While The Witcher 3 is the entry in the series that most people have played, the first two games are still great in their own right. The first Witcher is PC exclusive, but The Witcher 2 was launched on Xbox 360. That version is backward compatible with Xbox Series X|S and runs at a near 4K resolution on Series X systems.
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Being on an Xbox platform means the game contains achievements, and there are several hard ones. Compared to some of the hardest Witcher 3 achievements, Witcher 2 is generally less grindy. However, in terms of pure difficulty and challenge, Witcher 2 might be harder.
10 Necromancer
A main story achievement, Necromancer requires you to fully complete Auckes's memories. It's near the end of chapter two on the Roche path. You need to perform Hanmarvyn's Blue Dream to see the memories of an assassin who tried to kill you earlier. Once you get to a certain point in the process, failure will result in you being kicked out, and you'll miss the achievement.
The two hardest spots are the place where you'll need to avoid the traps and the stealth section. The former area will sometimes kick you out for seemingly no reason. It might have to do with you being too close or too far from Serrit. The stealth section can also be tricky but is thankfully short. This is an area where you'll want to make manual saves to ensure you get this achievement.
9 The Butcher Of Blaviken
The Butcher of Blaviken achievement will force you to kill 500 enemies. This can be done in one playthrough but will require a lot of grinding or performing a 100 percent run. There are certain enemy spawns you can take advantage of for this.
500 is a big number, and Witcher 2's world isn't nearly as huge as something like The Witcher 3. Thankfully, this achievement can be done over multiple playthroughs. It's advised to do it this way, as killing 500 enemies in one run isn't gonna lead to the best of times.
8 Threesome
One of the combat achievements is Threesome, which requires you to kill three enemies at once with a group finisher. First, you'll need to unlock this ability in the swordsman skill tree, and then you have to make sure you don't do it in enclosed areas.
You might try to perform it in an indoor area and just be flustered about why it can't be pulled off. This can take a while until you realize you can't do the move in those locations. The achievement is actually fairly simple once you try it in a big outdoor area, but that initial frustration still sticks with you.
7 Tourist
Tourist is probably the most easily missable achievement in the game. Near the start of chapter two, you'll be introduced to the central camp area, where you'll need to talk with the king — though this is only for Roche's path. Zyvik will give you a tour of the camp, but a lot of you will head straight to the objective.
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To get this secret achievement, you must fully complete Zyvik's tour, which only takes a few minutes. Unless you're using a guide while playing, most will miss this one until perhaps a second playthrough.
6 Focus
Similar to Witcher 3, there's an achievement obtained by doing a certain number of counters in a row. For Witcher 2, it's three ripostes. The riposte ability is unlocked fairly early on in the swordsman path. This achievement is harder than the variant for Witcher 3, mainly due to riposte doing significant damage.
In Witcher 3, you can leave one enemy alive and counter them over and over again. If you try the same tactic in Witcher 2, you'll likely kill them due to the high damage. For most, you'll have to get this in a group fight, which is much harder due to the weird lock-on and multiple enemies.
5 Poker
Poker is the main grindy achievement of the game. You have to roll five-of-a-kind at dice poker, and it doesn't have to be in one single roll. This can be done at the beginning camp area at the very start of the game, and is pure luck.
After your first roll, you pick which dice to roll again, and if you don't have at least two matching, you should forfeit. The whole time you're just hoping to eventually match five after many, many games. This will likely take an hour or two.
4 Miser
Once you get to near the endgame of Witcher 2, Miser will surely be a frustrating achievement. Miser requires you to get a total of 10,000 orens in your inventory. This is not cumulative, which makes it much harder. What most will probably do is, right before the point of no return at the summit, sell everything on your person to hopefully reach a total of 10,000.
Then, afterwards, simply reload a saved game to get your stuff back. This is easier said than done, as you'll get close but not fully reach that 10,000 number. You'll be searching everywhere at Loc Muinne for stuff to sell until you finally get enough orens. It's a long process, but a relief once you finally get the achievement.
3 Guru
Guru is the max level achievement requiring you to get to character level 35, which will certainly require a 100 percent run of the game. If you do most of the side quests, but not every single one, you'll likely only get to level 32 or 33 by the end.
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You'll know if you have the achievement if you get to level 34 before the summit, since you'll level up once you gain control of Geralt after the negotiations. It's a tough process to do a 100 percent run of any RPG, and Witcher 2 is no different.
2 Last Man Standing
Witcher 2's Arena is an extra game mode you might not have realized was in the title if you've only beaten it once. Tucked inside the new game selection, Arena is a continuous series of fights. To unlock the Last Man Standing achievement, you need to beat the 30th encounter. You can, thankfully, die and still continue.
However, that won't be a major help, as you'll still need to master the combat system to get all the way through this. You also can't save, so it must be in one run. It's tough, but it is at least good preparation for the hardest achievement in The Witcher 2.
1 Madman
The Madman achievement forces you to beat the game on the hardest difficulty, Dark. Dark mode is pure savage. Enemies do ridiculous amounts of damage, often forcing you to take the majority of the game slowly. The dilemma that a lot of RPGs have on their hardest mode is whether you should do the side quests.
Side quests give you a lot of extra support you need, but you also have to go through more of the game on this seemingly impossible mode. Is it worth doing, or should you just save yourself the time and headache by only going through the main quests? On Dark, you do at least get exclusive gear, which you'll desperately need as this mode's brutal.
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