2025 is shaping up to be a hell of a year for The Witcher. At some point, we'll be watching the fourth season of the monster-hunting fantasy show on Netflix, which will be the first season to star Liam Hemsworth instead of Henry Cavill in the lead role of Geralt of Rivia. But before that, we'll be watching The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep, an animated spinoff movie which comes out on February 11.
On the video game front, we finally gotten a reveal for The Witcher IV, the highly-anticipated sequel to CD Projekt Red's smash hit game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. This new game is notable for a number of reasons, first among them that it will be the first to feature a new lead character instead of Geralt: Ciri, Geralt's protégé.
The news that Ciri was taking over the video game franchise received a mixed response. There were plenty of fans who loved playing as Ciri as a secondary character in The Witcher 3, or who read the books and understood how important she was, or who remembered that the third game's Blood and Wine DLC ended with Geralt retiring so of course the next game would feature some other protagonist, with his adopted daughter Ciri being the obvious choice). And then there were others who railed at the idea of the video game industry "replacing men with women" by having a female protagonist, or complained that Ciri didn't look attractive enough in the trailer, or said The Witcher was "going woke," or had any number of other other hare-brained reactions.
But so far as CD Projekt Red executive producer Małgorzata Mitręga is concerned, centering Ciri was always “the very organic, logical choice.”
“It was always about her, starting from Saga when you read it in the books," Mitręga told IGN. "She's an amazing, layered character. And of course, as a protagonist we said goodbye to Geralt previously. So this is a continuation. I guess for all of us it’s like she was meant to be. That was always her.”
Geralt's video game voice actor supports Ciri leading The Witcher IV
Mitręga isn't the only one stumping for Ciri as the new protagonist of The Witcher games. Doug Cockle, the voice actor who famously played Geralt in all three of the original video games, has also come out in support of Ciri taking over the franchise.
“I'm really excited,” Cockle told IGN. “I think it's a really good move. I mean, I always thought that continuing the Saga, but shifting to Ciri would be a really, really interesting move for all kinds of reasons, but mostly because of things that happen in the books, which I don't want to give away because people, I want people to go read. So yeah, I think it's really exciting. I can't wait. I can't wait to see what they've done.”
Cockle's word carries a lot of weight; his is arguably the most iconic performance as Geralt, even more so than Henry Cavill on the Netflix show. Soon he'll be joining the television universe as the voice of Geralt in the Sirens of the Deep animated film next month. Cockle has been fairly candid with fans about his feelings regarding The Witcher for a while now, such as when he discussed how it made him "really sad" to see Cavill depart the TV show. So if he's saying he believes in Ciri as the new protagonist, I hope some of the detractors listen.
Geralt will appear in The Witcher IV
All that aside, we'll also see Cockle return as Geralt at some point in The Witcher IV, although his exact role is unknown. "Geralt will appear in the game, but we don’t want to spoil his role precisely. You’ll have to wait to learn more for now," CD Projekt Red confirmed to IGN.
While the game studio is playing things close to the chest, they did discuss Geralt's return a little bit more. CD Projekt franchise and lore designer Cian Maher went into detail ahead of The Witcher IV reveal, talking about Geralt's longevity in the books and how that gives them an opening to include him here.
“I mean Geralt will probably be around for a long time to the extent that in Season of Storms, the prequel novel that takes place actually before Geralt attends that banquet we mentioned earlier on, there is an epilogue in that book,” Maher explained. “It takes place in a place called Magpie Forest in 1373, 101 years after The Witcher 3. And in that epilogue there is a certain white-haired witcher hunting a monster who remains unnamed, but who behaves in a certain way and obviously he has white hair. So by which I mean I think we can expect Geralt to be around for a long time. The capacity in which he does is, we'll see, but I don't think he's going anywhere.”
While I don't jive with the logic of this in terms of what Sapkowski probably intended with that epilogue, which more seems to represent the idea of Geralt passing into legend, the games — which serve are sequels to the novels — have always played fast and loose with the witcher's ultimate fate. So it's good to know they're thinking far ahead about how to keep Geralt, Ciri, and any other characters they want involved in the next trilogy around.
At any rate, it'll likely be a while before we get to play The Witcher IV. In the meantime, we have The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep to look forward to in early February, and season 4 of the TV series sometime later this year.
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