Summary
- The Witcher 4 won’t be influenced by the Netflix series, according to CD Projekt Red.
- Director Sebastian Kalemba has stated that while big franchises often do overlap in transmedia, The Witcher 4 won’t “rely on it”.
- Executive producer Gosia Mitrega backs up that statement by claiming that The Witcher 4 will be a story that CD Projekt Red “wants to tell to the world”.
The Witcher 4 was announced at The Game Awards earlier this week, bringing the almost decade-long wait for a sequel reveal to an end. We’ve had very little Witcher goodness from CD Projekt Red between the launch of The Witcher 3 and now, though we did get a controversial TV show from Netflix, which was successful before it became widely despised.
What with several seasons of the show having been released during the making of The Witcher 4, presumably with some oversight from CD Projekt Red, you have to wonder whether the events of the show or its brief success have had any impact on development. Thankfully, director Sebastian Kalemba and executive producer Gosia Mitrega had the answers.
The Witcher 4 Won’t Be Influenced By The Netflix Series
In an interview with YouTube channel GAMES.CH, Kalemba admits that while there is usually “synergy between transmedia” when it comes to big franchises like The Witcher, CD Projekt Red isn’t going to “rely on it”.
“To be very honest, the way how generally franchises work, there’s always some synergy between transmedia,” says Kalemba. “It always worked this way, in every single IP you see, there’s always this synergy that helps this franchise wheel bring in new commerce, for example. But, I don’t think we rely on it anyhow. We are doing our games.”
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Mitrega then builds on Kalemba’s comments, explaining that while CD Projekt Red is always careful to stick to the established lore and takes things away from creator Andrej Sapkowski’s book series, The Witcher 4 will have a story that “we want to tell to the world.”
That’s just one of the little tidbits that Kalemba and Mitrega have revealed about The Witcher 4 since its announcement, as they also recently revealed that Gwent will most likely be returning – with many thinking that Geralt could be the final challenger to overcome – while it was also claimed that The Witcher 4 will have us see the start of Ciri’s journey as a Witcher.
The Witcher IV is a single-player, open-world RPG from CD PROJEKT RED. At the start of a new saga, players take on the role of Ciri, a professional monster slayer, and embark on a journey through a brutal dark-fantasy world. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it aims to be the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date.