Plot has always been a tricky topic for fans when it comes to adaptations: sticking too closely to the original text means a scaled-down version of what you already love; too loose an adaptation and suddenly your beloved series is unrecognizable. I quite sincerely state my belief that when it comes to the Netflix TV series, Witcher fans have had a harder time than most when it comes to having their series tainted by bad decisions. So it’s no surprise that when CD Projekt Red revealed the first trailer The Witcher 4in which the main character is Ciri and a seemingly full-fledged Witcher, some fans (albeit a minority) received it skeptically. However, having already released three Witcher games, CD Projekt Red deserved the benefit of the doubt.
These fans’ most understandable concerns seem to be about how The Witcher 4 fits into the world and canon of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books. For example, Ciri, after the events of The Witcher 3: Wild Huntshe would be older than normal to pass the Trial of the Grasses, and in the books most of her magic was taken from her when she saved Ihuarraquax – however, in the trailer she uses magic freely. What’s confusing about fans’ concerns, however, is how unaware they seem of the connection between CD Projekt Red games and The Witcher canon. It’s not that the two things necessarily diverged, but that they weren’t closely related to begin with.
The Witcher games have never stuck closely to the books they were based on. Instead, they were always more concerned with conveying the spirit and themes of Sapkowski’s series than with giving virtual life to his words. And as a fan of Sapkowski’s books, I think this is one of the greatest advantages of the game series by CD Projekt Red. The prosperous complexity and detail of the world and characters Sapkowski created always felt like they could be extended much further beyond the pages of his novels and stories, and in CDPR’s capable hands we saw this expansion of the world.
That’s part of what makes it The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt probably the best installment of any variety in the entire Witcher series. This game jumps over the established canon of Sapkowski’s novels, imagining a slightly extra-canonical story that takes place several years after the end of the book’s story. It is an expansion and continuation of the story of Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri, but it captures the essence of their characters, as well as the entire world of The Witcher, as well as everything that happens in the history of the series.
Throughout The Witcher 3Geralt’s mission to find Ciri and then save her brings him into contact with the strangest inhabitants of his world. And while the game gives you choices on how to deal with them, CDPR’s script does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat, constantly giving Geralt’s missions unexpected and often tragic outcomes, despite his best intentions – keeping them thematically in line with Sapkowski’s best works of storytelling . In other words, that’s everything the Netflix series failed at; so far, the show’s innovative team has adapted the plot of Sapkowski’s novel quite closely, but seems completely uninterested in its subject matter.
But what’s even more confusing for self-proclaimed fans The Witcher 3 who currently express skepticism about Ciri’s evolution in The Witcher 4 is that her transformation was first introduced in Wild Hunt. Depending on the choices players make throughout the game, Ciri can either end The Witcher 3 dead, as Queen of Nilfgaard, or on the way to becoming a Witcher. The question is how she got from this path to where we see her The Witcher 4The theatrical trailer seems less like a plot hole and more like a plot hole right plot The Witcher 4 myselfsomething that was confirmed on Friday by the head of CDPR studio, Adam Badowski.
And the truth is that as a fan of Ciri and Sapkowski’s books, I am lucky that CD Projekt Red is committed to continuing her story and giving her a narrative future. Considering the studio’s track record of skillfully developing Sapkowski’s characters and world, it’s tough to imagine it in better hands – including those of its original author. The only real downside is that it may be quite a few years before we actually see how her story plays out.
