The Witcher bugs

These days, every game has bugs, whether they are major or barely noticeable. The Witcher is no different.

All bugs listed below are found to have been occurring in game version 1.3 and 1.4:

Crash Bugs

 * Random crashing, often when (auto)saving.
 * Frequent crashes have been reported by some people playing on Windows Vista. Others seem to be able to run it without crashing too often. See Technical Information for a Vista-specific tip.
 * Crashes continue to occur when saving or using the Journal or Inventory after having used Alt+Tab or Ctrl+Esc frequently (usually more than ~ 5 times) during a gaming session.

Major Bugs

 * Shani may disappear completely if in Chapter II you manage to get both the Old Friend of Mine quest to advance to "Bring Liquor" and the Anatomy of a Crime quest to advance to "Get the corpse from the Gravedigger".
 * Contrary to its description, the Quen Sign renders Geralt invincible rather than providing damage absorption based on Sign level.

Intermediate Bugs

 * Slain monster corpses can often obstruct the player from picking up remains, noticeable when the lever cursor is displayed but clicking has no result or the "Remains" text keeps flashing. Corpses also prevent the player from picking up dropped items nearby until they disappear. In addition, when clicking to move elsewhere, often the game makes to run exactly on top of a nearby (or even further) corpse instead, including in the opposite direction.
 * Even when sufficient endurance is available to cast a spell and Geralt is not otherwise hindered, at times Geralt will seem unable to cast any spells/signs (targeted at an enemy or the floor) unless he moves away a distance.
 * If monsters are "stuck" (either when just spawned or getting stuck in combat) they can become completely unhittable by Geralt's swords (Strong, Fast, Group) unless Geralt moves away to allow the monsters space to move or blasts them using a sign. Hitting such monsters will always result in "Dodge" being displayed.
 * Problem with the walk mesh in Triss' house. Sometimes Geralt can get stuck and will no longer be able to move near the chimney (running from door along the left of the Chimney with activated command to talk to Alvin who was standing a small distance behind the chimney).
 * Hanged Man's Venom continues to work after it has worn off. (Tested on Gwalhir in Chapter IV, had no other effects on Geralt or the blade. It also works for meteorite swords and the rune sword in Chapter V.) (Update: new information indicates that all oils which increase critical effect damage may permanently apply their effects on the sword used if a game is saved with the oil applied and then loaded again).
 * Fistfighters stall when Geralt switches from attack to dodge allowing him to quickly beat them while taking no damage.
 * Entering old mine before talking to the Order armourer completely disables all signs. when using signs, Geralt only stops, but makes no motions or castings. loading and changing areas does not fix it. Meditation does.
 * The Alchemy List may disappear during the game making it impossible to make potions unless you know the recipe in your head.
 * Talk icon desapears and not come back in several situations. To it came back to work again is needed to uninstall the game, clean the registry entries, and reinstall.

Minor Bugs

 * Geralt may get stuck at the middle of a combat move, for example after clicking to initiate the 3rd combo in a sequence. In such cases, Geralt will not swing his sword and will just stay there. Clicking again will often give the "too fast" message or do nothing.
 * Workaround: Switching to another style, then back (for example, if you were in Fast style, switching to Strong style and back to Fast again) will allow him to restart the sequence from the beginning or switching targets or moving around works as well.


 * It is possible to have more than 1 quest dice set available from Chapter I and Chapter II, though they serve no additional purpose.
 * If you outdrink the Boozer in the Outskirts Inn, you can not receive any reward for outdrinking the Boozer in the Hairy Bear Inn as they seem to be linked.
 * When siding with the knights in Blue Eyes after having sex with the vampires, one of Patrick's squires will remain neutral (blue rather than green). Luckily, he can not be attacked regardless.
 * Characters continue to be announced when entering/exiting the reception room at the New Narakort Inn when the Announcer/Herald has long gone.
 * White Rayla's adjutant waiting at the transition to Murky Waters when you helped the Order during Gold Rush in Chapter III tells you that the purpose of helping the Order is to prevent a massacre like the one in the Outskirts. However, this makes little sense if Geralt chose to stand with the villagers in Chapter I rather than Abigail.
 * Several crypts throughout the game spawn monsters in inaccessible areas, some crypts also seem oddly linked to others, such as St. Gregory's Crypt and the Druid Cave in Chapter V.
 * Left cloister door in the Epilogue does not allow Geralt to enter.
 * Several doors in Old Vizima can be opened but there is no transition beyond them.
 * One of the lumberjacks in Chapter II offers to sell red meteorite but none is actually given to Geralt, under some circumstances (to be elaborated).
 * Dog tallow, while listed as normal base for blade coatings, has 5 slots rather than 3.
 * Using the auto-looting feature, when Geralt currently has a small weapon other than a dagger or a torch, auto-looting a dagger from a corpse will allow carrying of two small weapons until areas are changed, upon which the first weapon is dropped onto the floor.
 * Inaccessible Barrel near Shani's house entrance in the non-human quarter (next to the stairs) in Chapter III only.
 * Inaccessible Sewant mushroom in Sewer crypt.
 * Misplaced bed mesh on second floor of the house near the New Narakort Inn with two white myrtle plants in front. Inhabitants will hover in the air when trying to lie on the bed.
 * Missing dialogue lines when meeting werewolf and telling him he is a monster at the start.
 * On the Order side, Rayla's death cutscene does not match up with the cutscene before and after it.
 * When using special group steel and becoming afflicted with pain, silver sword hovers in the air. Afterwards, Geralt can not attack (too fast) unless he moves a bit.
 * Often when having used a special attack, the next attack in the sequence will be carried out with considerable delay as the charging bar appears even with a short click before vanishing and continuing the sequence.
 * Han may spawn Berbercane instead after excessive harvesting in Lakeside.

Quest-related Bugs

 * In Chapter IV, when trying to reconcile the Vodyanoi and humans, the Lady of the Lake asks you to bring her a gift from each of the parties to demonstrate their good will. If you choose the wrong ones, go to the Lady and then go back to get another item, the old one is not given back, Geralt will keep it in his quest items for some reason. Even once the quest is complete, the right items are given to the Lady but the wrong ones Geralt picked up will stay in his inventory.
 * In Chapter IV, if talking to the Lady of the Lake about destiny before talking to Dandelion, Dandelion's part of the identity quest can not be completed and the player loses out on experience. The "What happened in Vizima" question can then also be asked and answered endlessly without any results.
 * In Chapter IV during The Heat of the Day quest, the quest log is not updated after saving Celina the nightwraith using the wreath of immortelles. Geralt also can only tell Julian that he could not save Celina even when he did.
 * If following the Adam's suicide path of the Heat of the Day quest, Celina will approach Geralt at night after saving her sister Alina and talk to him. However after the cutscene talk, she turns hostile and the cutscene runs again. After she says "Woe is me" she attacks Geralt, giving him no chance to give her the wreath of immortelles. The cutscene's context does not suggest Celina should be attacking Geralt after it.
 * Frequently, Geralt has to leave Black Tern Island after slaying Dagon and return to have Berengar spawn for the Berengar's Secret quest to advance.
 * The dialogue option to talk to Dandelion about Berengar during the hostage situation in Chapter IV does not work properly — Geralt must talk to Dandelion about it again before going to Vizima by boat to update the quest.
 * When taking the vodyanoi amulet out of the altar during A Long Way from Home, there is a pop up noting "300 orens given to Yaren Bolt".
 * When having completed all aspects of the investigation during Chapter II and having spoken to the prisoner at the hospital and after then seeing Raymond at his home (and saving him), he tells Geralt that he needs to disappear for a while. The moment Geralt steps out, the Resolute Boy tells Geralt that Raymond wants to see him.
 * It is sometimes possible for a Ghoul near the Outskirts encampment to follow a merchant or traveller at night, running into the ambush party linked to She's No Early Bird, killing them before Geralt can save Vesna, as the cutscenes can not be cancelled and the ghoul continues to attack.

Graphical Glitches

 * Sometimes the textures may have random coloured pixels in them, as if that part of texture memory had been corrupted. It is often a symptom of the GPU overheating, but in this game seems to happen from time to time even on a healthy video card. This, however, is not to be confused with the red blinking artefacts appearing in Geralt's vision when he has a high level of toxicity in his blood due to potions.
 * Sometimes a tree or other object in the distance will look like it stretches up all the way to the sky. This is generally a result of an invalid value for a vertex in a polygon, causing the polygon to stretch to the border of the screen. It is also often a symptom of the GPU overheating, but in this game seems to happen from time to time even on a healthy video card.
 * When drinking with Odo in Chapter I as part of his quest, Odo and Geralt will get stuck in the drinking motion and remain otherwise completely motionless.
 * When deciding to fight Vincent the werewolf and defeating him to the stage where he turns into Vincent the human: Using Aard to stun him and then using a finishing move to kill him results in Vincent still playing the stunned animation loop instead of adapting to Geralt's killing move. In the test case of "pull backwards — slash legs — fall — flash neck"
 * Radovid the Stern sometimes will not appear in either/both the mirror cutscenes at the Salamander base in the Trade quarter.
 * Creatures outside of the set AA render range play animations at approximately twice their normal speed.
 * Crows outside the set AA render range appear to be laying on the floor with their wings spread as if in flight.
 * If Geralt performs a Coup de Grace on large creatures that are knocked down by Aard, such as Wyverns, he sometimes performs his move where he stands rather than where the enemy lies, making it look as if Geralt was burying his blade in the ground which "somehow" kills the monster anyway.
 * The hair of characters passes through the body rather than flow on the body instead, see screenshot below.
 * Midday Bride is completely static during the mirror cutscene, seemingly lacking animation.
 * Geralt has his arms stretched out and is static when he receives Raven's armour until the end of the conversation.
 * Aldersberg keeps walking on the spot in the Chapter V starting cutscene until Foltest starts talking.
 * Sometimes the map is not showing, the dots with names are showing but everything is 'undiscovered' it will stay like that.
 * Texture bug, everything is showing lines and pillars like you see when you are in a mapmaker or something this will stay like that.
 * The pool of water Geralt must wade through to get to the striga's crypt entrance does not ripple like water, nor does it make any splash sound fx when ran through. (to be confirmed).
 * When Geralt gets his armour and the two swords, the sword sheaths (holsters) are not seen. Many users have complained about the lack of sheaths, but designers have said that it was impossible to work around acceptably.
 * If Nvidia SLI is enabled, all light sources (most notably torches) "bleed" into all textures, and can be seen through everything. (walls, characters, etc) This can be rectified by using certain graphics extension programs such as nhancer.

Audio Glitches

 * At the Dike in Chapter II, the fireplace will play a crackling fire sound even when not lit.
 * Starting from Chapter III until the epilogue, a Thunder sound will play each time the player loads a save game and sometimes when the player changes into any area. (workaround available)

Other errors or inconsistencies

 * When Adam speaks to Alina after he has become a ghost, the subtitles read "love of my life" but Adam says "my love" instead.
 * Order squires give a much higher amount of experience than Order footmen or Order knights, which are weaker and tougher respectively.
 * Cutscenes show Geralt still using the standard model steel and/or silver swords while he is carrying swords with different appearances, like Moon Blade and D'yaebl. Cutscenes in the later acts of the game will show him with two swords even if the player has him with one or no swords intentionally.
 * In the Prologue, Vesemir, Lambert and Eskel all have normal eyes with round pupils rather than mutated-looking eyes like Geralt's.
 * Putting a sephirah into an obelisk results in "Sephira and obelisk merged. The old spells still work". Sephirah is misspelled and missing an h.
 * Cutscene before Dagon, Geralt circles his silver sword but when the cutscene ends, he auto draws his steel sword instead.
 * Geralt calling Grand Master a theif (thief) on the way up to the heat of the vision.
 * Dandelion repeats/duplicates his "not to be trite" line in the cloister garden of the Epilogue.
 * Geralt seems to not know who Alvin is during the conversation with Triss after the sensors are placed.
 * Geralt seems to not know Ithline's Prophecy during the conversation with the Novice Nurse in the epilogue even though he has been exposed to it repeatedly during the Acts.
 * The studded leather jacket features 1 potion and 3 potion slots and the excellent leather jacket features 3 potions and 3 potion slots even though the former should only be able to carry 1 and the latter 2 potions at most and thus have at most 1 or 2 slots.

Additional Information

 * forum thread describing official support sites
 * IN-GAME TECH forum thread (Not the official support site, but friendly and informative)
 * Fun bug shot
 * Geralt stuck bug
 * Hair glitch
 * Fun face & sword stuck bug

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