The Witcher 4 is all about Ciri rather than Geralt, and that's going to be a pretty big change for a lot of fans of CD Projekt's epic RPG trilogy. But Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle thinks it's a great idea, although he won't say why, because he also thinks it'd be great if everyone would pick up a book once in a while.
"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."
Geralt will appear in The Witcher 4 in some capacity—that's his voice at the end of the reveal trailer that appeared in the 2024 Game Awards—but CD Projekt hasn't said what role he'll take, and Cockle isn't spilling the beans either, saying only that "beyond what we know from the trailer, I don't know anything."
Cockle did spill some beans on Geralt's return in The Witcher 4 in August 2024, a dime-drop he later said got him "slapped by CD Projekt." He told IGN that it wasn't really a big deal, though—just a "very, very light slap on the wrist."
"All developers are like this," Cockle said. "They want to keep their surprises and I actually didn't know anything, so I was just making guesses at things and stuff like that. And probably one of their requests was to just to stop guessing, Doug, you might be right. You might not be right. It doesn't matter, if you are talking [to] me, Doug, who plays Geralt, whatever you say is going to be taken as something."
I haven't read any of The Witcher books so I can't really say what Cockle is alluding to as far as Ciri's lead role in the new Witcher game, but I think his assessment holds up based solely on the character's portrayal in the games. Ciri is immensely powerful and central to the events of the trilogy, and as a younger and less well-defined character CD Projekt has more freedom to shape her as it sees fit—or, even better, to give players more control over defining and developing her, something the studio hinted at back in December 2024.
It'll be a good while yet before we find out: There's no sign of a release target yet but The Witcher 4 only entered "full production" in November 2024.
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