Prologue
This segment of the game serves to ease you into The Witcher 2, but it’s important not to confuse it with a tutorial. You can (and probably will) die a few times the first time you play through. You’ll do fine if you remember to make intelligent use of the many potions, traps, and bombs you have on hand. Don’t hoard these items—use them freely in conjunction with signs like Quen, Aard, and Yrden. Play around with the different signs during this segment of the game and get a feel for which ones you like using.
Note that this walkthrough is compatible with Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties. Players who wish to play on Dark difficulty are advised to read the “Dark Mode Guide” section. Note that Dark difficulty is not intended for a player who is going through the game for the first time. It is recommended that a player interested in Dark mode first complete the game on Hard difficulty.
The Dungeons Of The La Valettes
The game begins with Geralt in the dungeons of La Valette Castle, being interrogated by Blue Stripes commander Vernon Roche. Geralt tells the story of how he came to be in prison, which triggers the quests for this chapter. Geralt’s dialog responses trigger different parts of the prologue’s gameplay. You can play this section out of order, but this is not recommended. It’s best to select Geralt’s responses in order, from top to bottom, so you experience the story in a linear way.
Day of the Assault: Dawn
The Assassins Of Kings
Geralt begins his story with his last day of service to King Foltest of Temeria. He came into the king’s service one month ago, when he saved him from an assassin. That assassin may be another witcher, making Geralt’s position precarious. Geralt’s goal on his last day of service was to leave Foltest’s court as quickly as possible.
The Assassins of Kings is one of the two quests that represent the main plot of The Witcher 2. You will not complete this quest until Chapter 3, but certain decisions you make in this and other parts of the game can progress it in different ways. These decisions are noted when appropriate in the walkthrough.
By The King's Will
After the opening cutscene, this quest begins with a brief conversation with Triss in your tent. The dialogue options here are mostly for flavor, so you can say whatever you like. After your conversation with Triss ends, begin exploring the camp. You don’t need to rush toward the meeting with Foltest. Instead, explore the camp area thoroughly. You can find lots of herbs to pick and minor treasures to claim by scanning the area with your medallion.
Speak with the Temerian recruit at the bottom of the slope that leads into camp to learn a bit more information about the main storyline. Just beyond that, you can find a pair of burly, shirtless Crinfrid reavers discussing their apprentice, Newboy, who’s made a bet involving a magic amulet. Speak to them to trigger the beginning of the Melitele’s Heart side quest.
Melitele's Heart
The conversation you have with Newboy and the Crinfrid reavers determines how the first part of this quest plays out. To trigger the quest, simply approach the reavers and press the interaction button to begin a dialogue scene.
After your wolf medallion accurately assesses that the amulet is magical, you are given conversation options. If you say “The amulet could help,” then Newboy goes into battle not wearing armor. He is fated to die in this situation and you’ll find his body later in the game. You will not be able to progress the quest any further.
If you say “I doubt it,” Geralt persuades Newboy that the amulet is magical but convinces him that he should still wear armor into battle. In this scenario, Newboy keeps the amulet but survives so that you can encounter him later in the game. If you take this route, it is possible to obtain the amulet, but you have to kill Newboy and loot his body to get it.
If you say “Where did you get this?” you find out about the amulet’s origins and then get another set of dialogue tree options. “I’d say the amulet could help you” results in the outcome where Newboy dies in battle. “It’s infused with magic, though what kind, I don’t know” results in the outcome where Newboy wears both the amulet and plate armor into battle, forcing you to kill him later if you want to continue the quest.
If you say “Seems to me the amulet brings trouble,” you can convince Newboy and the reavers that the amulet is magical but cursed. Newboy decides to get rid of the amulet and the reavers offer to give it to Geralt in payment for his advice. You must choose to accept the amulet, called Newboy’s talisman, to continue the quest. Newboy wears plate into battle in this case and survives to be encountered later in the game.
If you obtain the amulet this way, you will discover that it really is cursed. So long as you are carrying it, it reduces Geralt’s armor rating by 10 percent. At this point in the game that’s not a steep penalty, since chances are your armor isn’t very strong to begin with. Later in the game, this penalty can become crippling. So why do you want Geralt to get the amulet? Well, if he has it at the end of the Prologue, he can undertake a quest in Chapter 1 that uncurses it. Once you lift the curse, the talisman becomes a beneficial item that offers a vitality bonus.
By The King's Will
Continue to explore the camp. In an area to the southeast on your map, you find soldiers practicing with training dummies. Knock down five of them and this will count toward unlocking the Experienced attribute, which helps Geralt level up more quickly. In the very rear of this area, you can find a soldier who offers to arm-wrestle and a soldier who offers to play dice poker if you talk to them.
You can also attempt to obtain the useful Pyromaniac character attribute before moving on. As you should see by glancing at the map of Foltest’s camp, there is a circle of vigor you can activate there. It happens to be right next to a campfire. If you are very patient, you can activate the circle of vigor, then start walking through the campfire to set Geralt on fire. This is unlikely to kill you if the circle of vigor is boosting your vitality regeneration. You need to take a certain amount of damage from fire to get Pyromaniac, so you are going to have to set Geralt on fire about 15 times to get the attribute. Pyromaniac is extremely useful for alchemist Geralt builds or, really, any player who likes to use the Incineration critical effect. Pyromaniac boosts any base chance of incineration by an additional 20 percent (that is, if you have a +10 percent chance of incineration, Pyromaniac boots it to 12 percent).
After you’re done exploring (and looting) the camp, head toward King Foltest’s location. Once you near the marker, you trigger a series of cutscenes. After the cutscenes, there’s a sequence where Foltest asks you to use a spyglass to help him aim his ballista at Count Etcheverry.
To hit Etcheverry, you need to aim just a little bit below him with the spyglass, so that you’re hitting the wall. You’re roughly trying to aim at where Etcheverry’s feet would be. If you do this correctly, Geralt gives King Foltest the correct instructions to hit Etcheverry and other soldiers on the battlement with the ballista. This unlocks the Eagle Eye achievement for you and the Precision character attribute. If your aim is off, then the ballista’s bolt misses and you may face more enemies on foot later in the quest.
After the ballista fires, you follow King Foltest into his massive multistory siege tower. Once you reach the top of it, By the King’s Will concludes and you briefly return to Geralt’s conversation with Roche in the present. At this point, select “The assault” to trigger the next part of the Prologue’s series of main quests. Again, you can choose to skip ahead, but this isn’t recommended.