The first teaser trailer for The Witcher 4 confirmed what fans had long suspected by depicting Ciri as the game’s new lead character. Through the first three games, voice actor Doug Cockle portrayed the previous main character, Geralt of Rivia, and he will reprise his role in the sequel as well. But Cockle is far from disappointed about taking a backseat this time, and he’s eager to see Ciri get the spotlight.
“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… 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.”
Cockle also related that CD Projekt Red gently admonished him for sharing his theories about Geralt’s presence in the game.
“I was never really out of their good books,” said Cockle. “All developers are like this. 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 me. Doug, who plays Geralt, whatever you say is going to be taken as something.’ So it was a very, very light slap on the wrist. It wasn’t really a big deal.”
Cockle is reprising his role as Geralt in Netflix’s upcoming animated film, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep. That will premiere on Netflix on February 11, while The Witcher Season 4 is expected to arrive later this year. As for The Witcher 4, CD Projekt Red ramped up production at the end of 2024, and the game doesn’t currently have a release date.
