Written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, the very first The Witcher novel arrived in 1990 which spawned eight more novels, with the last arriving in 2013.

Since that time, we’ve had video games, board games, animations and a live-action TV series. The first video game to be adapted was in 2007 for PC. Unfortunately, the original The Witcher game hasn’t aged well, but thankfully, it is getting a full remake powered by Unreal Engine 5.

Check out The Witcher Netflix trailer below!

As for the other video games, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings in 2011 was a far better game than its predecessor. However, the landscape changed for the series in 2015 with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, an RPG considered by many to be amongst the greatest of all time in its genre.

The success of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt likely played a part in the arrival of the Netflix live-action adaptation, though the series is mostly based on Sapkowski’s novels. As for the original actor who played the leading role of Geralt of Rivia in the show, being a fan of The Witcher games and novels, Henry Cavill jumped at the chance to star in the series.

One would assume that regardless of how a Witcher adaptation is delivered, such as the Netflix series, those in charge of the production would listen closely to the guidance of its original creator, namely novelist Andrzej Sapkowski, right? Well, according to Sapkowski, those in charge of the Netflix adaptation never listen.

One of the common complaints in regard to the Netflix series by fans is that it doesn’t follow the novels as closely as it should, despite the best efforts of Henry Cavill. Moreover, as reported by Comicbook.com, Sapkowski was speaking during an interview with Cerealkillerz at the Vienna Comic Con and expressed his frustration when it came to no one taking his advice on the Netflix series.

When referring to his visit to the set of the Netflix show, Sapkowski vented: “Oh well, the set was tremendous, tremendous, awesome. But no, maybe I gave them some ideas, but they never listened to me. They never listen to me. But it’s normal, it’s normal. ‘Who’s this? It’s the writer, it’s nobody.’”

As for what the future holds for The Witcher on Netflix, season four will no longer star Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia. Instead, Cavill will be replaced by Hunger Games actor Liam Hemsworth. Season four of The Witcher is expected to arrive on Netflix sometime between 2024 and 2025.

Featured Image Credit: Netflix

Published 10:03 12 Nov 2023 GMT

New Witcher movie announced by Netflix

An animated Witcher movie is on the way, courtesy of Netflix, marking the return of the best Geralt actor.

An animated Witcher movie is on the way, courtesy of Netflix, marking the return of the best Geralt actor.

Recently Netflix has been on a bit of a roll, despite once again increasing the price of its subscription tiers. It’s announced several new animated series and films, many of which are based on popular video game franchises like Tomb Raider, Devil May Cry and of course, The Witcher.

Check out the trailer for The Witcher: Sirens of The Deep below

This obviously isn’t the first time Netflix has given us an adaptation of The Witcher, as the live-action series recently aired its third season with a fourth on the way, but at a cost. Henry Cavill, a Witcher superfan who’s played the games more times than we can count played Geralt for as long as he could, but unfortunately decided to step away from the role.

Liam Hemsworth will now wear the wig and strap on the swords and despite putting in the time to do their homework on the series, fans are calling for its cancellation.

Now, a new Netflix Witcher project is on the way, The Witcher: Sirens of The Deep, an animated story that’ll mark the return of a fan-favourite Witcher actor, though it isn’t Henry Cavill.

Playing Geralt once again will be none other than the legendary Doug Cockle. The actor lent their voice to the characters in all three Witcher games, with their best performances undoubtedly being in The Witcher 3, and its spectacular story expansions.

Cockle will be reprising the role on an adventure that sees Geralt submerge themselves into a whole new world. This is after the upsetting news Doug Cockle has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The plot summary for The Witcher: Sirens of The Deep is as follows: “Geralt of Rivia, a mutated monster hunter, is hired to investigate a series of attacks in a seaside village and finds himself drawn into a centuries-old conflict between humans and merpeople.”

An official release date hasn’t been shared at the time of writing, though it has been confirmed it’ll be landing on the streaming service in late 2024.

Featured Image Credit: Netflix

Published 10:10 19 Apr 2024 GMT+1

The Witcher to end with season 5, Netflix confirms

It’s been one hell of a bumpy ride, with many highs and lows, and so it seems fitting that The Witcher series will soon come to an end.

Right after it has two more seasons, that is.

For many fans of Netflix’s The Witcher, it died when Henry Cavill left and Liam Hemsworth took over. We may keep getting teases about Geralt’s new look, or a first glimpse of Hemsworth as Geralt, but generally the fandom’s atmosphere is frosty.

Don’t forget about The Witcher Sirens of the Deep coming to Netflix

News that the TV show will end with season five, while a relief for some, is still hard to hear – when the show first aired, it was to much praise. There was the odd niggling issue, but overall viewers were happy.

How sad, then, to see a once beloved series fall apart as it attempts to bring the “epic show” to its “fitting conclusion”. As one fan put it, “I don’t know anyone that wants this show without Henry Cavill.”

Yet some are arguing that the show was declining before Cavill left, “Fans aren’t going to come back. The viewership from last season wasn’t good even with Henry there,” said Twitter user MasteroftheTDS.

It’s official, The Witcher season 4 is in production. But that’s not all, we’re already planning season 5, which will be the final season and bring this epic show to a fitting conclusion. See you on The Continent.

As you scroll through the comments, there are even doubts that the show will make it to season five, given how disgruntled the show’s fandom is.

Despite this dismay, though, we suspect people will tune in to see how bad (or good) Hemsworth really is.

“I actually think Hemsworth can pull it off,” admitted a fan, much to everyone’s surprise. “But I have no confidence in the writers not to deliver more of the same. They took a mega hit and drove it off a cliff.”

The end is never easy. Yet, with The Witcher fandom behaving how it is, it seems the end of Netflix’s show is welcomed. We guess no one will be tossing coins to their Witcher come season four airing…

 

 

Published 09:31 23 Apr 2024 GMT+1

Nothing quite says the ship is sinking like cancelled spin-offs. Poor Netflix, it just can’t catch a break with building on the success of The Witcher franchise.

First, Henry Cavill left, much to the dismay of The Witcher fandom. Then viewers poo-pooed Liam Hemsworth playing the iconic Geralt. And now, Netflix has scrapped a spin-off series after two months of filming.

It’s all going a bit wrong, we’re sad to say.

After learning that The Witcher will end on season five, we’re also finding out that the spin-off, titled The Rats, has reportedly been cancelled.

At least we still have The Witcher Sirens of the Deep to look forward to.

Intended to follow the antics of The Rats, who Ciri joined in season three, the series once intended to span between six to eight episodes, will now feature as flashbacks in season four of The Witcher instead.

According to Redanian Intelligence, after Netflix watched the footage already filmed, it decided not to go ahead with the prequel.

If you want further “confirmation”, Juliette Alexandra, who plays one of The Rats, has reportedly updated her resume to reflect this change of direction.

Alexandra’s resume read, “Juliette will return to S4 of The Witcher as one of The Rats, as well as in the spin off highlighting the backstory of these characters.” However, as per Redanian Intelligence, the latter part about the prequel has been removed.

In truth, though, The Rats being canned is the least of Netflix’s problems since fans got their first look at Hemsworth as Geralt. Oh, not in the full costume but rather a cast reading intended to show a peek behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, the response to that hasn’t been warm or inviting, but rather underwhelming and frosty.

Maybe season four of The Witcher will surprise us, or maybe it’ll be exactly what we’ve been dreading. Even if it does die a painful death, at least we have The Witcher 4 to look forward to.

 

Published 13:08 27 Sep 2024 GMT+1

The Witcher 3 fans stunned to discover alternate ending we all missed

The Witcher 3 fandom is once again reeling after learning there’s an alternate ending the majority of us have previously missed.

Geralt has yet another secret to show us before we call time on our exploration of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Well, Geralt and a fan, actually.

It’s not our fault we’re still playing catch up when it comes to Witcher secrets, for The Witcher 3 is quite a chunky game without any DLC or mods.

See how refreshed Geralt looks in the next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Players have had so much to do that they’ve easily missed alternate endings in this CD Projekt Red adventure.

Thankfully, Redditor GabagoolGandalf is on hand to alert us to this mistake we keep on making.

When a discussion about the best Witcher 3 contracts started, attention soon homed in on ‘The Phantom of Eldberg’ quest.

Few can deny its supernatural splendour, however, it’s always felt like a storyline with one definitive ending.

Turns out, that isn’t strictly true.

As GabagoolGandalf explained, “Fun fact, if you finish the ‘Skellige King’ quest before finishing this one, our boy Jorund will live.”

They added, “The only downside is that you miss out on being imprisoned by Lugos & helping out his son. But I’d much rather have a guy like Jorund live than play those two. He was a real one.”

This is brand new information to us.

“Jorund can live!? Goddamn it, I’ve been playing incorrectly this whole time!” replied Sociolinguisticians.

To this, another player admitted they didn’t do the quest during their last playthrough because they wanted “to spare” Jorund.

Now that we know he can survive, Jorund need no longer be yet another dead or forgotten NPC.

It’s never easy finding out that you could have saved a popular NPC this entire time. Still, in learning these difficult truths, we are better prepared for our next playthrough.