When CD Projekt Red released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt back in 2015 the game’s main questline was met with critical acclaim, but it wasn’t all that made the RPG special. Master of the Arena is a side-quest on the Skellige island of Spikeroog, and one of the most creative missions across the game’s huge open world.
The Witcher 3’s Master of the Arena quest shows the range CD Projekt Red was able to pull off in its quests, and gives hints at the sort of mission diversity which fans can expect in the studio’s upcoming games. When compared to some of the best-received major questlines in the game, like the Ladies of the Wood quest, it shows just how rich the world of The Witcher is even when the game isn’t telling one of its main stories.
The Witcher 3’s Master of the Arena side-quest can be found by traveling to the arena in the small village of Hov on Spikeroog. The village is known for its arena, where the warriors of Skellige would come to fight the Champion of Champions to try and claim the title of Skellige’s greatest fighter for themselves. Once the player has arrived at Hov, they can speak to one of the guards in the tower by the arena to trigger the quest.
The quest involves one of the most creative small characters in The Witcher 3, Ulle the Unlucky. Ulle the Unlucky is a wraith that is haunting Hov’s arena, preventing the famous fights that draw the people of Skellige to the village. The guards tell Geralt the story of Ulle, and how he came to become a wraith.
Ulle was a warrior of Skellige who lost every single bout he got into, until he picked up his unfortunate nickname. One day, he was challenged by a Skellige jarl – a chieftain – as a joke. The jarl mocked Ulle the Unlucky so much that for the first time in his life Ulle found his motivation to win, becoming overwhelmed with rage and humiliation and killing the jarl in front of a tournament audience. In revenge, the spirit of the jarl cursed Ulle to be doomed to walk to the arena forever after his death, doomed to lose every fight that came his way.
When Geralt approaches Ulle in The Master of the Arena, the ghost is far from the wailing wraiths and monsters the witcher usually encounters. Ulle is, simply put, bored out of his mind. Plenty of guards and adventurers have passed through and beaten him in the fight he is doomed to lose, and after that the ghost simply reappears after a couple of days. If Geralt challenges and defeats Ulle the Unlucky, the ghost’s warning proves true, and he will reappear in the Hov arena after a few days of in-game time.
The solution to this quest is fantastically simple, but the game brilliantly gives no more hints on how to complete it other than those hinted at in the story told by the guard. Unlike the bitter-sweet ending of Ladies of the Wood, which always ends with a huge price being paid no matter what Geralt of Rivia chooses, all the player has to do to free Ulle from his torment is use their wits.
Ulle the Unlucky’s spirit can be freed to spend eternity at the feast of heroes if Geralt simply lets the ghost beat him in a fight. It makes total sense within the logic of the story, and requires the player to think outside the box, especially within the usual confines of an RPG where losing a battle on purpose is unthinkable to most players. If CD Projekt Red’s creativity remains the same in the studio’s future RPGs, players have a lot more to look forward to in the developer’s future.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One
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