After about 200 hours in The Witcher 3 and its DLCs, I can't say I was left thinking "There should have been more", but as it turns out we did all play a somewhat slimmed down version of Geralt's adventures.
In addition to an enormous number of bug fixes, the Brothers in Arms mod by Nexus Mods user MerseyRockoff (as well as a long list of collaborators) aims to restore and rebuild as much cut or inaccessible content as humanly possible. For the most part, we're talking about relatively minor elements: books, journal entries, item descriptions, and especially lines of dialogue that could be found in the game files but were never properly implemented by CD Projekt Red (though they certainly add up!).
There are a few cases, however, of full cutscenes and even gameplay sequences that the mod slots back into the game—and YouTuber xLetalis has made a great video breaking down some pretty key omissions from the excellent Hearts of Stone expansion that players can now experience.
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The big headliner here is a scene that was cut from the Von Everec Estate section of the DLC. As you might remember, during this part of the adventure Geralt is able to witness visions of the past that reveal villain Olgierd's descent into evil and the occult, and the deterioration of his relationship with his wife. As it turns out, there was originally an extra scene, now partly restored by the mod.
It depicts a memory of Olgierd being confronted by a mob of local villagers who've grown sick of all the debauchery and violence and other assorted naughtiness. Naturally, he doesn't react well, and the implication is that he slaughtered them.
With the vision over, Geralt is attacked by the risen spirits of the dead villagers. Or rather… he isn't. They are enemies, and they do run at him, but when they reach him, they simply kneel down at his feet. Very unsettling and seemingly how they were intended to work, rather than a lingering bug.
From there, however, things do get too spotty for the mod to be able to fully restore the rest of the scene. A sequence in Olgierd's dungeons was supposed to play out next, including a vision of him murdering his wife's father, but as it stands none of that is playable—there simply wasn't enough original content to restore.
Still, that one intact section is well worth seeing, adding an extra layer of texture to Olgierd's dark and tragic story—and, as xLetalis points out, perhaps seeing that extra bit of ugliness in his past may make the story's final decision of whether to save him or not even trickier.
Beyond that, the video also shows off some minor restored elements of Hearts of Stone: a scene of Olgierd puffing on a pipe while talking to Geralt, and some lines that play during the boss fight with him at the burning manor. Neither feels essential, but they do just give one of The Witcher 3's best characters that little bit more chance to show off his personality, with moments like insulting Geralt's swordwork and pointing out that immortals don't have to worry about the hazards of smoking.
The likelihood is all of this was cut for good reason—whether to rein in some of the game's incredible scope, to prevent game-breaking bugs, or simply to establish a better narrative flow. But it's still fascinating to see a little of what could have been, and it's a testament to the sheer ambition of The Witcher 3 that over a decade later, there are still new secrets in it to be uncovered.
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