The Witcher season 2 has officially been a hit for Netflix, with over 2.2 billion minutes streamed during December alone. Netflix is clearly going all in on The Witcher as its next big cinematic universe, with the live-action prequel series Blood Origin dropping sometime this year, the animated prequel film Nightmare of the Wolf already out, and even a Witcher kids show in the works. Season 3 of the mainline Witcher series was greenlit before season 2 even aired, so clearly, Netflix has confidence in this series.
Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich engages with fans online pretty regularly to discuss everything from surprise character deaths to comments from inflammatory internet trolls. Recently, she was asked whether season 3 of the show will have a bigger budget than season 2. While Hissrich didn’t answer that directly, she did tease the “huge” season ahead.
Money aside: S3 is huge.
— Lauren S. Hissrich (@LHissrich) January 15, 2022
“Money aside: is huge,” the showrunner writes. While this doesn’t tell us a lot on the surface, further inspection into The Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski can give us some possible insight into what Hissrich is referring to here. Especially when you take into account her previous comments about the novel and how it relates to the upcoming season:
"Season 3, I think is really great. It’s based on the The Time of Contempt, and that actually to me is a very easily adaptable book. There’s tons of action, there’s tons of things that are just jaw dropping when you get to them. So we’re really letting that lead our storytelling. Season 3, for instance takes place on a very, very small timeline. Not a lot of time passes, because it doesn’t need to."
What will happen in The Witcher season 3?
While The Witcher deviated a lot from its source material this past season, based on Hissrich’s comments it sounds like season 3 will stick closer to the books. And if you take a look at them, this makes total sense. We’re going to be getting into SPOILERS for The Witcher novels here, specifically The Time of Contempt.
In terms of the “huge” aspects of the season, there’s a very specific plot beat from The Time of Contempt that I’m wagering Hissrich is referring to here: the gathering on Thanedd Isle, where the mage school at Aretuza is located. This is a massive event that takes up a sizable chunk of the book, sees almost all of our main characters crossing paths, and has explosive action set pieces that reverberate throughout the rest of the series. In many ways, the Thanedd Isle sequence reshapes the Witcher landscape and launches Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer on new paths.
Whether The Witcher season 3 sticks close to the book version of these events or switches things up like it did for season 2, it should be exciting.
Students design realistic map of The Witcher world
In other witchering news, CDProjekt Red recently shared a map created by students at Poland’s Warsaw University. So if you’ve ever wondered how far Corvo Bianco is from, say, Novigrad, you can now parse that out in real-life distances. (Around 800 miles!)
Ever wondered how far it is from Beauclair to Novigrad or where exactly is Vengerberg? Check out this map of the world of The Witcher prepared by students of Warsaw University! 🗺️
— The Witcher (@witchergame) January 20, 2022
High res: https://t.co/VmO22mned6 pic.twitter.com/XHAdYMhw1d
We should note that this map works for the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game as well. So not only is it very cool, but also useful.
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