The Witcher 3 Question Marks: Which Ones Are Worth It

Our own beginner guide tells you the map question marks are mostly loot piles you can ignore guilt-free. By volume that is fair. Add up what the Witcher wiki location pages actually enumerate and 139 of the 276 marked points of interest listed are, mechanically, a container: 74 guarded treasures, 53 bandit camps and 12 shipwrecks.

The other 137 are not. Some of them hand you things a fight and a chest do not: a permanent ability point, a blacksmith who was not on your map an hour ago, the run-up to a witcher school armour set. The map does not tell you which is which until you have already ridden there, which is why "clear everything" and "clear nothing" are both bad plans.

So here is the taxonomy. Eight marker types, counted region by region, with what the game actually gives you for clearing one.

Eight types, not one

The wiki files the marked points of interest in The Witcher 3 under eight location types: guarded treasure, bandit camp, monster nest, abandoned site, Place of Power, monster den, person in distress, and Spoils of War. Blood and Wine adds a ninth that is really a sub-type, the vineyard infestation, which is a monster nest that happens to sit in a vineyard.

That split matters more than the icons suggest, because the eight do not behave alike. Some end in a container. Two of them permanently change the world by putting a person in it. One of them is a skill point. And one type appears in the base game only and never once in either expansion.

The full count, region by region

Two caveats on those numbers, because they are the kind that rot quietly.

The wiki's own section headers disagree with its own lists in three places, and always in the same direction — the header claims more than the bullets underneath it deliver. The guarded treasure page heads its Toussaint section "13 locations" and lists twelve. The bandit camp page heads its Velen-and-Novigrad section "30 locations" and lists twenty-two. The abandoned site page heads its Velen-and-Novigrad section "16 locations" and lists ten. Every figure in the table above is a count of entries that are actually written down, which is why the totals are a floor: take the headers at their word instead and the grand total rises to 291. Take the shape of the distribution, not the last digit.

The Blood and Wine count also excludes the five vineyard infestations, which the wiki treats as their own location type. Add them and Toussaint carries 64 markers.

Guarded treasures: where the relics are

Seventy-four of them, the largest single category, and mechanically they are a bandit camp with a monster instead of a person. One powerful enemy, or a few weak ones, standing between you and a cache. A handful invert the order and spawn the enemy only after you loot.

The reason to care about the distinction: the wiki is explicit that guarded treasures carry higher-quality loot than bandit camps, and relic equipment in particular. If you are chasing crowns rather than gear, our money guide has better routes. If you want relic-tier kit before the witcher school diagrams open up, this is the marker to ride toward.

The catch is that a lot of them are randomised. The wiki says some have at least partially fixed loot, and lists all Blood and Wine locations among those — so Toussaint is the region where a guarded treasure is least likely to be a pure lottery, though "partially fixed" is as far as the source goes.

The distribution is lopsided in a way the map hides. Velen carries 22 and Skellige carries 22, Novigrad only 7, Kaer Morhen 2. If you sail to Skellige and immediately feel buried in question marks, that is why.

Abandoned sites are the only ones that pay a wage

Thirty-four abandoned sites, and they are the only one of the eight types with a stated cash-and-experience payout on its wiki page: 120 to 170 XP depending on the region, plus 50 crowns. Kill everything occupying the site — bandits or beasts — and civilians move back in. More often than not one of them is a merchant, which is a permanent addition to your shopping options in that corner of the map.

There is one exception worth knowing before you count on it. Every abandoned site in Blood and Wine is part of a quest, and liberating those yields neither XP nor coin. Toussaint gives you eleven of them and pays for none.

Persons in distress are shopping infrastructure

Thirteen locations, and the only reason they are on this list is that the reward is not loot. Cut the cage open or kill the bandits, and the person walks home on foot. Once they arrive, their services unlock for you permanently.

The wiki names who each of the thirteen is, and the list is heavy on high-value targets: a swordsmith, a barber, two blacksmiths, an armorer, two herbalists, a clerk and several merchants. That is a working craftsman appearing in a settlement that did not have one, which is a change to the map you cannot buy back if you ride past the cage.

The wiki adds that some of them, at least in the base game, hand over a small reward on top. It attaches no such note to the Blood and Wine rescues, so treat the Toussaint five as service unlocks and nothing more.

Monster dens are the witcher gear route

Fifteen locations, and the wiki calls them a marked treasure hidden inside a monster-infested dungeon rather than a fight in the open. Usually a cave, usually more elaborate than the other marker types, and usually tied to a quest.

That last part is the useful bit. Nine of the fifteen are annotated on the wiki as visited during a Scavenger Hunt: Griffin School Gear and its part-four upgrade leg, Cat School Gear upgrade diagrams parts three and four, Bear School Gear upgrade part one, and Grandmaster Feline. If you are working through the witcher gear guide, you will be standing in most of these caves whether you planned to or not.

One quirk that saves time on a re-run: a monster den greys out the moment its designated chest is opened, even if you sprinted past everything in the cave without drawing a sword. The kill is optional. The chest is not.

Monster nests cost a bomb and refund it

Forty-five nests, plus five vineyard infestations in Toussaint. They are the one marker type that asks you to bring a tool: the wiki says a nest typically requires a bomb to destroy, names Dancing Star, Grapeshot and Samum as the ones that do it, and allows for "other force on some occasions". That is the mechanical argument our alchemy guide makes for carrying bombs on a build that otherwise ignores them.

Destroying the nest usually spawns a stronger version of whatever was living in it as a closing fight. The loot is mostly parts from that monster, and the wiki lists nests as a source for random runestones and glyphs — the reason our runestones and glyphs guide treats clearing them as a no-cost supply line rather than a chore.

The regional split is the surprise here. Velen and Novigrad hold 21 of the 45 between them. Skellige, which feels like it is drowning in markers, has five. White Orchard has three, all of them ghouls.

Bandit camps: the marker is the chest

Fifty-three bandit camps, populated by deserters, renegades, pirates, cannibals, Scoia'tael, Nilfgaardians, and in Hearts of Stone by Fallen Knights of the Order of the Flaming Rose, who get their own set of eight.

The mechanical detail that changes how you clear them: the map marker points at the camp's chest, and looting that chest is what marks the location cleared. Killing everyone does not. If a camp is still lit after a fight, you missed a container, not a bandit.

Cleared camps near populated areas often get occupied by civilians afterwards, much like an abandoned site, but the wiki is clear that this happens without rewards. No XP line, no coin. You get the chest and nothing else, which is why 53 of them is a lot of riding for a category whose entire reward is the container.

Toussaint complicates its eleven. Almost all Toussaint bandit camps sit under a hanse base, and if you discover one after killing the relevant hanse leader, monsters replace the bandits — and the icon flips to a guarded treasure if the camp was undiscovered at that point. Same location, different marker, depending on the order you did things in.

Spoils of War: twelve wrecks, none in the expansions

Twelve locations, and the only one of the eight types that never appears outside the base game. Neither expansion adds one. Eight of the twelve are in Skellige, three in Velen and Novigrad, one in White Orchard.

They are also the thinnest category on documentation. The wiki names exactly one fixed item across all twelve: the relic silver sword Moonblade. The two wiki pages that mention it give different landmarks for which wreck holds it, so treat the sword as findable in a Velen Spoils of War and do not trust a specific pin.

If you are in Skellige and wondering why the sea is covered in markers, these eight are part of the answer and the 22 Skellige guarded treasures are most of the rest.

What to skip, and when

The honest version, from the table rather than from vibes:

Clear on sight. Places of Power, because they are the only one of the eight types that hands you an ability point outright, and there are only 30 of them — the general skills guide has the full regional breakdown and what Gorged on Power does with them. Persons in distress, because thirteen rescues is thirteen permanent service unlocks. Abandoned sites, because they are the only markers with a stated wage attached.

Clear when convenient. Monster nests, because you are carrying the bomb anyway and the runestone drops compound. Monster dens, because nine of the fifteen are on a gear route you were walking regardless.

Clear only if you want the loot. Guarded treasures, which at least aim at relic gear. Bandit camps and Spoils of War, which are 65 markers between them with no clearing reward beyond a container.

One more piece of arithmetic before you commit to a completionist sweep: New Game Plus deletes all map exploration and every point of interest, so a second run puts all 276 back on the board. The Places of Power reset too, and the ability points you already banked from them carry over — which is the one type where re-clearing pays as well as the first sweep did, and the reason our New Game Plus guide treats them as compounding progression.

Quick Action Checklist

• Sweep Places of Power in every region. Thirty exist and each gives one ability point, but they are not all sitting on a hillside: several are gated behind quests and one is inside the main quest Through Time and Space, where it is missable.
• Free every person in distress you pass. Thirteen of them, each unlocking a smith, armorer, herbalist, barber or merchant back in their home settlement.
• Take abandoned sites when they are on your route. 120 to 170 XP plus 50 crowns each, except in Toussaint where all eleven are quest content and pay nothing.
• Keep Dancing Star, Grapeshot or Samum in your bag for the 45 monster nests, and expect a stronger monster to spawn when the nest goes down.
• Loot the chest to clear a bandit camp or a monster den. The marker tracks the container, not the kills.
• Ride to guarded treasures if you want relic gear. The wiki puts all the Toussaint ones among the locations with at least partially fixed loot, where a lot of the rest are randomised.
• Skip the 12 Spoils of War unless you are hunting Moonblade or already sailing past one.