In the quest demonstrated to us, Geralt was asked to clean out the nasties near a lake. There were monsters preventing a vaguely crooked merchant from retrieving his goods - easily dispatched. But then we were approached by elves. They had been waiting for days to pick up a couple of crates of weapons. It became clear that the merchant didn’t care about the zombies: he wanted these pointy eared freedom fighters dead. You’re left with a choice: murder them in cold blood, or let them leave with the weapons cache. At first, your choice appears to make no real difference: the rewards, and the immediate impact, are the same. How strange - aren’t RPGs meant to clearly show the effects of your actions?

Fast forward eight hours. Geralt is to meet a dwarven contact in a castle. When you arrive, he’s being chased by guards but gets rescued by the same elvish terrorists that we met in the swamp much earlier. It seems that in The Witcher, the consequences of your choices are revealed much later in the game. It’s meant to make you feel the effects of choice, but to prevent the sense that, at any point, you could quit, reload, and see the other option. Before each set-piece like this, you’re treated to a flashback of your actions. If you do take on the elves, your dwarvish contact is still chased, but eventually cornered in a dark alley. He’s butchered moments later.