While Ciri taking over the reins from Geralt as the protagonist of The Witcher franchise has been the source of several conversations online, CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz has spoken about how she is a “great choice” for The Witcher 4 and future games in the franchise.
In an interview with Polish publication Parkiet, Nielubowicz spoke about wanting to introduce Ciri as the new protagonist in the trailer from The Game Awards 2024, and what it might mean for the series going forward.
“At the [The Game Awards 2024] in December, we presented the first trailer, which was created using our own version of the Unreal Engine 5 engine,” said Nielubowicz (translation via Google). “Although it did not show the gameplay itself, it gave players an idea of what they could expect from ‘The Witcher 4’. Above all, we wanted to introduce the world to the main character of the game. We believe that Ciri is a great choice for the new saga because she gives us many possibilities – both narrative and artistic.”
“It also gives us the opportunity to tell the story from a new perspective. Apart from that, unfortunately, I cannot reveal anything more. We have the ambition to reach higher and higher with each new game, and this also applies to the fourth part of ‘The Witcher’.”
While being generally coy about more details about The Witcher 4, Nielubowicz also spoke about how the franchise has been quite successful, with more than 75 million copies sold, and how CD Projekt wants to further develop it through more games.
“We produced three parts of ‘The Witcher’ – each of them was a success, and each was a milestone for us in the development of CD Projekt,” he said. “To date, the entire trilogy has sold over 75 million copies. This is a phenomenal result that shows how big the potential of this brand is. What’s more, despite the passing of years, new players are still eager to reach for our ‘Witchers’.”
Nielubowicz also spoke about Project Sirius being made alongside The Witcher 4 to further expand on The Witcher franchise. He also mentioned the remake of the first game in the franchise, expected to be released only after The Witcher 4 has hit store shelves.
“We have a strong franchise in our hands, which we want to develop further, among other things, through further productions,” he said. “A lot is already happening here. We are working full steam ahead on ‘The Witcher 4’, which will open a new Witcher saga, and in parallel, work is underway on a project codenamed [Sirius], and we have also started a remake of the first ‘The Witcher’.”
In the meantime, The Witcher 4 is still going strong in development, with the developers at CD Projekt RED releasing regular behind-the-scenes details through the studio’s podcast. The game is currently in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game, however, isn’t expected to be out until 2027 at the earliest. The developers have also asked fans of the series to be careful about scams posing as beta invitations for the upcoming game.
