Platted That! – The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Disclaimer: This Platted That! comes with some minor gameplay spoilers. Typically Platted That! includes a screenshot of the trophy, but due to technical issues, that screenshot no longer exists. Send us a tweet and we’re happy to fight with you about it on Twitter.

While critics may not have adored Netflix’s new Witcher series, fans seem to love it. In an unprecedented moment, the number of people playing The Witcher III: Wild Hunt has skyrocketed in a resurgence not seen in a single-player game this old ever before. We Platted Wild Hunt a while back, but given the Witcher fever inspired by Henry Cavill’s glaring, we thought we’d dust off this classic and provide a few tips for anyone who wants to grab the Plat on their journey through Velen, Novigrad, and the isles of Skellige.

General Tips

The Witcher Platinum isn’t that difficult. Very few trophies are missable, and the ones that are have been made increasingly easy by all of the post-launch work that’s been put into the game. Many of you will be going at the Plat after your first playthrough several years ago, but even if this is your first attempt at Wild Hunt, consider cranking the difficulty all the way up. Not only will this reduce the time it takes to Plat to one playthrough, but in some ways the game is much more enjoyable on high difficulty settings.

The higher difficulty setting will certainly make the opening area, White Orchard, into much more of a grind. To put yourself on the path to finsihing “Death March,” players will have to grind out levels early on, and go into early combat encounters as if they were boss fights. Within a few levels, with upgrades to gear, parrying, the quen sign, and health, as well as the more narrative heavy sections later on, “Death March” won’t feel near as difficult as the name implies.It will require a constant investment in Geralt’s side-skills, especially alchemy, a series of systems and upgrades that can be entirely ignored on lower difficulties. It ends up creating a more immersive experience overall.

However, because “Death March” can still offer some severe challenge, we recommend holding off on some quests/storylines until after completion of the main story, when players can adjust the difficulty levels at their leisure. At some point, the game will offer up a “point of no return” warning, and advise completing any outstanding quests. This is slightly misleading. The only side quests that need completed (there are many) prior to the main story are any that involve main characters. Those that influence trophies are: Keira Metz, The Bloody Baron, the Skelligan political situation and Radovid. Everything else, including Gwent, witcher contracts, and witcher gear hunts, can be finished after the story on a lower difficulty.

There are multiple endings for Wild Hunt, but no specific ending is required for the Platinum. One critique of Wild Hunt was that it was easy to get caught up in the world and completely lose sight of the narrative. But this game offers a great set of characters and an engaging fantasy plot, so stick to the critical path as much as possible and enjoy the ride. After you’re done, there’ll still be a lot of work to do…

Combat Trophies

The real slog in the Witcher is completing the combat trophies. There’s a location in Velen known as The Devil’s Pit. The critical path will never take you here, nor are there any quests that involve this location. However, it provides a decent amount of low-tier enemies to grind these out. The hardest, by far, requires killing three enemies with head-shots from Geralt’s little crossbow. It’s not fun, it’s touchy, and it’s definitely the worst trophy in the entire game. Everything else will require using certain bombs, or killing a certain amount of enemies very quickly. It’s all pretty standard stuff and should be pretty quick to do for any high level character. Some of these you may accidentally do on higher level difficulties, but most of them will be a lot less difficult on easy.

Gwent Master/Witcher Contracts

There’s just a few more trophies you’ll want to keep an eye on as you go through the game. There are a few trophies related to the greatest minigame in RPG history: Gwent. Chiefly, players will need to win a high-stakes Gwent tournament and collect all cards. Don’t get ahead of yourself. I know you eat Gwent-scrubs in Velen for breakfast, but the tournament will be against full decks that play real nasty, and shouldn’t be attempted with anything less than a complete deck of Gwent cards. Even then, mistakes happen, so make a save before you start the tournament (there won’t be an opportunity to save until damn near its over). Collecting Gwent cards used to be more difficult, but after several patches its pretty easy to figure out what you’re missing and where to get it. Just challenge every Tom, Dick, and Harry you come across, and you’ll collect ’em all in no time.

The witcher contracts in the game are side-quests that involve unique, high-level monsters for Geralt to track down and resolve, one way or another. A handful of these are required for the Platinum, and while theey can be resolved in a number of ways, any completion will pop the trophy. There is another trophy for defeating two contract targets without using any potions, oils, or bombs. Its all about the witcher and his sword. There are a finite number of contracts, so this trophy can be missed. Just pick two contracts to do bare-bones (preferabbly where the target is anything but a spectre or a fogling), and on lower-difficulties this won’t be a problem.

And that’s pretty much the whole thing, you’ve found the limits of possibility. Of course, we also highly recommend both DLCs for Wild Hunt, and if you haven’t checked out the books, you could be one of those mega-pretentious fans who “well, actually”‘s every Reddit post. But that’s up to you. As always, let us know what Plat you’re working on! See you on the Path, witcher.

Be sure to check out our other Platted That! articles for games like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and The Outer Worlds!