A developer on The Witcher 4 says that players shouldn’t make their mind up about Ciri’s role as protagonist until they’ve had the chance to “fully embrace” her character once the game is out.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, Jan Hermanowicz, engineering production manager on the recent The Witcher 4 tech demo said that “when the game will be out, you’ll be able to see for yourself and fully embrace her character, her story. And I think that will be the moment to make opinions and make the calls.” In other words, players shouldn’t be making up their minds about the CDPR’s choice of main character years before getting to play as them.
“We showed her in various situations, two emotional states [that were] very distinct from one another,” Hermanowicz says. “And there are many, many more parts of her that we will show in the future.”
Hermanowicz expressed agreement with recent comments from Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle, who said that players couldn’t simply rely on his character for every future game. Cockle also said that players who doubted CDPR’s choice should “read the damn books” – an idea that Hermanowicz agrees with.
“For me, personally, reading the books, it’s very clear that the story slowly transitions from being Geralt’s story to really being Ciri’s story, sometimes narrated through the eyes of Geralt,” he says.
Whether or not you can be convinced to read Sapkowski’s fantasy series, however, Hermanowicz says nothing’s going to change with CDPR’s choice of character. Picking Ciri is a “choice we made years ago, and this is how it’s gonna be,” he says. “And you will see in the game how it will play out.” Sadly, that game is still likely to be several years away, so we’ll be waiting a while before we do get to see how Ciri’s as lead does play out, but I’ll be eagerly awaiting regardless.
The Witcher 4 devs are preparing for “a generational shift” after The Witcher 3, and they’re studying the RPG’s biggest city to help.
