Good news for all Witcher fans as a new title in the fantasy universe will “soon” begin development. The bad news is that it probably won’t be revolving around everyone’s favorite Geral of Rivia.
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt came out in May 2015 and ever since then has been regarded as one of the best games of all time. It also skyrocketed the reputation of CD Projekt Red, the studio which made it. Combining an interesting storyline, plenty of side quests, stunning visuals and good mechanics the title easily earned multiple game of the year awards. Naturally, fans were left craving for more and the question of another Witcher game has been bugging fans for the last 5 years.
Most recently CDRP CEO Adam Kicinski confirmed that there will be in fact another Witcher game. It won’t be called the Witcher 4 though as Geralt’s story is complete as far as the studio is concerned. This doesn’t meant we won’t see the White Wolf again, so we can probably expect it’ll still involve him in one way or another even if it’s just an easter egg. In an interview with Stooq.pl Kacinski mentioned that development for the next Witcher game will begin shortly after Cyberpunk 2077 launches. The latter was originally set to be released in the middle of April, but got postponed for the middle of September 2020. This basically means that work on the new Witcher title will begin by the end of this year but how long will it take until it’s complete remains a mystery. According to CDPR a good guess would be at least 4 years.
The company has stated that both The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 are equally important to them as part of their dual-franchise strategy. We can certainly expect more games set in the same universe not only in the Witcher, but also the futuristic dystopia of Cyberpunk.
Despite The Witcher 3 being almost 5 years old, the game’s popularity spiked once again in recent months after the release of the Netflix series “The Witcher”. While the show was criticized for some of its casting choices it certainly sparked an interest for many people who never heard of the series before.
The Witcher, both game and show are based on the novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. CDPR and Sapkowski had a legal dispute over royalties in the last few years, but currently they’re in a good relationship and the author will probably continue to work together with the studio. As Kicinski himself stated:
"You could risk saying that there was a 180-degree turn and we cemented our relationship with Mr. Sapkowski, not only on paper. We work together."
The Witcher 3 is available on almost every platform you can think of as it even came out for Nintendo Switch in October 2019.
Are you a fan of the books, the games, the show, all or none? Tell us more in the comments.
