The Witcher 3 Sees Player Spike After Netflix Season 2 Premiere

The second season of The Witcher on Netflix premiered on December 17, quickly becoming the streaming service’s top-streamed show. Within the first three days of release, fans had watched 142 million hours of the Henry Cavill-led fantasy series, with the first season taking the second spot of the English-only listing with 49 million hours watched. That popularity is carrying over to gaming platforms, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt seeing a huge jump in players. According to data from SteamDB, player counts rose to 62,000 just after the second season premiered, double the number playing the game just a month earlier. This isn’t surprising, as the same thing happened after the release of season one in 2019.

Despite being released over six years ago, The Witcher 3 has continued to see a strong player count to this day, while also seeing a steady rise in sales over time. Last year, the series broke 50 million total sales, and CD Projekt Red is expecting to see those numbers grow even more after The Witcher 3‘s current-gen upgrade in 2022.

In an interview with Collider, Geralt actor Henry Cavill spoke about his goals for the character in the second season.

“The biggest piece was I wanted to represent as much of a book-accurate Geralt as possible and a lot of the fans did as well, and so I campaigned really hard to make sure that he was more verbose, he sounded more intellectual, his choice of words was more thought out and that his approach to Cirilla and everyone else wasn’t antagonistic. Because it initially came across as he was just grumpy all the time with everyone and everything and I really wanted to show this three-dimensional character where instead of him fighting with everyone, whether it be Cirilla or whether it be the Witchers, I wanted to show him being intellectual and thoughtful and, yes, have disagreements, but also show his approach as someone who’s been alive for 70+ years.”

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was originally released for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in May 2015. A Nintendo Switch version followed in 2019. Cited as one of the greatest video games ever made, it was nominated Game of the Year by multiple outlets and has sold over 30 million copies. A current-gen update is expected in 2022 after being delayed earlier this year. The title was also highlighted on Valve’s upcoming handheld Steam Deck console in October.

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