Everything That Happened Between Witcher 2 & Witcher 3
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt takes place around half a year after the events of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, but a lot of action occurs in this short interim. The history of the world in which The Witcher games are set is long, arduous, and full of battles between dynasties of kings and emperors, notably between the Northern Kingdoms and the Nilfgaardian Empire. This history of The Witcher games is based upon Andrzej Sapkowski's best-selling fantasy novels that also influenced the hit Netflix show, though there are many character differences between The Witcher games, books, and show. The Witcher games take place in the early 1270s, several years after the events of the source material, within which the majority of the action takes place in the 1260s.
Players are invited to learn about the world of The Witcher at the same pace as protagonist Geralt of Rivia as, in the first Witcher game, Geralt wakes up near the fortress of Kaer Morhen with amnesia and all memories of his previous life stolen. Geralt spends much of the first Witcher game in Temeria getting involved with bandits, kings, elves, mages, and mercenaries. The sorceress Triss Merigold takes care of amnesiac Geralt and becomes his lover, promising to tell Geralt of his past life and nurse him back to his former self.
Over the course of the second game, Geralt begins to regain his memories. Witcher 2 choices affect Witcher 3's story in terms of the development of Geralt and the world around him as he rebuilds his former life. With the help of the sorceress Síle de Tancarville, Geralt recovers his memories regarding Yennefer of Vengerberg, a powerful sorceress and his lover from the books and series. Despite being a major character of the franchise, Yennefer only makes her first game appearance in flashbacks in The Witcher 2. This restoration of Geralt's memories leads to Geralt leaving Triss and beginning to explore the continent in search of his lost Horsewoman of War immediately after The Witcher 2.
Geralt's continental travels within his search for Yennefer prior to The Witcher 3 are explored in The Witcher comic, Matters of Conscience. This comic picks up immediately after the end of The Witcher 2 and deals with what happens to Vergen if players chose to leave the dwarven town under the rule of the shapeshifting dragon, Saskia. Much like how players can run a bomb build in Witcher 3, Geralt utilizes a bomb to defeat a dracoturtle that has been terrorizing Vergen. As well as this monster hunt, Geralt also fights a succubus and a vampire between the second and third Witcher games, continuing his duty as a Witcher and monster-hunter-for-hire. Geralt's bloody battle with a bruxa as contracted by the citizens of White Orchard takes place just before the third game and is shown in the chilling cinematic trailer for The Witcher 3.
Within Geralt's months of road wilderness in between The Witcher 2 and 3, he caught up with old friends. The prologue of The Witcher 3 opens with Vesemir and Geralt on the Path together searching for Yennefer, so sometime prior to the third game Geralt must have gone via Kaer Morhen to collect his mentor. Within this time, Geralt's situation seems to improve as he gains a horse, whom he of course names Roach, who can be seen hilariously floating in the Roach on a Roof meme from Witcher 3. This inclusion is likely a technical improvement between 2011's Witcher 2 and 2015's Witcher 3.
Geralt is not the only character whose quality of life has improved. While Geralt was out clearing his name of Kingslayer, his friend Dandelion got a house in Novigrad and engaged in a genuine romance with a woman named Priscilla. Dandelion, the famous bard and womanizer, somewhat surprisingly obtained property and settled down between The Witcher 2 and 3.
The rising tension within the world of politics came to a head just before The Witcher 3 as the Third Nilfgaardian War began, with the Nilfgaardian Empire launching their biggest invasion yet into the Northern Kingdoms. The Witcher's Nilfgaard has a history of machinations and atrocities that continue in the interim between The Witcher 2 and 3, as they conquer the kingdom of Temeria. This kingdom was the setting of the first Witcher game but is non-existent in The Witcher 3, being one of the latest to fall to the Nilfgaardian onslaught. Survivor accounts in The Witcher 3 reveal that the kingdom was taken in just a few days and the Emperor Emhyr var Emreis took up rule in the capital, Vizima.
Trouble also occurs in the archipelago of Skellige just before The Witcher 3, as a giant ravaged the island of Undvik and nearly wiped out one of the clans. The elderly king, Bran Tuirseach, was barely functioning as a sovereign by the 1270s, unable to unite the insular kingdom. It is revealed in a dramatic funeral in The Witcher 3 that the old King Bran recently abdicated the throne by committing suicide as he let wild animals kill him.
Players can explore every ruler's ending in The Witcher 3 within all the political and royal turbulence occurring during this war-torn epoch. One of these is King Radovid V of Redania, whose kingdom becomes the only thing that stands to oppose the large swathes of Nilfgaardian conquered land due to his actions between The Witcher 2 and 3. Following Foltest's assassination at the beginning of The Witcher 2 and a failed plot by the Lodge of Sorceresses, Radovid begins to grow paranoid and eventually becomes suspicious of any ally capable of magic, leading to his initiation of wide-scale witch hunts and murder of innocent mages.
Not only did the king become wary of magic-users, including ex-court sorceress Philippa Eilhart who becomes Redania's most wanted, but Radovid also betrayed his sovereign allies. When asked for military and political assistance by the neighboring kingdom of Kaedwen, Radovid took advantage of this opportunity and invaded Kaedwen himself, marching his army over the snow-capped Kestrel Mountains. In the spring immediately preceding The Witcher 3, Radovid engaged the Nilfgaardians in a massive battle in the marshes of Vellen which saw unprecedented losses to both sides and an indecisive outcome.
While Geralt spent the early 1270s with Triss and galavanting through Temeria and Redania on various quests, Yennefer also lost her memories and was captured and imprisoned in Nilfgaard. The powerful sorceress, whose Netflix appearance has been modded into Witcher 3, regained her memories around the same time as Geralt and immediately began searching for her and Geralt's adoptive daughter, Ciri. Within this time, Yennefer struck some kind of deal with the Nilfgaardian Emperor, Emhyr. Though the terms of the deal are not entirely clear, it appears it involved Ciri and had impacts that involved betraying the Lodge of Sorceresses.
Being set after the events of Sapkowski's books, The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red has had the freedom to expand on the histories of the Continent and experience leniencies further than could be achieved if it was set 10 years earlier. Much occurs in the short time following The Witcher 2, especially in terms of geopolitics, in order to set up for the major character and story introductions in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Of course, one of these is Ciri, a powerful being known as a Source capable of inter-dimensional travel, who prior to the third game spent some time in CD Projekt Red's other world - as revealed in a Cyberpunk 2077 Easter Egg.