CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the capstone of the renowned Witcher series of games and is a beautiful, immersive experience that still captivates new players 6 years later. However, even well-polished games are not immune to the curse of bugs, especially games like The Witcher 3 that are massive in scope.
Over the years, CD Projekt Red has released a number of patches and updates for the game that have removed both minor and major bugs. However, there are some crazy glitches still present in the game, and game-breaking older glitches can still be experienced by players who roll back the version of their game.
Updated January 28, 2022 by Erik Petrovich: Witcher 3 glitches are relatively uncommon, but that doesn't mean it's free from them. As CD Project Red's reputation has been tarnished by the release of Cyberpunk 2077 fans of the company are going back to their other titles and discovering that they aren't as polished as they once thought. Some of the most common glitches in The Witcher 3, like morphed faces, NPCs without heads, and all the countless Witcher 3 glitches to do with Roach, still haven't been fixed. For as amazing a game as The Witcher 3 is, there is a lot that could be much more finely tuned when it comes to obeying the laws of physics – again, looking at you, Roach.
8 Decapitated NPCs...
A common glitch seen in many character-led RPGs is the missing head glitch. Head animations tend to be separated from the rest of the body in most games, so when something goes wrong with the head, it simply disappears leaving the rest of the body and clothes fully intact.
This can be a bit jarring to stumble across, and nobody really knows how to replicate it – some players think it's a memory issue related to older PCs and gaming consoles. It's not the most common glitch in the game, but it's one that you'll never forget if you happen to come across it.
7 ...And NPCs With Morphed Expressions
Similar to the decapitated NPCs glitch is the morphed facial expressions bug. Sometimes an NPC's facial expression modifiers will mess up and show a horribly disfigured version of an otherwise "normal" NPC. This doesn't happen to Geralt as much in The Witcher 3, but it does appear to affect a number of NPCs throughout the world.
This was actually one of the most common glitches in the first Witcher game, and utterly disturbing NPCs (and Geralt's own face, even) can frequently be seen in the Enhanced Edition of that first entry. When it comes to Witcher 3 glitches, this is one of the most disturbing.
6 Roach Defies Physics Suspiciously Often
Some of the most commonly-cited glitches in The Witcher 3 all relate to Roach, Geralt's trusty steed. When calling Roach he may suddenly appear on top of a rooftop, halfway underground, may come bounding in at light speed from the other side of the map, and has even been seen standing sideways and upside down, waiting for Geralt to somehow mount up.
In more recent years CD Projekt Red has gained a reputation for glitchy games, mostly because of the massive bad press from the shoddy release of Cyberpunk 2077. If this old and common bug hasn't been fixed yet, it likely never will be.
5 Pang Of Conscience Glitch
The Pang of Conscience is a sword found just outside Kaer Morhen in a ruined tower. From the fast travel point in Kaer Morhen, the player must guide Geralt through cliffs and ruins to the south of the fast travel point until they come across a ruined tower opposite a C-shaped stone wall. The player must climb up the ladder of the ruined tower until they reach the top, where they will find a skeleton possessing two items: the Pang of Conscience sword and a note, the Letter of Apology.
The sword is worth hundreds of gold, but don't leave the tower yet. Save the game immediately upon looting the skeleton, then load back in. The sword will be re-lootable every time the player reloads, making Geralt's carry weight the only factor for mass gold-making. This isn't so much a glitch as one of the many now-patched Witcher 3 exploits, though players can still use the exploit if they roll back their version.
4 The Infamous Pearls Glitch
The Pearls glitch was one of the easiest bugs to exploit in the early days of The Witcher 3. The player simply had to buy out the stock of Shells and Sea Shells from the merchant in Hierarch Square, located in Novigrad, then dismantle these items at the next door blacksmith for pearls and black pearls. These are worth significantly more than the shells, and all the player has to do to repeat this exploit is wait for 5 days for the merchants to have gold again.
While this glitch was patched out in the 1.05 update, if you roll back the game version to 1.04 the exploit will still be, well, exploitable. It's a huge help for end-game purchases but isn't necessary to continue Geralt's journey. This won't break your game literally but will break the gold-making aspects of the game almost totally.
3 Xbox Series X Fast Travel
The Witcher 3 recently received free graphics updates for newly released versions on next-gen consoles like the Xbox Series X. However, these upgrades come at one cost: the chance to break the fabric of reality. Maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but the power of new consoles and gaming PCs ironically seems to be almost too much for older games to handle.
On the Xbox Series X, if the player fast travels anywhere, there is a chance that the incredibly fast load times will break the world's loading for a moment. The player will temporarily be trapped in a de-rendered plane of distant blurry polygons until the rest of the game can catch up. Usually, this doesn't cause any issues, but it has caused some players' games to crash, likely overloaded. It's still impressive, though, just how fast new consoles' SSDs load the world – even if the game itself needs to catch up.
2 The Infamous Beehive Glitch
The Beehive Glitch was perhaps one of the most morally abhorrent glitches found in The Witcher 3 to date, but it was also one of the most effective. In White Orchard, the dwarf blacksmith Willis is just up the road from the rest of the town – and a small beehive. The player had to use the Aard sign to knock down then guide it close to Willis at his smithy. After setting off the bees, they would kill Willis and leave Geralt all of his loot, including the gold the player recently spent with the dwarf.
All the player had to do then was meditate for an hour, which respawned Willis, where he could be killed again by the bees. In patch 1.21 the exploit was removed, but if you reinstall The Witcher 3 without this, or subsequent, updates they can experience what is certainly the evilest way to make a very quick buck.
1 Stuck In The Ground
Some glitches are just unfixable, tied to either the physics engine or terrain of the world, and have never been patched. One of the most famous glitches is of course Roach standing on top of houses and being where he shouldn't be, but this ultimately doesn't break the game. However, one bug that has stayed with The Witcher 3 and breaks the game is getting stuck in the ground.
Whether due to a break in the code for object collision in 3D space, or because of a piece of misaligned terrain, Geralt will sometimes "slip" through the ground and never be able to get back out. The glitch is difficult to replicate and happens seemingly out of nowhere, but it can force a player to restart the game from a previous save or suffer being 3 feet under the ground until Geralt's model decides to pop back out of the ground.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is available for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X/S.