Verified answer
Quick answer
Meet Ocha and Nora in Svartrau City, enter Andrei’s hideout at night through the upper balcony, take Andrei’s Ring, give the ring to Ocha, release the pigs to distract the guard, and draw the hex at the window before meeting Ocha by the river.
The ring is the correct memento. Taking the wrong item or killing Andrei directly changes the route and Ocha’s later options. The checked walkthrough lists 4 total time segments, while Hotfix 1.0.4 fixes an unspecified progression blocker in the quest.
Evidence checked September 12, 2026. PowerPyx lists 250 XP, 150 coins, Broad Swing Manual, The Outcast trophy/achievement, and 4 time segments. Hotfix 1.0.4 officially fixed a blocker in this quest, but the official notes do not identify the exact blocked step.
Keep Ocha’s route in context with the Best Quest Order, Choices & Consequences, Patch Notes and Skills & Builds.
How to start The Heart Wants What It Wants
The Heart Wants What It Wants is an optional Svartrau City side quest centered on Ocha, Nora, and the crime boss Andrei. The checked launch walkthrough lists no hard prerequisite: you can find Ocha directly at the tavern on the west side of Svartrau City. The Uriashi Elder can also point you toward Ocha during A Mother’s Plea, but that referral is not required to begin the quest.
After speaking with Ocha, the encounter turns into a short unarmed fight. Nora breaks it up, and the real problem becomes clear: Andrei is controlling their lives, and Ocha wants to use a hex that requires one of his personal belongings.
Before continuing, make a manual save. This quest has several routes, and the way you handle Andrei changes Ocha’s final set of options.
For the wider campaign route, see the Best Quest Order and Quests & Quest Order Hub.
Quest summary
The current PowerPyx walkthrough records the following completion data:
- Starting area: Svartrau City
- Quest giver: Ocha
- Hard requirement: none listed
- Recorded reward: 250 XP, 150 coins, Broad Swing Manual, and The Outcast trophy/achievement
- Recorded time cost: 4 total time segments
The four-segment cost makes this a meaningful commitment inside the campaign clock. If you are trying to preserve a tight route, check your remaining time before starting the chain rather than treating it like a zero-cost city errand.
Step 1: investigate Andrei or go straight to the hideout
Ocha asks you to obtain a memento that belongs to Andrei. During the day, the journal can offer an optional objective to ask around town for more information about him. That investigation is useful for context, but the checked walkthrough does not require it to complete the quest.
If you are already at night, the cleanest route is to go straight to Andrei’s hideout on the north side of Svartrau City.
This is a good place to remember how the game handles day and night: some routes are easier or only practical with Coen’s vampire toolkit. If you are still planning around the campaign clock, use the 30-Day Time System.
Step 2: enter Andrei’s hideout through the upper balcony
At night, use Coen’s vampire movement ability to reach the upper balcony on the south side of the building. This route lets you get inside without immediately forcing the confrontation downstairs.
Once inside, use Focus Mode to highlight the important objects. You can find several possible mementos, but only one is the correct item for Ocha’s spell.
Do not rush downstairs if your goal is to follow Ocha’s plan. Andrei and another enemy are on the lower floor, and entering that confrontation pushes the quest toward the direct-combat outcome.
Step 3: take Andrei’s Ring
The correct memento is Andrei’s Ring, found in a small chest on a desk upstairs.
Other objects in the hideout can be picked up, but the ring is the one that successfully supports the hex route. When you return to Ocha, make sure you hand over the ring rather than another item.
This is one of the quest’s most important decision points:
- Ring: continues the planned hex route.
- Wrong memento: the spell fails and the situation turns into a fight with Andrei.
- Kill Andrei downstairs yourself: skips the guard-distraction and hex steps and moves the quest toward the alternate ending state.
If you want the broadest set of Ocha outcomes, the ring-and-hex route is the safer first-playthrough choice.
Step 4: distract the guard with the pig pen
If Andrei is still alive and you gave Ocha the correct ring, the next objective is to create an opening outside the building.
Interact with the nearby gate to release the pigs. The guard leaves his position to deal with the distraction, which gives you access to the correct window.
You can then interact with the window to draw Ocha’s hex symbol and complete the spell step.
The result is not a peaceful reconciliation with Andrei. The spell causes his death, but it is still treated differently from Coen directly killing him during the hideout fight. That difference affects Ocha’s final possibilities by the river.
Step 5: meet Ocha outside Svartrau City
After the Andrei sequence, follow the quest marker outside the city and meet Ocha by the river.
She may invite Coen to eat. If you accept, an optional crayfish objective appears. Use Focus Mode along the riverbank to find the searchable spots; collecting three crayfish advances the scene automatically.
The crayfish section is optional, but the riverside conversation is not. This is where you influence whether Ocha returns to the Uriashi settlement or chooses a new life away from home.
Ocha ending choices
The final conversation is affected by how Andrei died.
If Coen killed Andrei directly, Ocha’s non-home route points toward travelling with Nora for a while. If the hex route caused Andrei’s death, her non-home route can instead leave Ocha and Nora established in Svartrau City, with Ocha taking over Andrei’s former base of operations.
To encourage Ocha to stay away from home, steer the conversation toward missing home but also embracing new experiences and remembering that some neighbors helped her family.
To encourage Ocha to return to the Uriashi settlement, steer the conversation toward missing home, valuing familiar food and community, and viewing life away from the settlement less positively.
These choices change Ocha’s epilogue state. The route can also affect where she is available later as a Swordmastery teacher, so preserve a save before the riverside dialogue if you want to compare outcomes.
For other route-changing decisions, see Choices & Consequences.
Broad Swing Manual and quest rewards
The checked walkthrough lists Broad Swing Manual as part of the quest reward alongside 250 XP and 150 coins. It also lists The Outcast trophy/achievement as a completion reward.
Because trophy conditions can interact with broader Uriashi quest state, treat the walkthrough’s reward list as the current documented route rather than proof that every earlier village state produces the same unlock behavior.
The Broad Swing Manual connects this side quest to Swordmastery progression, so it is worth collecting on a build that relies heavily on melee control. For broader combat planning, continue with Skills & Builds.
The Heart Wants What It Wants blocker fix
Official Hotfix 1.0.4, released September 9, 2026, says it fixed a blocker in The Heart Wants What It Wants.
The official notes do not identify the exact objective, dialogue branch, or save state that caused the blocker. Because of that, old launch-week workarounds should not be presented as universally required.
If the quest stops progressing:
- Confirm your platform has Hotfix 1.0.4 or newer installed.
- Reload the latest clean manual save before the blocked step.
- Check whether you are on the correct day/night route for the objective.
- If the problem occurs around the memento, verify that you actually selected Andrei’s Ring.
- Retest the quest before following an old workaround that may have been written for the launch build.
See the Patch Notes for the rest of the current progression fixes.
Recommended safe route
For a first playthrough, use this sequence:
- Meet Ocha and Nora in Svartrau City.
- Make a manual save before approaching Andrei’s hideout.
- Go at night and use the upper balcony route.
- Take Andrei’s Ring from the upstairs chest.
- Give the ring to Ocha.
- Release the pigs to distract the guard.
- Draw the hex at Andrei’s window.
- Meet Ocha by the river.
- Complete the optional crayfish scene if you want the full conversation flow.
- Make another save before steering Ocha toward the city or the Uriashi settlement.
This route avoids the direct Andrei fight, preserves the intended spell solution, and gives you the cleanest control over Ocha’s final state.