CDPR dropped its Witcher 4 reveal trailer at big Geoff's Game Awards last night, and surprise: You're Ciri now. Little Zireael has followed in her adoptive dad's footsteps and taken on the mantle of witcher, seemingly confirming the 'Witcheress' ending for The Witcher 3 and turning our Ciri into an itinerant monster-slayer and probable Gwent addict.
Which at least answers the big question as to who the heck we're gonna be playing as if not Geralt, but also opens up a load more. How did Ciri survive the Trial of Grasses? What happened to her Elder Blood powers? And where did that giant spider-lady come from?
Jody has some theories about the first two in his piece on what we learned from The Witcher 4 trailer, but it's that last one that's set my brain whirring and fan tongues wagging. Right now, the dominant theory is that the Second Conjunction of Spheres—the syzygy of dimensions that happened while everything was going to hell in a handcart in the third game's climax—has introduced a bunch of new monsters into The Witcher's world, perhaps creating a whole new demand for witchers.
"To my understanding, The Witcher 3 ended with a second Conjunction," writes Reddit user UsherinChaos. That dimensional line-dance "brought a whole new wave of monsters onto the Continent, so the idea that there would be an attempt to create a new generation of witchers with modern alchemy doesn't sound too out of place."
UsherinChaos isn't alone, despite all that chaos they're ushering in. "There is another conjunction during the end of W3," writes cokecaine in a post with a couple thousand upvotes, "This explains the monsters and need for new witchers. The theory about Ciri starting a new school may have some bearing."
"This is exactly what I think also," concurs tllap, theorising that "she probably lost powers or most of her powers after what happened, so she's now basically just [a] witcher with some more abilities."
It makes sense to me, too. If you're not up on your Witcher lore, the reason its setting is so monster-festooned is because of the first Conjunction of Spheres, when many of the monsters we know and love skipped into our dimension from their own after they all rubbed against each other, like ships passing at sea.
In The Witcher 3, no one makes too much fuss about it happening again—it seems like it was too quick to cause much havoc—but it wouldn't be hard for CDPR to retcon that to say that no, actually there's a load of new beasties about now, and at least one of them is the horrible spider-lady from the trailer. It'd give Ciri a new bit of impetus to dedicate herself to witchin', too: She might feel partially responsible for the state of the world (even though she really isn't), maybe even enough to start a whole new witcher school about it.
We'll find out, well, a long time from now, when The Witcher 4 actually comes out. For now, we just have to trust that CDPR knows what it's doing. It's had a long time to plan, after all: It told PCG at The Game Awards that it's been planning for protagonist Ciri "even when we were doing The Wild Hunt."
