The Witcher 4: what we know about the start of a new trilogy

As The Witcher's last game approaches a decade since its release, we're all anxiously awaiting CD Projekt Red's next move. We now know that The Witcher 4 is in full development and will star Geralt's adopted daughter Ciri as the new protagonist for the series.

We've been told that the next Witcher games will be what we've come to expect: "a story-driven open-world RPG built on the legacy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt", which hopefully makes the Lambert and Keira school rumors ring true. The next game will kick off a new Witcher trilogy, with all three being delivered within a six-year period. And frankly, we're more than ready to bring out the silver swords again.

With the Witcher 4 only entering full production in late 2024, the next Witcher saga is still in the distant future, and we've got next to no concrete details about the game just yet. But we've got plenty to speculate about. With that in mind, let's take a look at everything we know about the next Witcher game.

Witcher 4 trailers and release speculation

Here's the first reveal trailer for The Witcher 4

The Witcher 4 World Premiere Trailer from The Game Awards 2024 - YouTube

Watch On

Hell yeah that's our girl Ciri and this new installment of The Witcher looks as dark and beautiful as ever. Ciri turns up in a small village determined to sacrifice a young women to a monster—standard small village stuff. Ciri naturally follows to save the girl and kill the monster only to find out that her own people killed her for not upholding tradition. No good deed goes unpunished on The Continent.

During her fight with the giant many-legged critter, we can see that Ciri has more than just a silver sword and witcher signs at her disposal. She's retained her magical abilities and uses a lightning shock to repel her enemy.

The Witcher 4 story and characters

Ciri is the star of The Witcher 4

After much nail-biting and speculation we now know that Ciri is definitely our protagonist for The Witcher 4. We'll be taking a trip into the future with Ciri as an establish witcher the way Geralt was in his own trilogy.

Based on which Witcher 3 ending you chose, we knew there would be lots of possibilities to continue Ciri's story. In what's considered the best ending for the game, Ciri and Geralt spend time together on the witcher path after Geralt gifts her a silver sword of her own. It sure seems like that's the canon choice, with us picking up Ciri's story as a full-fledged witcher.

Since before the release of The Witcher 3, CDPR has been open about the fact that Geralt wouldn’t return as the protagonist of whatever comes next in the series. "With the third installment, we should wrap it up and conclude a lot of threads," CDPR's CEO Marcin Iwiński told Polygon in 2013. "We are not killing the world and walking away from it, but we will definitely want to make this game the finale in a big way."

In the same interview, executive producer John Mamais hinted that Geralt could return with a smaller role or as a cameo. "We might even include Geralt in later games potentially," Mamais said. "We just need to talk about it and figure out what we're going to do next." Geralt is a very flexible character. His long lifetime (he's over 90 in The Witcher 3) means that he could pop up in stories told long before or after the events of CDPR’s trilogy.

Based on the reveal trailer that features Geralt's voice at the end, we definitely haven't said farewell to him forever. He has to take a break from that retirement at his vineyard in Toussaint sometimes.

The Witcher 4 is the start of a new trilogy

During a CD Projekt Red financial earnings call in September 2022, CEO Adam Kiciński indicated that the next Witcher sequel could be the first in a new trilogy of Witcher games. "We said that there will be a new saga. We have in mind more than one," Kiciński said. "The first saga was three games, so now we are thinking about more than one game."

Kiciński went on to describe the potential new series as "the second Witcher saga," leaving a pretty firm impression that CD Projekt is still in for the long haul on the Witcher. We know the trilogy in the works alongside Project Sirius and Project Canis Majoris, two standalone Witcher projects.

Where will The Witcher 4 be set?

We don't know the exact setting of The Witcher 4 or how far Ciri may have travelled from home, but we have plenty of space to speculate. As a jumping-off point for our baseless conjecture, let's consider a statement from Philipp Weber, the narrative lead on Witcher 4. In a December 2022 interview with GamesRadar, Weber gave a diplomatic non-answer to the question of the game's setting, saying he "would always like to return to Temeria and Vizima, and see how it looks like right now."

The most responsible way to interpret Weber's answer would be as a nod toward the upcoming Witcher 1 remake. But if you'd rather read too deeply between the lines, you might wonder: if Weber would like to return to Temeria, maybe he's been working elsewhere—maybe somewhere we've never seen.

All the Witcher games up until now have been set in sections of the Northern Realms: Temeria, Redania, Skellige, and the like. But given that the first teaser image for the game shows an amulet for an unfamiliar Witcher school, it could be set somewhere in the swaths of the Northern Kingdoms we haven't seen properly in-game. Maybe we'll explore Aedirn, or Cintra, or Kovir and Poviss—maybe Rivia, the city that Geralt adopted as his namesake.

Or maybe the new Witcher saga will take us outside the Northern Kingdoms entirely, into Nilfgaard or elsewhere. We'll have to wait for official word to know how far afield we'll be from where Geralt's already adventured.

Will there be a Lynx School of witchers in The Witcher 4?

So far, the initial teaser image for the next Witcher game is the biggest hint we have to work with. It's a witcher medallion, like the pendant from the Wolf School of witchers that Geralt wears, but this one is of a lynx.

Initially, we were hesitant about Lynx School speculation. It hasn't appeared in any Witcher game, novel, or television production so far. The only lynx school lore out in the wild at the moment is unofficial, written by fans on the Witcher Fanon Wiki.

One small official reference to a Lynx is the item codes for the Cat School gear in The Witcher 3. To spawn in different Cat school weapons and armor pieces, you'll use item codes named "Lynx", like how the Ursine gear is referred to in item codes as "Bear".

After the teaser image was revealed, CDPR's community manager Marcin Momot responded to all the speculation with an emphatic nod, later confirming to PC Gamer by email that he wasn't just being cheeky. "I can confirm that the medallion is, in fact, shaped after a lynx," he said.

So, that certainly seems like Lynx School confirmed! We just don't yet know anything about the origins of this order of witchers, who its members are, or whether they're related to the Cat School.

It turns out that it is called The Witcher 4 after all

After its first reveal, it seemed like the next Witcher game might take on its own name instead of The Witcher 4. CDPR co-founder Marcin Iwinski made it clear that the studio sees the first three games as a standalone trilogy. "The Witcher was designed as a trilogy and a trilogy cannot have a fourth part, can it?" he said in a 2017 investor call.

We were prepared to wind up with a very different Witcher trilogy: a prequel, a totally new setting, or something else unexpected. But we've got no complaints after finding out that this will be a more standard timeline continuation into Ciri's story.

The Witcher 4 development

The Witcher 4 is being made with Unreal Engine 5

Alongside confirmation of The Witcher 4's development, CDPR also explained that it had partnered with Epic Games to use its development engine for the next game.

"It is vital for CD Projekt Red to have the technical direction of our next game decided from the earliest possible phase as in the past, we spent a lot of resources and energy to evolve and adapt REDengine with every subsequent game release," CD Projekt Red CTO Paweł Zawodny said.

Later, game director Jason Slama explained that a major factor in the decision was Unreal 5's open-world capabilities. Instead of continuing to adapt REDengine for the purpose, CDPR will be leaning on what Unreal 5 can already do.

"Players can go in whatever direction they want, they can handle content in any order that they want, theoretically," Slama said. "To really encapsulate that, you need a really stable environment where you can be able to make changes with a high level of confidence that it's not going to break in 1,600 other places down the line."

Will The Witcher 4 be an Epic Games Store exclusive?

Nope, or at least CDPR says that it is "not planning on making the game exclusive to one storefront."

That seems like a really odd thing for the studio to clarify, but when it first announced The Witcher 4, CDPR also announced that the new Witcher game would be made with Unreal Engine 5 instead of the studio's propriety REDengine that it's used since The Witcher 2.

CD Projekt does also own the GOG storefront, so it would be very odd if The Witcher 4 weren't available there. If what you're really asking is whether or not it will be sold on Steam, that's a question that CDPR hasn't explicitly answered.

CDPR acquired Molasses Flood to work on something

In October 2021 we got news of CD Projekt acquiring studio Molasses Flood (responsible for Flame in the Flood) to work "in close cooperation" with developer CD Projekt Red on an "ambitious project" based on one of CDPR's existing properties. CDPR also confirmed that Molasses Flood won't be working on Cyberpunk 2077, and since there are only two choices with CDPR, that leaves The Witcher.

CDPR has confirmed what Molasses is working on Project Sirius, and is creating "an innovative take on The Witcher universe". Nice!

The animation lead from Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk is directing the new Witcher saga

The former head of animation and animation director for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, Sebastian Kalemba announced on Twitter that he'll be shifting leadership roles to work on the new Witcher games as Game Director.

While titles aren't exactly intuitive in game development, Kalemba's new title as Game Director indicates a responsibility for coordinating the overall production of the new series.

CD Projekt signed a new deal with Witcher creator Andrzej Sapkowski in 2019

CD Projekt famously got the rights to make Witcher games for a flat up-front fee, which novelist Andrzej Sapkowski wasn't thrilled about after the games became enormously popular. Since 2018 the two parties have been negotiating a new deal, and in December 2019 they finally reached it. The new agreement "solidifies and reinforces the company’s relationship with Mr. Andrzej Sapkowski—author of The Witcher saga."

The most interesting quote, however, is this one: "The agreement confers new rights upon the Company and reaffirms its existing title to 'The Witcher' intellectual property in developing video games, graphic novels, board games and merchandise."

That doesn't spell out that new videogames are on the way, but it's a sure sign that CD Projekt has a long-term interest in The Witcher.