“She’s Geralt’s Daughter:” CDPR Explains How They Will Tell Ciri’s Story In The Witcher 4 – And How Your Old Choices Come In

CD PROJEKT RED has shed light on how Ciri’s story will play out in The Witcher 4.

In an interview with Xbox Wire, narrative director Philipp Weber shed light on some of the basic details about the game based on what we’ve seen in the trailer.

Ciri’s life is unusual even for a Witcher, as she was born a royal, who would have been doomed to join her family’s annihilation, or worse, just became someone’s wife. The way she eventually became part of Geralt’s life, as his Child of Surprise, including growing up under both his lovers Triss and Yennefer, set her up to become a Witcher in her own right.

Ciri may turn out to be a more righteous Witcher than Geralt, but she definitely takes after him. As Weber says:

“She’s Geralt’s daughter, so she’s learned a lot of values from him. There will be choices that feel close to what Geralt would do.”

And when we say she may be more righteous, that’s a big may. Of course, Geralt’s character can be shaped a bit by how the player chooses him to make those key decisions. As some players humorously found out the hard way, if you tried to press your luck too hard playing both Triss and Yennefer, if they find out, you’ll end up alone.

But in The Witcher 4, Ciri may end up finding Geralt with Yennefer, or Triss, or all alone. The game is set a few years after The Witcher 3, with Ciri’s powers awakened. She is a young Witcher, but already quite experienced, and now on a journey to make her own code, in the same way that Geralt did.

CD PROJEKT RED did not elaborate for now, but they did state they will address the multiple endings found in The Witcher 3. This doesn’t sound like it should be too hard, since it would simply be a matter of using the same save import system between The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3. Perhaps CD PROJEKT RED will have to account for how account systems now work on PSN and Xbox for consoles, and perhaps for Nintendo Accounts down the line as well.

Weber also made it clear that Ciri won’t end up being a Mary Sue. As Weber explains:

“Ciri is definitely a flawed character; she has a lot of darkness in her, she was abandoned, and she’s made terrible mistakes in the past. But she also has some amazing strengths, and I think this is this balance that for us makes her into this great character.

We want to tell these character-driven stories, and I think if we want to have real characters with real emotions, that also means that they need to have some flaws.”

We hope that will certainly address concerns that The Witcher fans could have about how this game will turn out when it finally releases. The people who stuck by the franchise through the years would have known by the end of The Witcher 3 that it was now Ciri’s story that had to be told next.

Geralt may not be getting the Joel The Last of Us treatment. But in terms of story beats, it would ruin his narrative arc if CD PROJEKT RED decided they had to find a new thing for him to do again. It’s now Ciri’s turn to make her way, and show us more of the Northern Realms. After all the lessons they learned from Cyberpunk 2077, we know that they want to get this story exactly right.