The Witcher :: how to solve the Act One "Beast Battle" problem.

The Witcher has a major game-breaking design flaw in Act One, to do with the final 'Beast Battle'. This was not corrected in the Enhanced Edition or the patches up to version 1.5.

The problem: Many players cannot defeat the final spectral 'end boss', "The Beast", by any means — because (many hours or even days ago) they did not acquire some potion or oil that they thought was unimportant at the time. Even worse, there is no way to save the game before the main "Beast" battle. Players affected by this problem must instead use an earlier savegame to go back perhaps six or ten hours in time, and then play all over again. Tedious, and very annoying. I can quite understand why so many seem to give up, uninstall, and eBay the game at this point — the game's makers have simply lost the trust of the player due to an appalingly bad game-design decision.

But there is a solution to get around this problem, a simple process that involves editing a recent savegame file:

1. Find your second-to-last savegame in your My Documents / The Witcher / Saves. Pick a savegame made at some point that will allow you time to grease your blade and drink a few potions before heading off to confront the mob.

2. Make a backup copy of your chosen savegame, in some safe place like the main My Documents folder.

3. Install the Witcher Savegame Editor (TWEditorEnhanced.zip) using the simple instructions provided by the author ScripterRon. (It may need the latest version of Java installed first).

4. Use the Savegame Editor to edit your chosen savegamefile. The Editor interface is very simple. Editing the savegame in this way saves you hours of time playing the game over again, because it allows you to add Inventory items for:

* Blizzard potion (slow motion, more precise hits)

* Willow potion (immunity to stun)

* Spectre Oil (coats your blade and helps defeat spirit beasts)

You might also add basic Swallow potions (you'll probably have run out during your battles with the Salamanders), and also reduce your Toxicity to zero. Try to avoid the temptation to increase/add other things like gold! Then save and exit.

The above were items that should have been found in Abigail's cave, put there by the game designers for players who hadn't thought to pick them up hours before. Most professional game developers would have had their quality-assurance and playability testers pick up that glaring major game-stopping fault long before the game got to be an Extended Edition DVD.

5. Load The Witcher game, and then load the edited savegame. Now drink the Willow potion (immunity to stun - it's the Unknown one, the left one of the two new "25" potions), and grease your blade with Spectre Oil (unless it's already greased with something else, in which case it seems the earlier grease must first wear off before applying another), and save the Swallow and Blizzard potions for the heat of battle if needed. The battle should now be somewhat easier, and finally winnable.

The Prologue and Act One have a great many flaws — which many reviewers have commented on in reviews of both the original and Enhanced editions (*) — but this is the worst flaw because it effectively breaks the game.

Now you can enjoy what is otherwise an excellent game! It does get better after Act One....

* "an opening chapter so boring you could use it to mine for diamonds" - Games Radar

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