Dataminers found a Witcher 3 quest that put Geralt in hell – aka Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City

The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are worlds apart with little in common, but that didn’t stop CD Projekt Red from writing a Witcher 3 quest where Geralt goes to Night City

CD Projekt Red

The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are worlds apart with little in common, but that didn’t stop CD Projekt Red from writing a Witcher 3 quest where Geralt goes to Night City. The sci-fi RPG’s city was so atrocious to the monster hunter that he thought he’d died and been banished to a horrible afterlife.

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The quest never made it into The Witcher 3, of course, but dataminers from the What Lies Unseen project found intact evidence of the quest and some of its dialogue. What Lies Unseen is a massive undertaking that digs into The Witcher 3’s earlier development builds thanks to a database containing thousands of lines of code from the project’s earliest days (thanks, PC Gamer). Among the many dropped ideas, deleted endings, and altered quests was a mission called Through Time and Space.

Through Time and Space catapulted Geralt into the future and dropped him into Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City alongside Avallac’h, the rather intense sage with designs on Ciri’s blood. Based on the quest dialogue What Lies Unseen found, it's safe to say Geralt was not a fan of what he saw. He thought he'd died and gone to a rather unpleasant afterlife.

• Geralt: What... What is this place? Is this the afterlife?
• Avallac'h: No. Just another of the realities the Spiral leads through... Technologically advanced, but broken. Dying.
• Geralt: Disgusting. This stench, noise... How can you live here?!
• Avallac'h: You should know better. This world is inhabited by humans, not elves.

At least Geralt had the comfort of knowing the afterlife wouldn’t be that bad for him. The quest also had a beggar who Geralt tossed a coin to show up, only he was rich thanks to all the gold he got while in Novigrad. Can’t say I’m sorry CDPR cut that part or the quest concept in general, really. It’s a fun idea to toss around, but seems like it’d add little to Geralt and Ciri’s story. Through Time and Space stayed in the final game, but remained firmly rooted in The Witcherverse.

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Through Time and Space was far from the only quest CDPR made dramatic alterations to. The Bloody Baron questline originally extended further into the game, for example, and several other character arcs spanned multiple regions, bouncing Geralt back and forth between Skellige, Velen, and Novigrad.

We may see more Witcher news soon at The Game Awards 2024, if rumors are anything to go by. The Witcher 4-slash-Polaris finally entered full production, so they may actually be right.