Anmol Ahuja
CD Projekt Red’s third Witcher game escalated the game series, and the overall standards of what an RPG could be or should do to hitherto unprecedented levels. The game turned out to be a massive success, and I have to admit that it was one among the best gaming experiences I have had in a long time.
Fantastic world building and character writing, along with a lavishly unfolding yet deeply complex plot, truly worthy of appreciation, is what made this game stand out from its contemporaries, including games released even today. Calling its open world spanning across multiple fantasy lands and kingdoms simply expansive would be a disservice to the artists who worked on painstakingly created the world for the game for close to four years, rivaled only by the open worlds created by Rockstar games.
Just in case you needed more affirmation that there will be a next Witcher game, even if it may not be called ‘Witcher 4’, since according to the makers, ‘Wild Hunt’ marked a definitive end of a trilogy for Geralt of Rivia, you need to have all but one glance at the accomplishments of the third game. Since its release, the game has sold 25 Million copies worldwide, has a near perfect, unanimous critical as well as audience score, and has been awarded more than 250 Game of the Year titles. Given all of this, it would be too hard to imagine CDPR throwing it all away, and while there have been indications from the makers themselves that they would be returning to the world of Nilfgaard, it may not be as a continuation of the story of the Witcher Geralt.
Sensing the landscape a bit here, I’d say we are still years away from a confirmation, and even further to the actual release of a new Witcher game. In that light, read on to find out everything that we predict can happen with a possible fourth entry into the popular game franchise.
The Witcher 4 Plot: What Can It Be About?
Our very first indication for that comes from the ending of the Witcher, and while there are 40 different endings with different tweaks depending upon the route you take and the choices you make, nearly all of them lead to Geralt retiring from being a Witcher, either with Yennefer, Triss, or as the one wolf that he is, save one wherein Ciri dies battling the white frost, and Geralt hunts down her stolen medallion to keep with himself as a memory.
The game in this scenario ends with him being surrounded by monsters, led to an uncertain fate. Other endings involve Nilfgaard winning the war, with either Ciri being declared empress, or Geralt faking her death, leading her to become a Witcher. You can read all about the detailed endings of the Witcher, here, but the conclusion is obvious. Geralt of Rivia is in all probability, out of a possible next game, since it wouldn’t also make sense either for CDPR to pick up the next game with Geralt of Rivia owing to the multiple endings, since only one out of the many main endings shows Geralt in action, rendering the other ones ineffective in essence if a sequel picks that one up. This leads us to most definitively assume that a possible next game would have to delve into the very rich character history (or one of the NPCs from the three games) of the vast world in the books created by Andrzej Sapkowski.
“We are not killing the world and walking away from it, but we will definitely want to make this game the finale in a big way. We might even include Geralt in later games, potentially. We just need to talk about it and figure out what we’re going to do next”, teased CDPR co-founder, Marcin Iwinski. In consonance with the same, Adam Kiciński, President and joint CEO of CDPR stated that “the first three ‘Witchers’ were by definition a trilogy, so we simply could not name the next game ‘The Witcher 4’. This does not mean, of course, that we will leave the world of The Witcher“. I’d say that’s some level of affirmation.
Despite the ending of the game, the two new expansion packs that came out in 2016, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine saw Geralt travelling to distant lands, and uncovering past secrets and attempting to hunt down a dangerous creature terrorising the region. They don’t necessarily change the ending of the main narrative, and thus any hopes that a possible fourth entry in the franchise might stem from those are feeble.
Coming to the predictions part of it, there is still a lot of stuff that the trilogy leaves out that could possibly be covered in a new game, but for that, we need to primarily have a new protagonist in place. A lot of voices online cited an interest in having Ciri as the protagonist of the next game, exploring her journey after the ending of Witcher 3, but that would essentially only cater to a few of the endings from the previous game.
Alternately, a new game could feature the rise of a new Witcher before Geralt, encompassing some major aspects of the Witcher training process, life at Kaer Morhen, and the famed trial of the grasses. The history between the beginning of this game, and the legendary Conjunction of the Spheres that led to the merging of the two realms, allowing monsters to cross over into ours, is roughly 1500 years, so clearly we are not short of temporal choices when we come to predicting what a fourth one could be based on. The fantastic world of the game comprising of Nilfgaard, Redania, Novigrad, Oxenfurt, Velen, Vizima, Skellige and Kaer Morhen ensure that we aren’t short of geographical choices either. It’s just the tip of a titanic iceberg, what we discuss here.
The Witcher 4 Gameplay
These are all going to be extremely dicey to predict, because as of now, we don’t even have a faint whiff that brings us closer to a confirmation of the game. In all probability, the game wouldn’t be launched while the current generation of consoles is prevalent. It is thus better left to the imagination what this AAA RPG would like, feel, or work like on the fifth Playstation or Project Scarlett.
The Witcher 4 Crew: Who Can Be Behind It?
As of now, everybody involved with the game at CD Projekt Red has sought a break from medieval fantasy lands to focus on a dystopian future and androids in Cyberpunk 2077. They will probably all return to the game once Cyberpunk 2077 has had a wide release in 2020.
The Witcher 4 Release Date: When Can It Premiere?
My bet is no that the The Witcher 4 release date is not going to be anytime sooner than 2022. Basically, get ready to wait a long time before stepping into Nilfgaard again.
