers both their souls, sets O'Dimm a challenge and wins. Olgierd is freed from his heart of stone.

The wager only becomes an option if Geralt has first learned who O'Dimm really is. Do not skip the optional part of the final quest where Geralt investigates him, or you will have nothing to bargain with.

Blood and Wine: how Toussaint ends

The second expansion launched on 31 May 2016 and ends in one of three ways for the sisters Anna Henrietta and Syanna.

Best outcome: both sisters live. During The Night of Long Fangs, go after Syanna, read the journals in the playroom and enter the Land of a Thousand Fables. Get the ribbon from the little girl there by paying for it or beating her at Gwent. Then free Syanna. When Dettlaff tries to kill her, the ribbon teleports her to safety and Regis deals with the vampire. Convince Syanna to forgive her sister in the final conversation and the two reconcile.
Syanna dies. Free her without the ribbon. Dettlaff kills her on the spot, Geralt is arrested, and Dandelion gets him released.
Both sisters die. Go to the Unseen Elder so he summons Dettlaff. Geralt kills him, but Syanna murders Anna Henrietta and is cut down by the guards.

Afterwards Geralt gets his own vineyard estate. Who visits depends on the base game: Yennefer or Triss if you completed a romance, Ciri if she survived, and Dandelion if Ciri did not return and Geralt has no partner.

Which ending is the best?

There is no objectively best ending. It depends on what you care about.

For Ciri as a character, the witcher ending is the strongest: she is free and stays close to Geralt.
For the world, the Empress route gives the most stable result, with an Emperor who pledges to restore Temeria's lands.
For the fullest finale, aim for the witcher ending, a completed romance with Yennefer or Triss, and the best outcomes of both expansions. The vineyard epilogue then brings together the people closest to Geralt.

Replaying the branches on PC

Named manual saves are the easiest way to test every ending on PC. Two more things to keep in mind:

Mods. Some mods change dialogue and conditions. If you want the original endings, replay the key branches on an unmodded install.
Game version. Since 14 December 2022 the game has the 4.0 update with ray tracing and DLSS 3 on PC. It is a great excuse for another playthrough, but ray tracing puts much more load on the graphics card. If you are already thinking about the next game in the series, see our guide to the PC you will need for The Witcher 4, or browse ready configurations in our gaming PC range.

The Witcher 3 also has one more story ahead: CD Projekt Red has announced a third expansion, Songs of the Past, planned for 2027. Once it arrives, this guide will gain a few new branches.