Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the Witcher books, is known not to be a fan of the games by CD Projekt. He has now spoken about his world on Reddit and explained that an important part of The Witcher 4 is actually not Canon.
Which part of The Witcher 4 is affected? The next game in the Witcher series by CD Projekt is currently in development. This time, however, the main character will not be the familiar monster slayer Geralt of Rivia, but his adopted daughter Ciri.
While Geralt in the games – and according to a side note in the books – belongs to the Wolf school of Witchers, Ciri in the previously published materials for the game wears an amulet of the Lynx school. This is introduced for the first time in The Witcher 4.
According to Andrzej Sapkowski, there should never have been different Witcher schools: One single sentence about a “Wolf school” mysteriously found its way into “The Last Wish”. Later, I considered it unworthy of further development and narratively incorrect, even harmful to the story.
In an Ask me Anything
(AmA; in German Ask me anything
) on Reddit, he even says he would like to remove this sentence in future book editions.
Witcher schools like Hogwarts houses? This is what the author says
What does Sapkowski say about the schools? In the Reddit AmA, the Witcher author goes into more detail about the origin of the Witcher schools. The Wolf school originated from a mere side note, and Sapkowski compares the schools to the Hogwarts houses from Harry Potter. However, he believed the idea was not viable for further development and narratively incorrect.
Currently, he is even considering whether he should simply remove the sentence about the schools in future editions of the book: I am still uncertain how to handle this situation. Perhaps I will take the path of least resistance and remove the sentence about the “school” from future editions of “The Last Wish”.
However, he is also not sure whether he might want to go into more detail about it in future books. Or if he wants to explain the Witcher medallions more deeply.
At the same time, the author is also making jabs at the developers of the Witcher games: Adapters, especially video game developers, have clung to [the idea of the Witcher schools] with remarkable persistence and have wonderfully multiplied these “Witcher schools”. Completely unnecessary.
In the games, there are quite a few different Witcher schools – for reasons
Why is this important for The Witcher 4? The previous protagonist of the games set in the Witcher universe was Geralt of Rivia, the white wolf – from the Wolf school of Witchers. According to in-game lore, the Witchers originated from experiments at various locations in the world.
These places, later known as schools, eventually received animal names, such as the Wolf school or the Bear or Manticore schools from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. In the game, there are some armors related to a few of the schools, such as the Bear sets.
In The Witcher 4, Ciri, on the other hand, appears with a medallion of a currently unknown Witcher school: that of the Lynx. This suggests that she has presumably learned a correspondingly different combat style than her adoptive father Geralt and is likely also equipped with completely different gear.
Moreover, Ciri is presumably not trained by Geralt or any of his colleagues from the Wolf school. What happens to her between the end of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the start of The Witcher 4 will consequently be strongly influenced by her experiences in the school. Therefore, which school Ciri belongs to can have story and gameplay implications.
Whether and how all this ultimately fits together is currently still unknown. The Witcher 4 is also still in an early stage of development, and the release will take some time. MeinMMO author Sophia Weiß is already quite hyped: If The Witcher 4 really turns out to be as awesome as the tech demo looks, I have found my home
