Ciri is staying as the main character inWitcher 4and you should wait to play the full game before you judge, says Jan Hermanowicz, a member of theCD Projekt Reddevelopment team.
Ever since the first officialreveal trailer during The Game Awardslast year, certain fans havebeen all over the place about Ciri’s lead role in the story going forward, with many loudly declaring both for and against this major change.
Team Ciri Or Team Geralt?
According to a new interview betweenGamesRadar+ and Jan Hermanowicz,engineering production manager at CD Projekt RED, “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.”
“This is how it’s gonna be… and you will see in the game how it will play out.”
Whether it’sbacklash against “woke” cultureor a case of “um actually” based on the false narrativethat “women can’t undergo the mutations”,the fact remains that Ciri is here to stay. “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,” said Hermanowicz.
I’m an avid reader of fantasy and thoroughly enjoyed the novels. Just like most of us, I’ve always assumed Ciri would be prominently placed as a main character; it felt like a natural progression, both from reading the novels and the ending ofThe Witcher 3, and even the voice actor for Geralt, Doug Cockle, agrees.
“We’ve seen the end of Geralt’s journey.Blood And Winewas supposed to wrap up Geralt’s Journey.” Cockle went on to talk about the parts of the novels that could be richly explored with Ciri’s adventures but were not included in the games (and, yes, you really should read the books).
I am very excited to see how the developers handle Ciri’s story, and there’s so much to explore (and explain) with her unique powers and time gaps throughout the story. Have I mentioned that you should read the books?
“When the game will be out, you’ll be able to see for yourself and fully embrace her character, her story,” said Hermanowicz. “And I think that will be the moment to make opinions and make the calls.”
The Witcher 4’s release date is still unknown and, with the studio’s past history of release delays andthreats from upset fans, I doubt we will know more until we get much closer. Either way, though, Ciri is going to be the protagonist and we should all be very happy about that fact.
