Geralt might not be in The Witcher 4 at all, voice actor says

Unless we’re currently the victim of some sneaky marketing tactic, a la Tom Holland when he drops spoilers about upcoming Spider-Man movies in interviews in orchestrated fashion, then we’ve got some bad news, Witcher fans: series mainstay Geralt of Rivia might not be in The Witcher 4 at all, voice actor Doug Cockle revealed in a recent interview at MCM Comic Con Birmingham.

“I did go online and I said something about this, and then I got slapped by CD Projekt because… I don’t know how true it is,” Cockle said, rescinding previous comments he’d made about Geralt being a supporting character in The Witcher 4 instead of the primary protagonist.

Ciri, Geralt and Yennefer/CD Projekt Red

“I went off a rumor – I thought I’d seen somebody from CD Projekt say that Geralt will be in Witcher 4 but he won’t be the main character, and I don’t actually know if that’s true now, because they came back and they went, ‘We haven’t put anything out there, don’t say anything!'”

When asked who The Witcher 4‘s main character would be, he continued, “I don’t know what it’s gonna be. I have ideas – I thought I had an idea of what it was – and then I was kind of basically told, ‘We haven’t told anybody what it is, so where you got that information we don’t know.'”

Cockle claims the rumor of Geralt being in The Witcher 4 in a supporting role may have been “from a really, really old statement that somebody who no longer works for CD Projekt actually put out about three years ago.”

The news that The Witcher videogame series might be shifting away from Geralt shouldn’t be entirely surprising; as far back as 2013, CDPR stated in an interview with Polygon that, “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.” They added, “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.” It’s speculated that the focus in the next Witcher game might shift to Ciri, the deuteragonist of The Witcher series and Geralt’s adopted daughter.

Geralt and Ciri/CD Projekt Red

The tentatively titled The Witcher 4 (codenamed Polaris) was announced back in 2022. CDPR announced in their Q3 financial earnings that the game was in full-scale production.

“I’m pleased to announce that several weeks ago [Polaris] moved to full-scale production,” CD Projekt chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz said. “Of all our projects, this one is currently the most far along, and we’re starting the most intensive phase of development. I wish to thank the team for its effort and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for further progress.”

What are your thoughts on the fact that Geralt might not be in The Witcher 4 at all? Do you think the voice actor Doug Cockle is just walking back his previous statements because CDPR doesn’t want to reveal anything about the game so far before its release? Let us know in the comments.