It looks like The Witcher will introduce the Wild Hunt in season 2

After numerous production bumps courtesy of the coronavirus, filming on the second season of The Witcher is forging full steam ahead, with new information coming out all the time. We just learned of a mess of new actors added to the cast, and now, Redanian Intelligence brings us photos direct from the set.

What we have here is a group of riders and horses in very elaborate, scary armor. Those who have played the video game The Witcher 3 will probably recognize them as the Wild Hunt, a group of spectral riders from another dimension. That’s a little tricky, because the Netflix show is adapting The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski, not The Witcher video games by CD Projekt Red. The show has already shown itself willing to borrow certain things from the games, so maybe this is the next step.

That said, as Redanian Intelligence points out, there is a group called the Red Riders that first appear in Sapkowski’s book Time of Contempt who form the basis for the mythological Wild Hunt. True, the second season of The Witcher is due to adapt Blood of Elves, not Time of Contempt, but perhaps there’s some blending at the edges. Basically, we don’t exactly know what role these riders will play in The Witcher season 2, but we know they’ll be there.

The Witcher prequel Blood Origin is coming

We don’t have an exact release date for The Witcher season 2 yet, but considering how much they’re filming, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got it by the end of the year.

And The Witcher season 2 isn’t the only new Witcher thing heading our way. Netflix is also making a prequel called The Witcher: Blood Origin, and showrunner Declan de Barra gave us a look at a pile of scripts:

“As a lifelong fan of fantasy, I am beyond excited to tell the story The Witcher: Blood Origin,” de Barra said when Blood Origin was first announced. “A question has been burning in my mind ever since I first read The Witcher books – What was the Elven world really like before the cataclysmic arrival of the humans?

"I’ve always been fascinated by the rise and fall of civilizations, how science, discovery, and culture flourish right before that fall. How vast swathes of knowledge are lost forever in such a short time, often compounded by colonization and a rewriting of history. Leaving only fragments of a civilization’s true story behind. The Witcher: Blood Origin will tell the tale of the Elven civilization before its fall, and most importantly reveal the forgotten history of the very first Witcher."

There’s no release date for Blood Origin or The Witcher season 2, but considering how much shooting has been happening, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got the latter by the end of the year.

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h/t ComicBook.com