One of the lead developers behind The Witcher 4 says the team has known Ciri would be the protagonist for over 10 years.
In an interview featured in PC Gamer issue 410, the team behind The Witcher 3 reveals that plans to place Ciri at the forefront of the next saga were in motion as early as 2014. “It was pretty early on we realised that [Blood & Wine] is where it ends, and also pretty early on, we knew that we wanted to work with Ciri later on…even like 2014, it was already an idea floating around the studio that she’s next. In Witcher 3, Geralt is just helping out…he is there for her. So it was pretty clear we want her as the next main person, main character.”
In a recent behind-the-scenes video published on the GameStar YouTube channel, The Witcher 4 game director Sebastian Kalemba doubles down on this longstanding vision.
“We knew it from the get-go,” Kalemba says. “I remember a discussion with Badowski. During Blood and Wine, we’d been talking about Ciri, and why it’s a good choice. Eight years, nine years ago, we already had a very solid motivation for why this is important and why this should be the next step for us. We knew it already there. Of course it wasn’t that crystallised, but the big idea was already there, and set in stone.”
Also appearing in the video were CD Projekt Red’s global community project director, Marcin Momot, and Pawel Mielniczuk, the art director. They discussed the studio’s excitement to return to the Continent and explore it from Ciri’s perspective.
While the next Witcher game, often referred to as Polaris, is still deep in development, the creative team’s early clarity about Ciri’s role suggests the studio is building her arc as a centrepiece of a new saga, not just a continuation.
The Witcher’s future, it seems, was decided long before Geralt ever hung up his swords.
First look at The Witcher 4 shows Ciri is the star, but that sure sounds like Geralt at the end to me.
