The Witcher 3 is a great game. A masterpiece, even. But it is also a deeply, deeply silly game in many places. While it's easy to become immersed in the journey of Geralt as he hunts monsters and solves quests in CD Projekt RED's beautifully crafted environments, there'll be plenty of illogical and downright bizarre elements to The Witcher that will be sure to leave you rolling your eyes and shaking your head.
In this list, we'll run down some of the most ridiculous things about The Witcher 3.
10 Geralt Learns How To Wear Clothes
Level-locked equipment is easily the most insane mechanic in The Witcher 3. Every piece of armor and every weapon comes with a required level, even duplicates of the same item. This leads to the absurd situation where a level 10 Geralt can wear a level 8 pair of trousers and carry a level 15 version, waiting until he kills enough monsters to learn how to put his pants on.
Likewise, our hero will refuse to wield swords that are overpowered for his level. Got to give those monsters a chance, after all. The poor witcher can even commission armor exactly tailored to his specifications and be unable to put it on.
9 Gwent Is Serious Business
Gwent, The Witcher 3's in-universe collectible card game, is a big deal to everyone from beggars to nobles. Gwent collectors are willing to pay huge sums of money and even murder each other over rare cards or the outcome of a tournament. And Geralt may be the biggest Gwent obsessive of them all. Leshen terrorizing the area? Need to find Ciri and save the world from the White Frost? All that can be frequently put on hold to indulge Geralt's Gwent addiction.
While Gwent is a welcome diversion in The Witcher 3 and was popular enough with players to get its own spin-off game, there's something not quite right about this world of card obsessives.
8 Fists Of Fury
Fisticuffs are handled differently in The Witcher 3 than the regular combat, and thanks to limited options, can end up much more difficult than fights against giant griffins and draconids, making our veteran Witcher look like quite the glass-jawed chump.
The organized one-on-one tavern brawls are usually manageable, but bouts with multiple opponents are huge exercises in frustration. In one instance, while pursuing his unhealthy Gwent addiction, Geralt can brawl with a non-monstrous NPC and lose with a game over, suggesting that this enemy tore him apart bare-handed in a room full of people. When it's finally time to punch out a bear, it's actually a relief.
7 Using Your Witcher Senses To Find A Ladder
Becoming a witcher entails a rough childhood but does come up with upsides, especially in the form of heightened senses, being able to pick out visual details and smells a normal human would miss.
In-game, it highlights important items and allows Geralt to do things like trail a monster's scent through thick forest. But sometimes the game holds your hand a little too much, such as when investigating a building during one quest, Geralt is prompted to turn on his super-sense to...find a ladder that's just laying there on the floor.
6 What Is Going On In Skellige Waters?
The Witcher 3 spices up the usual fantasy loot container fare with smuggler's caches -- crates of goods suspended underwater, attached to floaters on the surface. Ostensibly containing contraband to be picked up later, the contents are often questionable but the game really goes crazy with their placement.
This is especially insane around the Skellige Isles, where you can barely sail for a few minutes without bumping into stashes of smuggler's caches, which are all naturally surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters. This raises two questions: How are these meant to be secret, and how in the world are the smugglers meant to retrieve them?
5 The Crossbow Is A Nerf Gun
Geralt is handed a small crossbow near the beginning of the game, which he uses to bring down flying enemies or kill underwater enemies (in one shot!). You'd think that one of the most fearsome killing machines of the middle ages would also be quite good at dispatching your human foes.
Alas, shooting is not the witcher's way, and the bandits of Velen respect this so much that they'll take bolt after bolt to the face without dropping, forcing you to engage them honorably with your sword.
4 Geralt The Skeptic
Given Geralt of Rivia's profession, it does make sense that he knows more about monsters than your average citizen, and our hero can often draw upon his knowledge to identify a creature based on a confused or vague description from an NPC.
So it seems unreasonably harsh when Geralt reacts with scorn to a poor man who's tormented by an ''imp'', even when imp-like monsters do exist. As it turns out, the culprit is a perfectly normal doppler.
3 The Amazing Horse
If Geralt's witcher abilities place him above a normal man, then his trusty steed Roach must be a god among horses. Not only is Roach completely invulnerable, she'll cross miles in an instant to come to Geralt's whistle, wherever he may be. At one point, Geralt finds himself shipwrecked on Skellige, and sure enough, trusty Roach is found not too far away, saddlebags and equipment all intact.
A psychedelic side quest in the Blood and Wine DLC allows the witcher to have a chat with his old friend and hear Roach's perspective on her abilities but...just don't expect any logical explanation.
2 Confused Smiths
Most merchants in The Witcher 3 have a specialty, and smiths tend to sell either weapons or armor, not both. But from their in-game actions, you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise. That vendor may be hammering out a sword on his anvil every day but have none in his inventory, or sit in front of a stack of armor and shields that he refuses to sell.
Special mention goes to one armor merchant in the Novigrad market who continually hawks his ''top-notch swords!'' to sell to everyone except Geralt, probably the wealthiest sword-collector in the world.
1 The Monsters Of The World Are Dying Out, Apparently
Supposedly both witchers and the monsters that they hunt are a dying breed facing the end of an era. Though you wouldn't know that playing The Witcher 3, where the plot doesn't always fit what happens in-game. Veritable hordes of ghouls, wraiths, drowners, nekkers and all manner of dangerous creatures await to murder anyone who veers even slightly off the beaten path.
Even as Geralt's colleagues lament their bygone days, it seems like witcher business has never been better, at least for the White Wolf.