Recent rumors have been floating around online of a new paid expansion for the action-RPG, which turned a decade old in May 2025. These claims first came from Polish leaker Borys Nieśpielak, who alleged months ago the add-on is being made by Fool’s Gold, the studio tasked with remaking the original Witcher game. Nieśpielak initially said to expect an announcement during last December’s Game Awards, which didn’t pan out. But he recently told Eurogamer of a comment made by CD Projekt’s chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz that may support his original reporting.
“There is a chance that new content hinted upon in recent calls and reports may see release in the coming year,” Nielubowicz said in CDP’s earnings call from November 2025. While vague, he indicated that content would have an impact on the company’s financial results and “increase the likelihood of achieving the earnings condition for the first stage of the incentive program.”
Adding further fuel to the fire, in mid-December after the Game Awards, Polish securities analyst Mateusz Chrzanowski predicted that CDPR will release the expansion in May 2026, which will then “kick off the actual marketing campaign for The Witcher 4.”
Before moving on to Cyberpunk 2077, CDPR supported The Witcher 3 with two big expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine. If CDPR is returning to it, it makes sense: the game’s been a consistent moneymaker over the years (particularly when the studio was rehabilitating Cyberpunk), and a current-gen version released back in 2022. This also wouldn’t be the first game to get an expansion laying groundwork for the sequel; before Borderlands 3 came out in 2019, Gearbox turned out to have one more expansion for Borderlands 2 up its sleeve that bridged those two games.
We’ll know in a couple months how true these rumors are—but whether they are or not, it’ll likely get people playing The Witcher 3 again before the Ciri-led sequel eventually rears its head.
Season 2 put up another 9.4M views in its first full week on Netflix, from October 27 through November 2, placing it in first among English-language TV. Viewers were also revisiting Season 1 last week, boosting it to No. 7 on the weekly rankings with 2.4M views.
The Season 2 performance is slightly down from the first season, which was at around 26M views through its first 11 days. The second season is currently sitting at around 18M for that same interval, which is still strong despite the notable drop off.
The Witchercame in at No. 2 on the English TV rankings with 7.4M views for Season 4’s opening weekend. The latest eight episodes, which landed on Netflix on October 30, introduce Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia, taking over from Henry Cavill. It’s worth noting that this is a sharp decline from Season 3’s 15.2M views in the first four days of release.
Third place on the weekly rankings went to Season 9 of Selling Sunset with 4.2M views, while Boots continued to perform well with 3.7M views, good enough for fourth place.
Although new episodes of Stranger Thingswon’t debut until the end of the month, audiences are already preparing, it seems. Season 1 snagged tenth place on the English TV charts with 1.8M views. It’s likely that this trend will continue as the premiere date for Stranger Things 5Vol. 1 nears.
Netflix’s most-watched TV show of the week was actually a Danish thriller, The Asset, which debuted atop the non-English TV charts with 11.3M views.
Judging by the amount of HUNTR/X costumes on Halloween, no one will be surprised to learn that the hugely popular animated film Kpop Demon Hunters is still putting up monster numbers. It came in second place among English films last week with another 14M views, marking its 20th week in the Top 10.
Morbid curiosity continued last week with two serial-killer related offerings among the Top 10. In films, the documentary Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, about Aileen Wuornos, a rare woman serial killer who murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990, came in at No. 3 with 10.1M views. Among series, Monster: The Ed Gein Story hung onto sixth place with 2.8M views.
Also in film the Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton-starrer Ballad of a Small Player debuted at No. 4 with 6.9M views.
Throughout Netflix’s The Witcher, Freya Allan’s Ciri has grown into her power and become a monster hunter like her adopted father Geralt. In the newly released fourth season, she’s been separated from Geralt and Yennefer and now goes by the name Falka. She’s also hanging out with an outlaw band called the Rats and finds herself hunted by Sharlto Copley’s Bonhart, who wants to make some money by delivering her to her father Emhyr.
In a pair spoiler-heavy interviews, Allan and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich discussed the hero’s season-long arc and what’s next for the young Witcher.
During the season premiere, Ciri enters a romance with her fellow Rat Mistle, who saves her from Kayleigh, another Rat, trying to sexually asssault her. The show slightly diverges by having Ciri consent to Mistle kissing her after the ordeal, but like in the Witcher books, this kicks off a pairing longtime fans have complicated feelings about.
Complication is what Allan wanted: she told TVLine she didn’t want a “fluffy little romance” for her character similar to what’s found in the source material. To her, Mistle “lets see parts of Ciri we haven’t seen and really shows a different kind of vulnerability in her. There’s a big part of her saying goodbye to her childhood—a push and pull [where] we really get to see how desperate Ciri is to not be alone. Mistle confronts her about trying to run from her past…and says you can’t just run away from who you truly are.”
Separately to Variety, Hissrich said the romance give Cirii “a vulnerability that we’d never been able to see before. She’s been a princess, the most powerful person on the Continent, someone’s daughter, someone’s granddaughter. What starts to happen when she lives life for herself?”
Well, the answer to that is nothing good: after rushing off to save a young boy the Rats sold off, Ciri learns it’s a trap and returns to her friends just in time to watch Bonhart decapitate them all, Mistle included. The pair confessed their love to each other before Ciri left, despite Mistle begging her to stay, and to make matters worse, she ends the season defeated and captured by Bonhart.
This being the penultimate Witcher season and shot back-to-back with season five, Hissrich said the writers wanted it to end with characters brought to their low points. When we next see Ciri, she’ll face a “baptism by fire” that sees her “touch those deepest, darkest places within herself that she’s always pushed away. She worries that death follows her, and once she deals with the heartbreak and loss of the Rats, we get to see her start to access that for a while.”
The Witcher will return with its final season presumably in 2026, where we’ll see how Ciri gets out of this mess and whether she gets a good ending.
The long-awaited clash between Vilgefortz and Yennefer doesn’t disappoint. Photo: Netflix
Let’s talk about how magic works in The Witcher. As Yennefer and her fellow students learned at Aretuza all the way back in season one, magic is rooted in chaos: a natural, powerful force that — when properly harnessed — can be drawn upon to do great and terrible things. Even for experienced sorceresses and wizards, chaos comes with a cost. The magical energy used to create a portal or launch a fireball needs to come from somewhere, and it’s usually the life of something else — everything from a flower or tree to a person.
Now: Consider the Cchaos required for Vilgefortz and his minions to attack Montecalvo, and consider the chaos required by Yennefer and her army to repel them.
Much of “Twilight of the Wolf” — an episode named not for the absent Geralt, but for his mentor, Vesemir — plays out like an elaborate strategy game, as Vilgefortz and Yennefer decide how and when to burn off their impressive reserves of magic and magic users. Vilgefortz, true to form, begins by leading a squadron that blasts magic so aggressively at the fortress that some of them crumble into bones on the spot. Yennefer, saving the energy of her heaviest hitters as long as possible, asks the novices-in-training to maintain a magical shield as long as possible — only ordering when their noses and eyes begin to bleed under the strain.
And that’s just the first wave of a multi-pronged battle. What separates The Witcher’s large-scale conflicts from similarly scoped set pieces like Lord of the Rings’s Battle of Helm’s Deep or Game of Thrones’s Battle of the Bastards is the plethora of weird strategies available to these mages. At one point, Triss Merigold transforms an enemy into a frog, which Vesemir promptly stomps on. At another, one of Vilgefortz’s more innovative mages uses telekinesis to grab an array of mounted swords from a wall and fling them, one by one, at their foes down the hallway.
There are heavy casualties on both sides. (We don’t really know anybody in Vilgefortz’s camp, but you can say good-bye to ancillary sorceresses Margarita and Nikita.) Still, this has always been a very personal conflict between Yennefer and Vilgefortz, which is why Vilgefortz finally stops letting his minions do all the fighting and jumps through the portal himself.
What he finds, on the other side, is his dead lover, Tissaia de Vries — hair still white but otherwise apparently unharmed and ready to fight to the death. This is, of course, a trap that Vilgefortz sees through very quickly: Yennefer has merely glamoured herself to look like Tissaia. But just when Vilgefortz thinks he’s gained the upper hand, Yennefer springs her actual trap: When his second-in-command enters the room, Vilgefortz spills the rest of his plan — only to discover that Philippa Eilhart has pulled her own trick by glamouring herself as his right-hand man.
With the upper hand, Yennefer takes the opportunity to dig into Vilgefortz’s mind and see what she can find. What she sees terrifies her: A future in which the mage has captured Ciri and is subjecting her to brutally painful experiments in an apparent effort to gain access to her power.
As the battle rages on at Montecalvo, a smaller battle, though no less consequential, is unfolding at Vilgefortz’s secret lair. Fringilla escapes her captors, weaker but no less determined, and rescues Istredd from his cell. Together, they reach the chamber where Vilgefortz is draining and sacrificing lower-level mages to maintain exclusive control of the portals. Having studied for so long, Istredd instantly grasps the answer: By sacrificing himself in the same way, he can shut down Vilgefortz’s control of the portals for good, giving Yennefer and her allies a much-needed tool back in their arsenal. There’s some hand-wringing by both Fringilla and Yennefer about whether the sacrifice is worth it, but with apologies to Istredd: Yes, losing one mage — even one we’ve been hanging out with since season one — is worth it if it means turning the tide of a war that could plausibly lead to the end of the world.
Back at Montecalvo, another fan-favorite character is making another sacrifice. After confronting Vilgefortz in one-on-one combat, just as he promised to do two episodes ago, Vesemir manages to stab Vilgefortz in the chest but pays with his own life. “For my son, Geralt,” Vesemir says with his dying words, a reminder that Geralt isn’t the only witcher who took a young orphan into his care.
After all that magical violence, the fight ultimately comes down to one last push. A late effort by Vilgefortz and his army to defeat Yennefer via fire magic is quelled when Philippa opens a water wheel. With Istredd’s sacrifice on the other side of the portal complete, Yennefer’s army teleports behind Vilgefortz, and with the advantage lost, the mage retreats to fight another day. It’s a victory, but a painful one; though Yennefer’s side struck a serious blow, they also suffered some heavy losses.
But regaining access to portals gives Yennefer a vital tool back in the search for Ciri, and to her credit, she doesn’t waste any time. After asking Fringilla where Emyhr would keep his most treasured possession, she teleports right into the heart of Nilfgaard and snarls the question that’s been at the heart of her mission all season: “Where the fuck is my daughter?”
• After all the cleverness and excitement of the magical battle at Montecalvo, it’s a little deflating when the episode suddenly cuts away to check in on the Rats. Having kidnapped a rich kid (and killed some guards in the process), Ciri celebrates by snorting her first line of fisstech. The other Rats are delighted, but Mistle finally confronts Ciri, rattled by the growing darkness she sees. “Accept me as I am, because all of this darkness … this is me,” Ciri replies, like any rebellious teenager might.
• Leo Bonhart watch: The bounty hunter kills some random dudes who are dumb enough to cross him and steals a Falka doll from some little girls who have adopted the Rats as folk heroes. It certainly seems like he’s narrowing in on his quarry.
• This is a nitpick, but what exactly are Vilgefortz’s minions hoping to gain by being on his side? He probably promised them a share of his ultimate power or whatever, but he’s not exactly a guy who seems to value loyalty, and there’s ample evidence that he’ll drain the life force of anybody if it means maintaining power.
• Vesemir’s death in the Netflix series deviates from the broader Witcher canon, where he remains a major character as late as the video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
This week’s streaming has two standouts that I cannot recommend enough. Each show is completely addicting and one is new flavor for you to try whilst the other is a remix of shorts. Two shows. Two totally different worlds. In Down Cemetery Road, Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson turn a conspiracy thriller into something far richer — darkly funny, deeply human, and crackling with the kind of dialogue that only great writing can deliver.
Across the streaming multiverse, The Witcher returns for its fourth season, swinging harder than ever as Liam Hemsworth officially takes up the sword from Henry Cavill.
Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson light up the screen in Down Cemetery Road, a sharp, witty, and unpredictable new thriller that blends dark mystery with biting humor.
For both Thompson and Wilson, it all began with the writing. “It is all the writing,” Thompson said. “We were thrilled at the idea of working together, but I wouldn’t have done it if the writing hadn’t been so good that I knew it would support us all the way through.”
Wilson had a similar reaction when the first script landed in her hands. “You’re excited, you’re surprised—it’s shocking, it’s funny—and you just want to know what’s going to happen next,” she said. “I only got one episode, but I signed on after that. One was enough.”
Thompson explained that she looks for the truth in how characters speak. “I look for dialogue, accuracy, and originality,” she said. “A lot of scripts come through and everyone sounds the same, but in really good writing, everyone has their own way of talking as they do in real life. The first thing I look for is dialogue and character—can I believe in all of them? Then I look at story, because without a really good story, it doesn’t matter. One of the worst things you can see is when one person’s writing is strong and everyone else’s isn’t.”
Wilson, who plays a seemingly ordinary woman caught in an extraordinary situation, was drawn to the show’s energy and tone. “I look at the whole thing and ask, does this feel different? Does it feel unique?” she said. “My character doesn’t really belong in this genre—she’s an everyday person who suddenly finds herself in a conspiracy thriller. That was really interesting to me, to explore how to maintain that relatability in something that’s quite heightened.”
Both actors were captivated not only by the show’s mystery but by its wit. “I just love the humor in this,” Thompson said. “That’s what makes it work. Any entirely humorless thriller—it’s not much fun. It doesn’t have to be laugh-out-loud funny, but there has to be wit. Otherwise, it becomes flat.”
Wilson agreed. “The characters themselves are funny—not necessarily because they’re witty, but because of how they deal with situations,” she said. “That’s very human. Mo [the writer] is brilliant at finding the absurdity in people and putting that into a thriller. Every day on set, we were finding the humor in the moment. That was the best part about it.”
The chemistry between Thompson and Wilson, both onscreen and in conversation, mirrors the show’s balance of gravitas and playfulness. Down Cemetery Road isn’t just a thriller—it’s so much more.
After three seasons of monster slaying, mysticism, and soul-searching, The Witcher is back for its highly anticipated fourth season — and this time, a new White Wolf prowls the Continent. With Henry Cavill passing the sword to Liam Hemsworth, Season 4 marks both a new chapter and a bold reinvention for Netflix’s dark fantasy juggernaut. Under returning showrunner Lauren Hissrich Schmidt, the series continues to balance its sprawling mythology with intimate, character-driven storytelling.
“Things explode at the beginning of the season — in every way possible,” says Hissrich Schmidt. “We have a new Geralt, and for the first time, our three main characters — Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri — are on separate paths. Everyone’s story evolves independently. What I love is that each of them gets to fully become who they’re meant to be, not defined by the others but by their own journeys.”
That independence gives Season 4 a new rhythm — a slower burn that lets each storyline breathe before the fates inevitably intertwine again. “It’s one of the most exciting things about this season,” Hissrich Schmidt adds. “You’re watching these people evolve into the purest versions of themselves.”
For Freya Allan, who plays Ciri, isolation became the heart of her performance. She embraced it — and even welcomed the distance. “I’m living as the character, so I don’t need to know what anyone else is doing,” Allan explains. “Ciri doesn’t know what’s happening in everyone else’s story, and neither should I. It’s actually helpful not to know — it keeps you grounded in your own truth.”
Anya Chalotra, returning as Yennefer, approaches it from another angle. “Yen’s world is so layered,” she says. “I do like to know what’s happening around me, but mostly when I need it. Because you’re in it — eight months a year, your thoughts are spinning — and sometimes you need to step back and ask Lauren, ‘What are you seeing? How do you feel about this moment?’ Those conversations help guide me back to my instincts.”
That collaboration between cast and creator is the show’s secret weapon. “They live inside these characters in a way I don’t,” says Hissrich Schmidt. “When we talk about a specific scene, it’s so informative to hear what they’re experiencing on set. They bring emotional layers, moments, and lines that make the story deeper. It’s the essence of collaboration.”
Allan agrees. “It’s exciting when you feel like you have a real say,” she says. “Lauren is always open to hearing our ideas — even the constant thoughts flying out of our actor brains. It makes you feel trusted.”
Hissrich Schmidt continues. “It really is about trust. Sometimes they bring things that completely change a scene, and other times it’s about grounding everyone back to the core of what we’re doing. But that back-and-forth, that honesty, is what makes this team feel like a family.”
That sense of unity carries over to the other side of the Continent, where Hemsworth joins Lawrence Fishburne and Joey Batey (the ever-chaotic Jaskier). The chemistry between the trio is undeniable — a mix of wit, warmth, and occasional absurdity that mirrors The Witcher’s tonal balance of grim and goofy.
“There’s a campfire scene this season where someone says, ‘If he’s lost his love, he shouldn’t be the same,’” I mention to Hemsworth — a line that, even when not spoken by Geralt, feels like it belongs to him. Hemsworth grins. “Geralt says ‘f***’ a lot,” he laughs. “But it always feels right. It comes from a deep place.”
“You’re actually closer to the book Geralt than you think,” Fishburne tells Hemsworth. “You’ve got the look, the weight — it works.”
For Hemsworth, stepping into a role immortalized by another actor was daunting, but he found his own rhythm by focusing inward. “I looked over the broader storylines, sure,” he says, “but I didn’t want to be too aware of what Ciri or Yennefer were doing. I wanted Geralt’s perspective to stay singular — because he is isolated. That’s his world.”
Batey agrees. “We rely on the writers to hold the map,” he says. “There’s so much happening — the realms, the timelines, the braiding of stories — we just stay aware that our piece is part of something larger. Credit goes to the writers for keeping all of that straight.”
Season 4 feels like both a return and a rebirth. With new faces, shifting alliances, and that unmistakable Witcher humor cutting through the darkness, it’s clear the Continent isn’t done with its legends yet.
It’s been quite the wait, but the fourth season of The Witcher is almost here. In a teaser shared this weekend, Netflix finally revealed the release date: October 30. The video also provided an extended look at Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia — a casting change that fans naturally have a lot of feelings about after Henry Cavill won their hearts with his take on the character in the first three seasons. The minute-and-a-half-long clip doesn’t give away too much about season four, but we now have a proper sense of what our new Geralt looks and sounds like.
This season will also see Laurence Fishburne join as Regis, Sharlto Copley as Leo Bonhart and James Purefoy as Skellen. It’s , and the streaming company has said that the two final seasons will cover the last three books in the series: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow and Lady of the Lake. But, fans still have more Witcher content to look forward to yet outside of the show. (the game) is on the way, though we don’t yet have a release date.
At long last, we have a release date for The Witcherseason four: October 30.
On Saturday night, Netflix released a first look at the new season, which sees Liam Hemsworth as the new Geralt of Rivia after Henry Cavill bowed out. We see Geralt’s still doing his monster-slaying thing, and the clip goes out of its way to assure Hemsworth’s got the look and action chops to carry the show for its final two seasons. Like the Cavill-led era, this new adventure for Geralt will span eight episodes, and unlike season three, thankfully release all at once.
Plot-wise, the logline notes Geralt, Ciri (Freya Allan), and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) remain separated after the events of season three as war brews around the Continent. “As their paths diverge, and their goals sharpen,” it reads, “they stumble on unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good.” Along with a returning Joey Batey as Jaskier, the next season’s cast includes Laurence Fishburne, Robbie Amell, Meng’er Zhang, and Sharlto Copley.
Expect more on The Witcher as news about the season comes out. Until then, you’ve got the first three seasons to rewatch, along with the Sirens of the Deepanime film and Andrzej Sapkowski’s Crossroads of Ravensnovel, which stars a young Geralt and lands September 30.
Toss a coin to your witcher because Geralt of Rivia is back on the hunt. Netflix has released the first look at Season 4 of “The Witcher,” the fantasy drama series adapted from CD Projekt Red’s video game franchise and Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels of the same name. The eight-episode season will arrive on Netflix on Oct. 30.
Though the show’s white-haired protagonist Geralt was played by Henry Cavill in the first three seasons of the Netflix series, Cavill took to Instagram in October 2022 to announce that he was departing the series and that Liam Hemsworth would take over the role of the titular witcher. Season 3, which was released in two parts in June and July 2023, was Cavill’s final outing as the character.
“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4,” Cavill wrote. “In my stead, the fantastic Mr. Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf.”
The first teaser shows Hemsworth’s Geralt, who looks very similar to Cavill’s version, vanquish a ghostly wraith. The logline reads: “After the Continent-altering events of Season 3, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri find themselves separated by a raging war and countless enemies. As their paths diverge, and their goals sharpen, they stumble on unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good.”
In addition to Hemsworth, the cast includes Anya Chalotra (Yennefer of Vengerberg), Freya Allan (Princess Cirilla of Cintra), Joey Batey (Jaskier), Laurence Fishburne (Regis), Eamon Farren (Cahir), Anna Shaffer (Triss Merigold), Mimî M Khayisa (Fringilla), Cassie Clare (Philippa), Mahesh Jadu (Vilgefortz), Meng’er Zhang (Milva), Graham McTavish (Dijkstra), Royce Pierreson (Istredd), Mecia Simson (Francesca), Sharlto Copley (Leo Bonhart), Danny Woodburn (Zoltan) Jeremy Crawford (Yarpen), Bart Edwards (Emhyr), Hugh Skinner (Radovid), James Purefoy (Skellen), Christelle Elwin (Mistle), Fabian McCallum (Kayleigh), Juliette Alexandra (Reef), Ben Radcliffe (Giselher), Connor Crawford (Asse), Aggy K. Adams (Iskra), Linden Porco (Percival Schuttenbach), Therica Wilson-Read (Sabrina), Rochelle Rose (Margarita), Safiyya Ingar (Keira) and more
As previously announced, Season 4 will be the penultimate season of “The Witcher,” with the series coming to a close after Season 5. The two remaining seasons of the series were shot back to back and have three novels’ worth of material left to cover: “Baptism of Fire,” “The Tower of the Swallow” and “Lady of the Lake.”
“This is the beginning of a two-season journey for our family to finally reunite and be together — hopefully forever,” said creator, showrunner and executive producer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich.
Liam Hemsworth as Gerald of RiviaScreenshot: Netflix YouTube
In real life, if you look at them side by side, Liam Hemsworth and Henry Cavill don’t really resemble each other. But put them in White Wolf wig and costume, and turn the brightness way down, and… man, The Witcher’s continuity problem isn’t seeming so dire now.
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After on-set photos of Hemsworth in his Geralt of Rivia ensemble leaked earlier this week, Netflix released a very short video revealing the first official glimpse of him in character. It’s gloomy, sure, but who else reacted by muttering “I can’t believe it’s not Cavill?”
The Witcher: Season 4 | First Look | Netflix
Season four of The Witcher—as previously announced, the show will end after its fifth installment, with seasons four and five filming back to back—is now in production, so don’t hold your breath for a trailer anytime soon. The fourth season of the adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels will be the first without Cavill as the titular monster-hunter, but it will feature the return of Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, and Joey Batey as Yennefer, Ciri, and Jaskier the bard—plus a few more new faces, including Laurence Fishburne and Sharlto Copley.
You can watch the previous three seasons of The Witcheron Netflix now.
I’ve always been a huge fantasy fan. I’m going to sound like the biggest of clichés here, but it is 100 percent because of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work and having read both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at a very young age—that first encounter with the Bagginses and the world of Middle-earth really marked me for good.
Fantasy has always been right up my alley. From sweeping high fantasy stories set in wondrous worlds filled with dragons and battles, to urban fantasy with magic creeping through the crevices of what we would consider the “real” world—and everything in between, of course.
If you’re also craving some good old-fashioned escapism to the tune of otherworldly magic and characters, then this is the list for you: 19 of the best fantasy TV shows ever put to screen, ranked by yours truly.
19. The Witcher (2019 – ongoing)
Based on the book series of the same name by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, which inspired a very popular video game franchise before Netflix took it up as a live-action series, The Witcher follows the adventures of the titular “witcher” Geralt of Rivia, played by Henry Cavill and soon-to-be-replaced by Liam Hemsworth. “Witchers” are magically enhanced monster hunters, and Geralt travels the lands of the high fantasy world in which he lives doing just that—until he comes across the sorceress Jennifer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra) and Ciri, the crown princess of the destroyed kingdom of Cintra (Freya Allen), who’s bound to him by destiny.
While I have enjoyed The Witcher, especially its first season, I feel like its narrative rhythm has somewhat worsened as the episodes progressed, which is why it sits at the bottom of this ranking. Still, Cavill is a brilliant casting choice for Geralt and if you’re looking for some generally uncomplicated fantasy fun, this is definitely the show for you.
18. Merlin (2008 -2012)
This is such a trip down memory lane for me and all the OG Tumblr girlies. You know who you are and you know I’m right—because Merthur was right up there with the other Big Ships™ holding up our fandoms. It still is, to be honest. And that’s because BBC’s Merlin managed to make the relationship between the young wizard Merlin (Colin Morgan) and the boisterous prince—then king—Arthur (Bradley James) one for the ages. All the characters you know and love from Arthurian legends are here, from Katie McGrath’s Morgana to Angel Coulby’s Guinevere, Anthony Head’s Uther Pendragon, and Santiago Cabrera’s Sir Lancelot.
Merlin stirs up some very fond memories for me, even if those include sobbing my eyes out through the entire Christmas holidays of 2012 after “The Diamond of the Day” aired. Still, if I have to look back at the show with as much objectivity as possible, I have to admit that its visual effects really ask you to stretch your suspension of disbelief, which is why you can find it toward the bottom of this ranking.
17. A Discovery of Witches (2018 – 2022)
Based on yet another book series—the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness—A Discovery of Witches is exactly the type of urban fantasy to get into if you love all the darker shades of academia. It stars Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode as Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont, an incredibly powerful witch and very old vampire respectively. The series follows the pair from their first meeting in the halls of the University of Oxford through their adventures in a dangerous magical world and backwards and forwards in time—and their passionate love story, of course.
The atmosphere and cinematography of A Discovery of Witches are as immaculate as they come, as is the chemistry between the main characters—if one ignores the usual age difference that happens whenever a vampire is involved—though its storyline could be considered very “typical” for its genre.
16. Supernatural (2005 – 2022)
Another one for the history books, and one that will make everyone who hung around Tumblr all the way back in the early 2010s zone out and stare into the distance as “Carry On My Wayward Son” starts playing in their head. Supernatural probably needs no introduction, considering how long it ran, but I also find describing its fandom experience very complicated—you kind of needed to be there to really get it.
At its core, the story of Supernatural is very simple: Two brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester (Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki) are raised as monster hunters by their less-than-optimal father John (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The first seasons of the show are all part of the same wider narrative arc, which leads the brothers to become entangled with Hell, Heaven, and their inhabitants—including the angel Castiel (Misha Collins). The rest is quite literally history. And also, as Urban Dictionary would put it, the greatest love story ever told.
Supernatural holds a very special place in my heart, though by the end I wasn’t as consumed by it as I was when I first started watching. It obviously took a nosedive in quality in its last seasons, which is why it can’t be ranked higher, but there’s also no escaping its effects, which is why it ultimately had to be on this list one way or another.
American Gods was developed by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green and is based on the novel of the same name by Neil Gaiman—a household name when it comes to fantasy stories that blur the lines between the real world and the supernatural ones. This story in particular follows Shadow Moon, played by Ricky Whittle, who becomes entangled in a global-scale conflict between the Old Gods (think the Norse and Egyptian and Celtic gods) and the New Gods, the embodiment of technology and globalization.
American Gods did lose some of its punch as the seasons progressed, and lost some of the shine it had during its first episodes. Still, the concept that drives the entire story is a brilliant one and remains incredibly enjoyable, as are the performances from everyone involved. Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday and Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy, you really are everything to me.
14. The Rings of Power (2022 – ongoing)
The Rings of Power is undoubtedly one of the most infamous titles on this list. Set within the larger world created by J.R.R. Tolkien, already the subject of two cinematic trilogies—one of which is arguably one of the greatest trilogies ever made I will not take constructive criticism on this The Return of The King is one of the best movies to ever be put to the silver screen—The Rings of Power takes things back to some thousands of years and convert the event of the Second Age of Middle-earth, before any talk of hobbits and riddles in the dark.
Incredibly controversial and a matter of heated discussions among fans ever since it was announced, it’s still impossible to deny that The Rings of Power is visually stunning from start to finish—and with a beautiful score, something that I believe is paramount when it comes to entering the right fantasy mindset.
13. Shadow and Bone (2021 – 2023)
Even though Netflix decided to pull A Very Classic Move™ and cancel this show after just two seasons, at least we’ll always have this brief but beautiful dive into the rich world of the Grishaverse to see it come to life and follow the story of Alina Starkov, a girl who discovers she holds an incredible power that can quite literally change the fate of the nation and of everyone around her.
I’ve been a longtime Grishaverse fan, so of course, Shadow and Bone had to rank somewhat high on my list. The magic system is one of my favorites in YA fantasy, and there are very few found families done better than the Crows. Then again, the second season is incredibly rushed—sure, the threat of cancellation was looming right over their heads, but you can still feel the plot just speed-racing forward and leaving you a bit dazed.
12. Arcane (2021 – present)
Animation and fantasy are an extremely good combo, and Arcane is definitely proof of that. Filled with steampunk influences and set in the world of the League of Legends game, the story follows sisters Vi and Jinx (voiced by actresses Hailee Steinfeld and Ella Purnell respectively) as they navigate the rising conflict brewing in the city of Piltover and its dark underbelly, Zaun. The show has received praise left and right both for its animation and for its worldbuilding, so much so that it became the first streaming series to win the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program.
It’s obviously going to mean a lot more to viewers who are already familiar with the League of Legends game, but it still holds its own even for someone who has no idea about any of its worldbuilding—and that’s truly one of the great challenges in fantasy adaptations, one that Arcane conquers beautifully.
11. The Sandman (2022 – ongoing)
Another peak Neil Gaiman story, The Sandman is the adaptation of the comic books he wrote between 1989 and 1996 for DC Comics. The protagonist is Morpheus, the titular Sandman, the personification of dreams who escapes from a century of imprisonment at the hand of a human occultist and sets out to restore order in his realm of the Dreaming. That includes chasing a runaway nightmare, engaging in a battle of wits with Lucifer, and evading the schemes of one of his siblings, Desire.
The Sandman is brilliant, each episode charmingly unique and addictive in a way that only something out of Neil Gaiman’s mind can be. At this point, the ranking really becomes a question of which story I enjoy more—because I like them all so much to begin with.
10. The Wheel of Time (2021 – ongoing)
Both seasons of Prime’s The Wheel of Time received quite polarizing reactions since they’re not as faithful to their source material as they could be. And given that their source material is one of the most popular high fantasy book series of all time, written by Robert Jordan and finished by Brandon Sanderson, fans were vocal about everything wrong with the show.
Then again, I will admit to not having finished the series and having read the first installments so far back that I had pretty much forgotten them by the time I started watching the show—and I have to say that as a standalone product, The Wheel of Time definitely holds up. Its magic system is complex and detailed, its world rich, and its plot and storyline coherent. Plus, it has Rosamund Pike playing a (queer) powerful sorceress on a mission to save the world from certain destruction. So, I mean, I’m more than sold.
9. Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016 – 2017)
Representing the K-drama side of the entertainment world, most people would know this show simply as Goblin. One of the most popular to come out of South Korea in recent years, Goblin stars Gong Yoo and Kim Go-eun as Kim Shin and Ji Eun-tak, respectively—the titular Goblin and the Goblin’s bride, i.e., the only person who can put an end to the Goblin’s long and painful life. It’s exactly the kind of gut-wrenching and heart-shattering romance you can only find in K-dramas.
Goblin made me sob my eyes out pretty much from start to finish because it’s just that kind of story. If you like your fantasy to come with a heavy dose of romance, then this is definitely something you should try.
8. Good Omens (2019 – ongoing)
While we’re mostly used to associating fantasy with sweeping dramas filled with battles for the fate of the world, sometimes fantasy can be a comedy too—and be one of the best ones out there to ever come out in recent years. Based on the novel of the same name written in 1990 by authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens follows an angel and a demon (played by Michael Sheen and David Tennant respectively, and that should already be enough to make you want to press play) who have lived on Earth ever since the time of the Garden of Eden and are now trying to save it from a carefully-planned planned Armageddon.
The show is hilarious, clever, deliciously entertaining, and will also incidentally punch you in the gut with the raw emotion behind the two main characters—and the actors playing them.
Fullmetal Alchemist is, without a doubt, one of the greatest stories to ever be put to manga paper. Hiromu Arakawa we are forever in your debt for creating it And so it makes sense for its faithful adaptation, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, to be equally as great. Set in a world where people can learn to practice alchemy, brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric decide to use it to try and bring their mother back from the dead—one of alchemy’s greatest taboos, for which both brothers pay a very hefty price. Now teenagers and part of the State Alchemists, the brothers slowly uncover a conspiracy within their country’s military government and they of course work to dismantle it together with their friends and allies.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood truly has it all—friendship, love, loyalty, betrayal, debates on right and wrong, questions of obeying orders under a corrupt government, an interesting magic system, great stakes and equally great rewards. It’s truly a story that keeps on giving, no matter how many times you experience it.
6. Percy Jackson and The Olympians (2023 – ongoing)
This new adaptation of Rick Riordan’s saga of the same name might have just started, but it’s so faithful to its source material and set in such an interesting world that it already deserves a spot on this list. The story kicks off when twelve-year-old Percy Jackson discovers that he’s not a regular kid at all but rather the son of a mortal woman and a Greek god, making him a demigod—destined to be a hero and favorite pray of every mythological monster ever. And as if that wasn’t enough, he also learns that he’s the main suspect in the theft of Zeus’s master lightning bolt, an object over which the gods are very much willing to go to war.
Percy Jackson and The Olympians is funny and packed with action, with every little detail a clever reminder of this or that aspect of the Greek mythos. And if you add to the mix incredibly compelling characters that actually grow up with their readers, you can see how this show ranks so high on this list.
5. His Dark Materials (2019 – 2022)
His Dark Materials is based on the trilogy of the same name by Philip Pullman, which you might recognize from the individual titles of the novels that comprise it: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. The story is set in a world just slightly different from ours, where human souls take the shape of an animal companion called a daemon that remains by the human’s side for their entire life. The protagonist Lyra Belacqua and her daemon Pan embark on a journey to find out what happened to her kidnapped friend, setting them down a path to playing a key role in a heavenly war.
His Dark Materials is one of my favorite fantasy worlds of all time, and this adaptation is overall very faithful—diving right into all the wondrous elements that make up the interlocking universes of its protagonists.
4. The Magicians (2015 – 2020)
The Magiciansdealt me such a blow in its fourth season that I only skimmed through its fifth and final one, and yet up until that point it was one of my favorite shows on television. Imagine a school for magical humans, but make it a college filled with disaster and queer twentysomethings who get embroiled with cosmic entities and magical worlds—halfway between Harry Potter and Narnia and oh, so much fun. Julia Wicker and Margo Hanson, you’ve always been my favorites, and I still love you very much.
I couldn’t possibly not have The Magicians on this list, and not rank it very high, since it meant a lot to me as it was airing and it’s also genuinely entertaining with all its chaos and banter. Still, the ending of the fourth season is there, destroying every possible desire I might have for a rewatch.
3. Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005 – 2008)
Avatar: The Last Airbender—and its sequel, The Legend of Korra—is undoubtedly one of the most influential animated shows of the 2000s. Brilliant in its worldbuilding and plot, it blends a variety of heavy themes with light-hearted fun and incredibly well-written characters. The story is set in a world where some people have the ability to manipulate, or “bend,” one of the four elements. One person, the Avatar, can bend all four elements and acts as the bridge between the human and spirit worlds. The plot begins when siblings Sokka and Katara, a waterbender, encounter the lost Avatar, an airbender boy named Aang. Together they embark on a journey, helping Aang master all four elements and escape from the clutches of the Fire Nation, which has conquered most of the world and wants nothing more than to eliminate the Avatar.
Highly entertaining and filled with characters that will stay with you—Zuko, you know I’m talking about you—it’s definitely a must-see for all fantasy lovers. Especially if you also really like anime, since the animation style blends it with more typical American cartoons.
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 – 2003)
Supernatural changed the face of fandom spaces, sure, but before we had the Winchester brothers there was only Buffy Summers, who straight-up helped change the face of pop culture as a whole. The story follows the titular Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the latest incarnation of the Slayer—a chosen one who is granted powers to fight vampires, demons, and a wide array of forces of darkness. Buffy is trying to balance her supernatural responsibilities and the day-to-day struggles of being a teenager, all with the help of her mentor and a group of friends.
Through its highs and lows, Buffy remains a must-watch show that is worth every minute of its seven seasons. The only reason it doesn’t rank number one, honestly, is because I am and forever will be an ASOIAF girlie before anything else.
1. Game of Thrones & House of the Dragon (2011 – 2019, 2022 – ongoing)
Of course, what other fantasy universe could be in the first position of a ranking made by me? Especially if we’re talking about television, where the series adaptations of George R.R. Martin’s world of A Song of Ice and Fire reign supreme—despite their many, many flaws.
Because sure, Game of Thrones might have gotten us all used to some of the best television to ever television before airing the most disappointing final seasons of the century, but its impact is nothing to scoff at. While I’ve never been one to say that GoT was “fantasy for people who don’t like fantasy”—there’s nothing not fantasy about ASOIAF, and plenty of modern fantasy series that aren’t LotR feature massive amounts of violence—the HBO series undeniably helped make fantasy a more mainstream genre, rather than one more or less limited to its niche.
Its prequel, House of the Dragon, hasn’t really had the chance to prove itself yet—though its very successful first season is definitely a good sign, especially considering the devastation the GoT finale left in its wake. Still, I feel like I have to include it because there’s nothing in the ASOIAF universe that I love more than this unhinged family of horrible rulers and their fire-breathing lizards. They’re everything to me.
(featured image: Netflix / Starz / Prime Video / Illustration by The Mary Sue)
From mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
Following some intense controversy surrounding her new snack brand, popular Twitch streamer Pokimane has apologized for an insensitive comment she made to a “rude chatter” during a November 18 livestream. Read More
When you think of Nintendo, you tend to think of family-friendly gaming. You think of Link and Mario and sunshine and smiley stars. The word “adult” doesn’t likely come up when you ponder games on Switch, but that’s seemingly about to change. The company is adding a new 18+ app to its subscription service, Nintendo Switch Online, although only in Japan. Read More
As Cyberpunk 2077 approaches its third anniversary, the beleaguered blockbuster is getting a send-0ff to immortalize its unlikely turnaround. CD Projekt Red announced an Ultimate Edition for the sci-fi RPG on November 21 that includes this year’s Phantom Liberty expansion and the massive 2.0 overhaul patch. There will even be a physical copy for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S owners. Read More
A lawsuit filed last year accused Sony of using its walled-garden video game platform to charge players too much in the PlayStation Store. The London Tribunal has now allowed that lawsuit to move forward, against the PS5 maker’s objections, which could result in payments to players in the UK of up to $7.9 billion if it is ultimately successful. Read More
Buying super special “collector’s editions” of video games can be like heading into treacherous waters. These often-expensive boxes full of goodies (and also a video game) tend to sell out pretty quickly, and then you’re more likely to find them for double the price on reseller sites like eBay or Facebook’s marketplace. But if you’re eyeing the Baldur’s Gate 3 Deluxe Edition set to ship next year, Larian Studios is telling fans not to worry about it selling out, because the team isn’t making it a limited item. Read More
Slow news day? You betcha. But look, it’s Thanksgiving, and there’s a good chance people are cooking and eating just about anything they can find right now. Please, if we can save just one person from trying to cook their Steam Deck, then it will have been worth it. Read More
The white wolf is coming to Destiny 2 by way of some new cosmetics. Bungie teased a crossover with CD Projekt Red’s beloved RPG The Witcher 3 that will add three new armor sets to make players look like protagonist Geralt of Rivia, at least if they’re willing to shell out $20 or more for a single set. The new skins look great, but also arrive at Destiny 2’s lowest point in years. Read More
To avoid what many consider aggressive monetization, Mortal Kombat 1 players are doing everything they can to avoid buying cosmetics in NetherRealms’ latest 2D fighter. The latest exploit involves them utilizing a console date change hack to acquire once-free character skins that are now only available if you buy them. Read More
There are plenty of stereotypes about the treatment of writers in Hollywood. “The Witcher” creator Andrzej Sapkowski became all too familiar with them when visiting the set of the Netflix series based on his fantasy novels.
Speaking in an interview with the YouTube channel Cerealkillerz (via Gamespot) at Vienna Comic Con, the Polish author shared that he visited the set of the TV show during production and floated some input for the series. Without specifying what his ideas were, Sapkowski says that none of them ended up being used.
“The set was tremendous. Tremendous … I gave them some ideas but they never listened to me,” the author said, laughing it off. “It’s normal. ‘Who’s this? It’s a writer. It’s nobody.’”
In some ways, it wasn’t an unfamiliar experience for Sapkowski. The writer says that the various adaptations of his work — which include a hit video game series by Polish developer CD Projekt Red — have all been “strange” to see come to fruition.
“My raw material when I work is only letters. I don’t describe pictures. I don’t see any pictures. I use the letters only because I know my reader will see the letters only,” Sapkowski said. “I look at these and say, ‘Whoa! This is the way they picture it. Interesting!’ Sometimes it’s very nice for me, sympathetic. Sometimes it isn’t. But I will not elaborate.”
Sapkowski published the original “The Witcher” in 1990. Since then, he has published eight more novels set within the same fantasy universe. He is currently writing a tenth entry.
Netflix is working on a fourth season of “The Witcher” without star Henry Cavill. The actor announced his exit from the series prior to the Season 3 premiere. Liam Hemsworth is set to take over the role of Geralt of Rivia.
Cyberpunk 2077’s highly acclaimed and massive expansion, Phantom Liberty, almost feels like its own game. That’s probably because the developers behind the expansion spent over $60 million on developingPhantom Liberty and $21 million on marketing it, bringing the total cost of producing the DLC to about half of what it cost to develop the entire Cyberpunk 2077 base game. And Cyberpunk’s costs rise even more when you factor in the fortune CD Projekt Red spent just plugging up the original release’s worst problems after its disastrous launch.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
On October 5, during an investor’s presentation, CDPR revealed the total budget for Phantom Liberty. Its costs were split between zł275 million on “direct production expenditures” and another zł95 million on “marketing campaign costs.” If we do some converting, that equals out to just about $63 million and $21 million in USD, respectively, or roughly $84 million total.
No matter how you slice it, spending nearly $85 million on developing and marketing a single expansion is wild and a sign of just how expensive game development is these days. It’s also a great example of how big, expensive games aren’t allowed to be flops.
Cyberpunk 2077 had to be a beloved hit, no matter the cost
Another interesting number revealed during the presentation is that CDPR spent zł178 million or about $40 million USD on bringing the game to next-gen consoles and building the sweeping 2.0 update. Add that number to the above Phantom Liberty figures and you could feasibly claim CDPR spent almost $125 million on fixing Cyberpunk 2077’s imageand saving its reputation.
However, based on how well Cyberpunk 2077 and its new expansion are selling after the update—CDPR claims there was a “surge” of sales following update 2.0—the company is likely going to wind up making a lot of money off the game. CDPR pointed out during the investor presentation that it is “confident” that the DLC and its main game will be “big sellers” for a long time, pointing toward the continued sales of The Witcher 3 and its DLC years after launch.
With the development of the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel starting and news of a live-action spin-off in the works, it makes sense that CDPR would be willing to invest so much money into making sure Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy amounted to more than a failed launch and bad console ports. It needed the game to be a huge hit with millions of fans. And it got there, even if it cost a lot of money in the end.
In an interview with ScreenRant, director Marc Jobst shed some light on why Henry Cavill may have decided to exit Netflix’s fantasy series “The Witcher”.
“Henry does every single beat of his stunts. He won’t even allow a hand. If you’re doing a close-up of a hand grabbing a sword, it has to be his hand,” Jobst said. “That’s draining on your number one, so after three series, I feel, ‘Okay, he’s brought the show into being, and if he feels like he’s done what he can, I trust him.’”
It was announced late last year that Cavill would depart the show after its third season, which premiered its final three episodes on July 27.
The news came not long after it was revealed that the actor would no longer be continuing on as Superman in the DC Universe, following the hiring of James Gunn and Peter Safran as DC’s new co-CEOs.
Prior to that, Cavill had made a cameo as Superman in the Dwayne Johnson-starring “Black Adam”, with apparent plans to continue playing the Man of Steel.
It has been speculated by many that Cavill had left “The Witcher” in order to continue on as Superman.
Since the announcement of his exit, it was announced that Liam Hemsworth will be taking over the role of Geralt of Rivia in “The Witcher” season 4.
Lauren Hissrich, showrunner for Netflix’s The Witcher series, says that an aspect of the show’s first season which many fans consider a plot hole was actually planned all along.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
Spoiler warning for The Witcher season 3.
In Making The Witcher: Season 3, a behind-the-scenes documentary on the production of the Netflix fantasy show, Hissrich explained how a single line of dialogue in the second volume of Season 3 explained why a certain character who was portrayed as a bit player in the first season of the show was actually a big deal despite getting his ass handed to him.
Back in season 1, Vilgefortz, who was basically Yennefer’s stepfather, engaged in, and lost, a battle against an enemy soldier named Cahir. Vilgefortz was basically outplayed at every turn in the nearly-two minute scuffle, having his sword taken from him and his nose bloodied before being unceremoniously kicked down a hill where his torso bounced off a tree trunk with all the grace of a deflated basketball. He survives this, although barely. You can check out the one-sided fight below.
However, toward the end of the third season, it’s revealed that Vilgefortz was actually the big bad the whole time. Prior to his confrontation with Geralt, Vilgefortz hints at his suspiciously sudden aptitude for dark magic, saying: “Know what the hardest part was? Holding back. Hiding my real skills, knowing I could take any life at any time. It was exasperating.”
What follows is an even more painful and one-sided battle between Vilgefortz and Geralt where the all-powerful mage gives Geralt a far worse trouncing than the one he received in Season 1, leaving the white wolf bedridden for the rest of the season.
Fans of author Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher books already knew that Vilgefortz was quite powerful, and some of them were pretty vocal about how upset they were at seeing his defeat at the hands of a slightly above-average soldier. Hissrich acknowledged fans’ initial outrage as they questioned the showrunners’ decision to have “Cahir very handily defeat Vilgefortz,” saying that the whole thing was dramatic irony for book readers and situational irony for those experiencing The Witcher for the first time through the Netflix series.
“Vilgefortz is the most powerful mage, there is no way [Cahir would win], he could kill Cahir by just looking at him. There’s a great moment [this season where] Vilgefortz explains… that the hardest thing for him about this long game is that he had to hide his skills. When we see his power demonstrated for the first time, it is against Geralt,” Hissirch said. Whether fans buy this explanation for the sudden reveal of Vilgefortz’s powers remains to be seen.
The author of The Witcher books, which inspired both the CD Projekt Red game series and the Netflix show of the same name, confirmed that he’s working on a new addition to the novels that tell the story of Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla of Cintria, and Yennefer of Vengerberg. It’ll be the first new Witcher book in 10 years—the last was 2013’s Season of Storms—but it likely won’t feature any of those beloved characters.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
According to fansite Redanian Intelligence, Andrzej Sapkowski was on a Ukrainian podcast called Fantastic Talk(s) and was asked what he was working on. Perhaps the man is preternaturally disposed to knowing when The Witcher discourse machine is chugging along, or maybe he has a special witcher sense, because he decided to just flat-out say that he’s “quite diligently” working on “a new book about witcher.”
“I never say these things with me because you never know,” he reportedly said (Redanian Intelligence does not detail how the interview was translated to English). “Maybe I’ll do something, maybe I won’t. And so far, when I said that I would write something, and then I didn’t write it, people complained as if I had deceived them and as if I had lied.”
“That’s why I don’t like to talk about what I’m doing until I finish doing it. Because until I finish it, I don’t think it exists. But since I always make exceptions for Ukrainians, I will do it this time too,” he continued.
Sapkowski then said that the next book in the Witcher universe could “take a year, but no longer” to finish. Geralt fans who are mourning the loss of Henry Cavill as the White Wolf in the Netflix series (he’s leaving for unknown reasons and being replaced by Liam Hemsworth), shouldn’t get too excited for more Geralt content, however, as Sapkowski has made it clear before that Geralt and Ciri’s story is over and done with.
Could the next book be a prequel, like the upcoming TV series based on Ciri’s crew of violent teenagers, The Rats, that’s currently in development at Netflix? Could it tell the story of another conjunction, another joining of different worlds like that one that kicked off the events of The Witcher, with elves and humans forced to share a continent together? More importantly: Is Sapkowski keeping the CDPR team in the loop? The studio is working on a new Witcher trilogy, after all….
On Wednesday, CD Projekt Red juiced up The Witcher 3 with yet another patch, giving the eight-year-old fantasy role-playing game improved cross-platform progression on consoles, new features for Nintendo Switch, and even better-looking grass for touching purposes.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
The Witcher 3’s version 4.04 patch introduces a hodgepodge of graphical updates and quality-of-life improvements to both console and PC versions of the game, as well as bringing certain specific improvements to the Nintendo Switch. In short, the latest patch improves the Switch’s cross-progression feature making it so that, once logged in to your CD Projekt Red account, you can pick up where you left off in The Witcher 3 on other platforms. The Switch is also getting the Netflix-inspired content other consoles received in the last patch.
Aside from numerous bug fixes like, umm… “mending grass collision,” patch 4.04 has also made it so you don’t have to do so much fussing in menu screens during combat, letting you switch oils and potions right from the game’s radial menu. It’s a welcome change, since oils are vital tools in taking down specific monsters. Now Geralt can bathe his sword in whatever specific concoction will help him defeat the beasties he’s currently battling without you needing to break the flow of combat by opening up the pause menu and fiddling around with witcher’s brew.
These quality-of-life updates come as the second half of the third season of Netflix’s Witcher series—the final season with actor Henry Cavill in the role of Geralt—is almost upon us. In his absence, Liam Hemsworth will take up the Roach-riding mantle, debuting as the Butcher of Blaviken in the show’s fourth season.
The second part of The Witcher’s third season will premiere on the streamer on July 27.
The first episode of The Witcher season 3 begins with a lengthy recap of the previous two seasons: flashes of Henry Cavill in that initial, questionable Geralt wig, Freya Allen as a much-younger, more eyebrow-less Ciri, everyone’s shittier eye contacts, sword fights, magic, and a bit of sex. While watching, I was viscerally reminded of how much ground the series has covered since its 2019 debut—how much better the makeup and styling got, how impressively legible the sword fights are, the undeniable sexiness of most of the cast, and how utterly perfect Cavill is as the eponymous witcher, Geralt of Rivia.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
Netflix’s The Witcher pulls from Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series of the same name (which inspired CD Projekt Red’s game franchise), though there are many creative liberties taken with the twisting, turning, time-traveling books. The show can sometimes be a bit of a mess when it comes to plot, getting mired in the political goings-on instead of laser-focusing on the core trio of Geralt, Ciri, and mage Yennefer, but it shines whenever it gives those three center stage. It’s then that you remember: Cavill was made to play Geralt.
Cavill’s physicality and familiarity with Sapkowski’s universe shine in every moment he’s on screen—he perfectly captures the quiet kindness and probing philosophical mind that Geralt displays so often in the books. Geralt can kill you with his bare hands, but he can also have a riveting debate with you about war and race relations, and Cavill embodies that perfectly. I don’t know if I’d call Cavill an excellent actor, but he is an excellent Geralt.
There’s also a special kind of physicality that Cavill brings to the role that’s largely rooted in his ability to do many of his own stunts. While watching this season, I found myself wondering: “Did Cavill take notes from Tom Cruise while on the set of Mission Impossible: Fallout?” Cruise famously does almost all of his own stunts, continuously pushing the limits of what a Hollywood actor can pull off on-screen, and the payoff is obvious: the Mission Impossible films are the best modern action movies by a country mile.
Netflix
Cavill has been working with stunt coordinator Wolfgang Stegemann since Fallout—the two worked together to choreograph the iconic one-shot fight scene from The Witcher season 1, so the connection isn’t all that far-fetched. And Stegemann told GamesRadar that “it’s beautiful to see an actor who’s doing all the stunts themselves. I have a great stunt team but I don’t need a stunt double for him. [This means] I’m able to shoot special camera positions that I would never be able to do without him.”
Will Hemsworth have that kind of dedication to his role? The Witcher series often falters in plot progression and occasionally in character development, but whenever Cavill is fighting in a scene, you can’t look away. And in Season 3, he gets fight scenes and emotionally deep moments in spades, reminding us time and time again that he’s an excellent Geralt of Rivia.
The Witcher without Cavill
Bizarrely, even Netflix seems determined to reassure viewers that yes, Cavill is still in this season of The Witcher. A recent marketing campaign projected the words “Yes, he’s still Geralt in season 3 of The Witcher” on buildings and cliff faces around the world. Sadly he won’t be Geralt in season 4 of The Witcher, and that’s what I’m most worried about.
The Witcher Season 3 is split into two parts with the second set of episodes coming later this month. The first set of episodes ended on a cliffhanger, making the wait for those new episodes feel just a bit longer. Spoilers below for the books, but the second half of the season will likely kick off with the Thanedd coup, an infamous battle that horrifically injures Geralt. He carries that injury with him for the rest of the series, and the aftermath of the coup has major reverberations throughout the entire continent: It dissolves the mages’ Brotherhood, it separates Ciri from Geralt, it crowns an elven queen, it imprisons Yennefer.
The Thanedd coup will drastically shift the series’ pace—expect it to move rapidly, expect the stakes to be upped tenfold, expect your heart to be broken over and over again. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Cavill shouldering the exciting future of The Witcher, but I’ll keep an open mind. Maybe Hemsworth has got the chops, and his Geralt of Rivia will be one for the ages. The Witcher showrunners have promised a “flawless” and “meta” transition from Cavill to Hemsworth, so I’m at least looking forward to seeing how they pull that one off.
The Witcher Season 3 Volume 1 is streaming now on Netflix; Volume 2 is due out on July 27.
Netflix has released a new trailer for The Witcher season 3. The season 3 trailer has sent fans into frenzy with the part one all set to be released on June 29, 2023. As announced before, The Witcher season 3 will be split into two different parts.
Season 3 will also be the last season where Henry Cavill will be seen in the lead role of Geralt before taking his leave from the show. Chris Hemsworth will replace Cavill in The Witcher.
Recently, ahead of The Witcher season 3 part 1 release, Netflix debuted a new trailer for season 3. Here is everything to know about the same.
The Witcher Season 3 trailer
The new trailer gives the fans a glimpse of the upcoming season involving the great battles and love stories. It showcases the adventure of Geralt, Yennefer of Vengerberg, and Princess Ciri. Princess Ciri had become a target of multiple groups in The Continent because of how powerful she had become. The trailer also teases a softer side of Geralt this time around.
Reportedly, the third season is inspired by Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher book series, Time of Contempt. The cast ensemble of The Witcher Season 3 includes Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer of Vengerberg, Freya Allen as Ciri of Cintra, Joey Batey as Jaskier, MyAnna Buring as Tissaia, Anna Shaffer as Triss Merigold, Royce Pierreson as Istredd, and others.
About The Witcher Season 3
The official synopsis of The Witcher season 3 reads:
As monarchs, mages, and beasts of the Continent compete to capture her, Geralt takes Ciri of Cintra into hiding, determined to protect his newly-reunited family against those who threaten to destroy it. Entrusted with Ciri’s magical training, Yennefer leads them to the protected fortress of Aretuza, where she hopes to discover more about the girl’s untapped powers; instead, they discover they’ve landed in a battlefield of political corruption, dark magic, and treachery. They must fight back, put everything on the line — or risk losing each other forever.
Epic Games’ battle royale shooter Fortnite has some new characters joining in on the quest for the W: The Witcher 3’s Ciri, Geralt of Rivia’s adopted daughter, and his love interest Yennefer of Vengerberg are now available in the game’s item shop.
The Witcher 3 Meets Tense Roguelike PvE Card-Battling In Rogue Mage
The popular ladies of The Witcher franchise storm Fortnite with two islands of their own: Ciri’s Escape and Yennefer’s Battleground, both of which can be accessed through the game’s Discover tab. Or, if you’d rather land on the islands immediately, you can enter code 2776-4034-8400 for Ciri’s and 2862-9616-5689 for Yennefer’s. Completing either Ciri’s or Yennefer’s islands will net you emoticons of each, while finishing both of them will reward you with a fancy banner to show off. The two islands will be live until July 4.
The real draw here are the equippable skins, though you’ll have to shell out some V-Bucks for them. Currently Yennefer can be bought either on her own for 1,500 V-Bucks (approximately $12 USD) or in a bundle with her Megascope pickaxe, bird skull back bling, and Black Wings emote in which she summons her magical raven for 1,800. Ciri, meanwhile, is only available in a pack for 2,000 V-Bucks, and comes with both back bling and a pickaxe of her silver sword Zireael, as well as a basilisk glider. There are some cool touches to these skins, as well. Ciri’s hands, for example, will glow green when holding her Zireael Sword Pickaxe. And Yennefer’s just a badass. Who wouldn’t want to embody her essence?
Unfortunately, Geralt isn’t joining Ciri and Yennefer to duke it out for the win this time around, as the White Wolf was previously an unlockable skin Battle Pass owners were able to acquire back in Chapter 4 Season 1. As a result, he probably won’t be for sale at any point, though those who unlocked him can, of course, use him any time. Ah well, if we can’t have him back, then replacing him with two of the most powerful women in The Witcher seems like a fair trade.
