Last week, I made it my sole goal to finish The Witcher 3. I’ve tarried too long, and frittered away my hours slaying unsuspecting monsters and ticking off unnecessary side quests. There’s nothing wrong with this, per se, but I’ve got new games I want to play, and I want to finish Geralt’s story before moving on or, worse, getting bored.

I needed to finish Blood & Wine before following Avallac’h through his portal to get the full experience, though. And I still want to upgrade my Feline Armour one last time, too. I loaded the game in the middle of a jousting tournament in which I was also saving a fair maiden from a curse that was turning her into a bird, so I finished that, too. But then, I was off on a vampire hunt.

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I ignored plenty of exclamation points on my map, and flat out refused to look at noticeboards as I passed through Toussaint’s quaint villages. But, as I was on my way from graveyard to arts show (it makes sense if you play it), one man flagged me down. He was on my exact path, so I stopped and chatted with him a minute to find that his statue’s balls had been lopped off.

Toussaint from a tent in The Witcher 3

This fella was an art dealer, you see, and he charged people to rub his statue’s textured testicles, which would grant them great virility. Apparently. It seems like a bit of a scam to me, but with a pungent trail to follow, who was I to turn down such a side quest? I knew as I followed my nose that I was going against my own rules, and that got me thinking: what is it that makes The Witcher 3’s side quests so engaging?

I think a large part of it is down to fast travel, or the lack thereof. Stumbling across these quests yourself makes you feel like you’re forging your own story, not just following the main route that everyone treads. Ciri’s plight is great, but everyone who’s played the game has seen that, whereas millions might have missed this dick-based detour. Nobody told me to go and see this art dealer, I found him myself, and his impassioned plea implored me to help him out.

Geralt getting a statue's balls in The Witcher 3

Of course, the nature of this particular quest also helps. Magic melons are an inherently intriguing prospect, whether made of stone or flesh. But this isn’t the first time I’ve been distracted while exploring The Continent, so it can’t just be bollock-related. I’ve climbed mountains to slay dragons, explored abandoned castles to grab armour blueprints, and crossed seas to lift curses. With every side quest I experience, I want to do another, because the payoff is always great, and often unexpected.

Even the most simple of quests – save this town from a beastie or bring my wife home from the forest – aren’t as simple as they first seem. Each one is a chance for CD Projekt Red to tell another story, to make this world feel more real, and to bring life to the pixels and code that are the engine of this magical RPG. The side quests are often more compelling than the main story – hence why it’s taken me this long to finish it – and each great tale the game spins tells me to embark on another.

Geralt looking at a statue's missing balls in The Witcher 3

Put simply, the side quests might be the best bit of The Witcher 3. Why do I care about a statue’s balls? Because the game has taught me to care. It hooks you in with a stonemason’s, um, stones, and prior experience has conditioned you to understand that something good will come of following this particularly carnal trail. The results of my genital jolly didn’t disappoint: the old man who stole them told me about all of his sexploits in great detail, before dying of overexertion in some twisted, karmic fate. He died doing what he loved, at least.

I don’t know how long I’ve played The Witcher 3 for at this point, but every minute of micro storytelling has conditioned me to take an interest in anything that crosses my path, be it a fearsome creature or a ballsy theft. It makes for great anecdotes like this one, but after a few hours of play, I’m no closer to stopping the Wild Hunt. That’s just swingers and roundabouts, I guess.

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