© CD Projekt Red

Witcher 4: What We Know So Far

Dive into everything we know about The Witcher 4 and what to expect from Ciri’s first adventure as the main protagonist.

Oct 9, 2025

The Witcher 4 will feature Ciri as the new main character. Expect meaningful side quests, romance, magic, a rich open world and the return of Gwent. Geralt will appear, the lore will be respected, there are new regions to explore and monsters to hunt.

What? I’m to stay silent? You can’t demand that! What’s the point of knowing something if you can’t show off the knowledge?
Dandelion in Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski

New Protagonist

Ciri has been confirmed as the new main character for an upcoming trilogy. She will be older, accompanied by her loyal horse Kelpie and will define her own path as a witcheress.

Ciri Witcher 4 Tech Demo
Ciri in the Witcher 4 tech demo © CD Projekt Red
From the very beginning, we knew it had to be Ciri – she’s a complex character and there is so much to be told about her…. [...] She just became a witcher[ess], so she’s only just beginning to deal with this world and become a professional who kills monsters within it. [...] She’s open, curious, and drawn to people… This opens up uncharted territory in storytelling, where relationships and emotions are just as important as the fight for survival.
CD Projekt Red

The Trial

Ciri has undergone the Trial of the Grasses, a dangerous mutation ritual to become a witcher that very few survive.

Magic

Ciri’s magical abilities go beyond the standard witcher signs that are commonly used by witchers. In the cinematic trailer, she manipulates water to create an electrified blast against the monster Bauk.

In the world of The Witcher, water is associated with emotions and adaptability. It suits Ciri’s character well as a new witcheress.

Tech Engine

The Witcher 4 will run on Unreal Engine 5, providing the team at CD Projekt Red with more options to make the world more immersive than ever before.

You can check out the tech demo below:

Side Quests

Side quests will play a big role in The Witcher 4. The team wants them to feel meaningful, with choices and consequences that directly impact the world and its characters.

We want to make them meaningful, and we want to make sure that the consequences are visible. So you [feel as though] you had an impact either on an NPC or world in general. [These complex decisions are] why our games have long tails, right? Because these choices and consequences [add a lot of] re-playability.
CD Projekt Red

Romance

Romance will be an important narrative component in The Witcher 4. CDPR says it won’t be there just for the sake of it, but as a meaningful element that enriches the story.

Absolutely. It’s a part of the way we make games. It is a part of human nature. It’s a very normal thing. Without that, I think we wouldn’t be able to tell the very full story. [...] But as always, we want to pay a lot of attention to it and make it super compelling and very meaningful. So it’s not just to make a romance for the sake of making a romance. That’s not the CDPR way.
CD Projekt Red
Ciri in the sauna
Ciri takes a break in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — yt: Neon Knight

Open World

The open world in The Witcher 4 will be on a similar scale to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

[The Witcher 4 is] definitely more or less the same when it comes to size.... It could be 90, 85, or 100 percent [the size of The Witcher 3 map].
CD Projekt Red

Furthermore, CD Projekt Red has confirmed that the goal is to focus more on quality than quantity.

The open world doesn’t necessarily need to be bigger and bigger and bigger, but the open world can be deeper and more immersive, more systematic. I think that’s something that’s really exciting to look at.
CD Projekt Red

Here’s a look at all the places we got to explore in the base game of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt:

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt world map
The Witcher 3 World MapDamien Mammoliti (Cook & Becker / CD Projekt Red)

New Monster

A new creature, the Bauk, will appear in the game. Inspired by Serbian folklore, it is described as a monster that has the abilty to smell a person’s fear and channel those fears to paralyze its victim.

Here’s a look at this new monster in the reveal trailer:

Geralt Returns

Geralt of Rivia will return in The Witcher 4, but his exact role remains a mystery.

We can promise that Geralt will appear, but we cannot tell you if [he’s] going to be [a] playable [character] or not right now.
CD Projekt Red
Geralt of Rivia by Milica Kujundzic
Geralt of Rivia — Fan Art by Milica Kujundzic

Netflix Series

The developers have confirmed that The Witcher 4 is not influenced by the Netflix series.

The storytelling we’re doing and the plan for our project is our origin thing always.
CD Projekt Red

Gwent is Back

Fan favorite Gwent will make a return in The Witcher 4. Gwent is a card game inside the world of The Witcher. Even a witcheress like Ciri must take a break from killing monsters from time to time.

Geralt and Dandelion watch a game of Gwent, Art by Lyubava Blagodarnaya
Geralt and Dandelion watch a game of Gwent — Art by Lyubava Blagodarnaya

Respect the Lore

The CD Projekt team has reassured fans that The Witcher 4 will stay true to the lore established by the previous games.

Player choices from The Witcher 3 will carry over into The Witcher 4.

We are beholden to the lore, the canon of the books by Andrzej Sapkowski, the three previous Witcher games, and we’d want to take that seriously.
CD Projekt Red

The school of the Lynx

A new witcher school will be introduced in the saga, the school of the lynx. Ciri wears the medallion of the lynx in the cinematic trailer, showcasing her affiliation with the school.

Where will The Witcher 4 take place?

Players will explore the Northern kingdom of Kovir and its winter capital, Lan Exeter. Kovir is a mountainous region with rich mines while Lan Exeter is a city built on canals instead of streets, a hub for trade, politics, and culture — often compared to real world Venice.

More regions of the continent to explore will surely be revealed as the marketing campaign progresses.

Here’s a look at part of the continent we’ll be exploring in The Witcher 4:

Kovir with Lan Exeter on a map of the Witcher continent
Kovir and Lan ExeterOrtelius Map 2.0 from Ortelius Team

Time Setting

CD Projekt Red has confirmed that the story of The Witcher 4 takes place a few years after the events of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Gameplay

Ciri is agile and versatile, and uses new tools like the chain in the cinematic trailer. Ciri is also a source, a non-regular human being, which means she has access to more magical powers than the typical witcher.

Ciri is not a regular human being. She’s a source. That makes her a special and super-powerful being. What does it mean? It means that you can control or at least sense the magic in the world. So in the trailer, she is simply using [the water as a source] to create a powerful spell.
CD Projekt Red
Ciri channeling water to create a spell
Ciri channels water to create a spellThe Witcher 4 Cinematic Trailer

Conclusion

The Witcher 4 is shaping up to be another step up for the saga. With a new protoganist, Ciri, taking center stage, blending combat and magic, this new instalment of the franchise promises to be a fresh yet familiar Witcher experience.


And you — what excites you the most about The Witcher 4?

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