The voice actor of The Witcher games protagonist Geralt of Rivia – Doug Cockle – has weighed in on the “controversy” surrounding Ciri being the protagonist of The Witcher 4. In an episode of Fall Damage with Cockle reacting to fan-made memes about The Witcher franchise, Cockle implored those that found Ciri as a protagonist to be “woke” to “read the damn books.”
One of the posts that Cockle reacted to in the video spoke out about the livestream chat during The Game Awards 2024 spamming the word ‘woke’ when The Witcher 4’s trailer was shown. “It’s not woke,” said Cockle. “There’s nothing woke about it. It’s a cool character from The Witcher and they’re going to focus on that character. I think that’s awesome. We can’t just have Geralt for every single game for The Witcher ad nauseum through eternity.”
“Besides, we’ve seen the end of Geralt’s journey,” he continued. “[The Witcher 3 expansion] Blood and Wine was supposed to wrap up Geralt’s journey. I celebrate Ciri. I celebrate her being the protagonist. So all you people who think it’s woke … if you read the books, then you understand why CD Projekt went down this avenue. There’s a whole rich world of stuff to explore with Ciri that they didn’t do when they put her into [The Witcher 3] because the story was about Geralt. But she hints at it.”
“If you think it’s woke, read the damn books. They’re good, first of all. And secondly, you won’t think it’s so woke anymore.”
This is far from the first time that Cockle has expressed his opinions about Ciri taking over the role of protagonist from Geralt in The Witcher 4. Back in January, Cockle referred to making Ciri the main protagonist of the games going forward “a really good move.”
“I’m really excited,” said Cockle. “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 people, 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.”
CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz has also spoken about Ciri being a “great choice” as the series protagonist moving forward. Speaking about the trailer that officially announced the game, Nielubowicz said that the company wanted to introduce Ciri as the main protagonist, and how this decision helps open up new possibilities for stories that can be explored.
“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.”
The Witcher 4 is currently under development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. There hasn’t yet been an official release window announced for it, however.
