Don't slaughter the cows in The Witcher 3's prologue – otherwise the game turns into a horror movie

Starting areas in RPGs usually run on an unspoken agreement. The world goes easy on the hero and throws a few wolves, drowners, and a couple of clumsy bandits their way. Sometimes that deal falls apart spectacularly, and instead of a gentle tutorial stroll, the player watches a ten-foot horned beast methodically trample a village while the hero sits at level 3.

One The Witcher 3 player ran into exactly that kind of mess. Barely into the game, they found a chort sprinting between huts in White Orchard and crushing peasants one after another.

The screenshots speak for themselves, and the question to fellow gamers sounded close to a cry for help:

Is this a bug? It's killing all the villagers and fucking my shit up. I'm level 3 😭

The confusion makes sense, since White Orchard serves as the prologue of the game. The local fauna is tuned for beginners: drowners by the water, ghouls, wolves, a noonwraith at an abandoned well, and the griffin whose hunt caps off the opening chapter.

Chorts, which are large relicts and relatives of imps, normally live in the forests of Velen and on the Skellige islands. Facing one calls for a very different level of gear, and a newcomer sees a skull over the visitor's head, the mark of an enemy far stronger than the hero.

As it turns out, the player stumbled onto a rare, little-known Easter egg. CD Projekt Red knew that some people would slaughter livestock, so killing cows in White Orchard summons a chort that comes to carve up Geralt himself.

The Witcher 3 is available on PC and consoles.