Sales of THE WITCHER 3 pass 50 million

CD Projekt has confirmed that its 2015 CRPG, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, has sold over 50 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video games of all time.

The news emerged in their latest earnings call. CDPR also confirmed that the Witcher trilogy as a whole has sold over 75 million copies. Combined with the over 20 million confirmed sales of their last game, Cyberpunk 2077, not to mention the video card game Gwent, this puts CDPR's lifetime sales at well over 95 million units sold.

The biggest-selling video game of all time is Minecraft, which is estimated to have sold around 238 million copies, followed by Grand Theft Auto V/Grand Theft Auto Online (180 million), Tetris (100 million) and Wii Sports (83 million).

Based on the Wikipedia ranking, The Witcher 3 has jumped over games such as Diablo 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to become the ninth-biggest-selling game of all time, although of course the accuracy of such lists may be questioned.

CDPR is currently working on Phantom Liberty, a major expansion to Cyberpunk 2077, which it will be previewing at the Summer Game Fest event on 8 June, with an anticipated release later this year. Their next full project is a fourth Witcher game, which is believed to focus on new characters and will not be a direct sequel to The Witcher 3.

Sales of THE WITCHER books pass 15 million

Based on publicity information released by Gollancz, the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski have now passed 15 million worldwide sales.

The previous available figure indicated that the series had sold around 6 million copies by the middle of last decade. The massive jump in sales in just a few years is down to two factors: the immense success of the Witcher video game trilogy by CD Projekt Red (the last of which has now sold around 30 million copies by itself) and the success of the Netflix television series based on the books, which debuted last December. As we saw with Game of Thrones on HBO, a successful and well-received TV adaptation can massively drive sales of the books; the Song of Ice and Fire novels sold 9 million copies in 2012 alone and have sold around 80 million extra copies since the TV show debuted in 2011. Whether The Witcher can match those kind of sales remains to be seen.

The first Witcher book - also called The Witcher - was published in 1990 and was a collection of short stories. It was later revised and reissued in 1993 as The Last Wish. A second story collection, Sword of Destiny, was released in 1992. The five-volume "proper" novel series followed: Blood of Elves (1994), Time of Contempt (1995), Baptism of Fire (1996), The Tower of the Swallow (1997) and The Lady of the Lake (1999). A stand-alone prequel, Season of Storms, followed in 2013.

Netflix show turns THE WITCHER novels and games into bestsellers

Better late than never. Twenty-seven years after it was first published, The Last Wish, the first book in The Witcher series, has hit the New York Times Bestseller list, landing at #4. Blood of Elves, the third book, has landed at #12. Sword of Destiny, the second, has joined the two books on the Amazon bestseller lists as well.

In fact, the books have sold so well that it appears that Orbit Books, the US publisher of the series, may have run out of physical copies as well.

This isn't the first time the success of a visual adaptation has driven fantasy book sales. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings sold over 50 million additional copies in the first few years after Peter Jackson's movie trilogy hit screens (and many more since then), whilst the titanic success of Game of Thrones on HBO resulted in around 80 million additional sales of the Song of Ice and Fire novel series (and bringing total sales close to 100 million).

There are also reports of a massive boom in sales of the three Witcher video games, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt enjoying a particularly large spike in sales. According to the publishers, CD Projekt, the game now has more people playing it than when it was released just under five years ago. CD Projekt will be launching their next game, the hugely anticipated SF RPG Cyberpunk 2077, in April and will be hoping some of their new Witcher fans will check that game out as well.

Meanwhile, showrunner Lauren Hissrich is back on set in Budapest ahead of the shooting of Season 2 of The Witcher, which is expected to start in early February and air around March 2021.

THE WITCHER becomes the second-biggest Netflix show of the year, drives game sales

Netflix's The Witcher is a bona fide smash hit. The streaming service has confirmed that The Witcher was one of their biggest hits of the year, only being decisively beaten worldwide by Season 3 of Stranger Things. The impressions the show made are also way in advance of other streaming services, including Disney+'s The Mandalorian.

The Witcher was seen as a somewhat risky move for Netflix. Following the success of Game of Thrones, Netflix had made the decision to move decisively into the live-action fantasy TV space, developing not just The Witcher but also a fresh version of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia and a live-action reboot of cult animated show Avatar: The Last Airbender. Rival streamer Amazon picked up the much-better known Wheel of Time book series and the ubiquitous Lord of the Rings IP, which seemed like much surer bets. The Witcher books, which had only been available in English since 2007, had sold a relatively modest number of copies in comparison.

However, a video game trilogy by CD Projekt Red based on the books had sold a lot better, shifting 30 million copies since 2007 (20 million alone of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, released in 2015). Although the TV show is not based on the games, and due to various licencing issues could not use any material from them, it benefited from star Henry Cavill being a huge fan of the games and from some cross-over talent, such as sharing some actors in common and also a CG effects team.

The Witcher's success put it ahead of Martin Scorsese's film The Irishman and big TV shows including The Umbrella Academy and, startlingly, The Crown. Netflix's huge and monstrously expensive (at a reported $12 million per episode) prestige show about the life of Queen Elizabeth II launched its third season this autumn but surprisingly failed to make the Top Ten Netflix dramas in either the UK or USA.

In the UK, The Witcher was in fact the biggest and most popular drama series of the year, pushing Stranger Things down to third place (behind Ricky Gervais vehicle After Life, a much bigger hit in the UK than the US).

The success of the TV show seems to have resulted in a big push in game sales, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt shooting up the Steam Charts and scoring its biggest-ever number of concurrent players, larger even than when the game launched in 2015. The success was not only pushed by the success of the TV series, but also by the game hitting the top spot in numerous "Best Games of the Decade" lists.

It's not yet been confirmed if book sales are also up, but given the success elsewhere this seems highly likely. The first book in the series, The Last Wish, has recently been reprinted with tie-in art for the TV series.

The Witcher - hopefully with a nice budget hike - has already been renewed for a second season which starts shooting in February for a likely early 2021 debut.

Henry Cavill expresses interest in playing Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's WITCHER TV series

Henry Cavill, who currently plays Superman in the DC Universe movies, has expressed interest in playing the role of Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's upcoming Witcher TV series.

Fans are already on the case (Source: Bosslogic on Instagram)

Cavill has declared himself a huge fan of the franchise, having played the video games (recently completing a second playthrough of the enormous Witcher 3: Wild Hunt) and read the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski.

Fans have put forward many names for the role of Geralt in the TV series, with suggestions ranging from Black Sails and The 100 star Zach McGowan (who has also expressed an interest in the role) to Mads Mikkelsen, possibly as an older version of the character. Given that Sapkowski is Polish, the mythology of the series is informed by Polish sources and that the show will shoot in Poland, Polish actors have also been put forward, most notably Marcin Dorociński.

With casting reportedly getting underway in the next month or two, Witcher producer Lauren Hissrich may find herself with a bit of a queue of known Hollywood names forming, which is an nice problem to have.

CD Projekt unveil CYBERPUNK 2077

Whilst Bethesda were disappointing fans with the news that Fallout 76 is an online-only game and that their next single-player RPGs are still years away, Polish developers CD Projekt Red quietly dropped a nuclear bomb by unveiling the first full trailer for the long and eagerly-awaited Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk 2077 has been in development since 2012, with CDPR working on the game alongside The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and its expansions. After The Witcher 3's release in 2015 (and subsequently selling more than 20 million copies), CDPR moved into full production on the game and have now unveiled their work.

Based on Mike Pondsmith's seminal Cyberpunk pen-and-paper RPG from the 1980s, Cyberpunk 2077 is set in Night City, a fictional settlement on the coast of California between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The game allows the player to create their own character and determine their name, gender, appearance and cybernetic enhancements. The game is an open-world RPG with a central storyline but also a vast array of side-quests, sub-missions and optional activities that can be undertaken in Night City. It appears the entire city and its surrounding countryside will be available for the player to traverse, either on foot or by vehicle: taxis, Trauma Teams (futuristic amublances), flying cars and a large subway system appear to be available to use, and it seems that the player can also acquire a car of their own (which bears a passing resemblance to Knight Rider's KITT).

We don't know anything about the story, but there appears to traditional cyberpunk goings-on like rich businessmen employing dodgy gangs to do deniable tasks for them, along with significant action set pieces. The game is definitely aimed at mature audiences, with some disturbing cybernetic enhancements and torture scenes shown, along with a spectacular amount of violence.

CDPR's previous game, The Witcher 3, is for my money the single finest CRPG released this century. If Cyberpunk 2077 is even half as good, it will be an essential Day One purchase.

CDPR also released a statement alongside the trailer, confirming that they are committed to the singleplayer CRPG experience, which may be taken as a sly dig at Bethesda's multiplayer focus for Fallout 76 and former RPG titans BioWare abandoning the singleplayer scene altogether in their new game, generic multiplayer shooter Anthem. That said, it's been an open secret that Cyberpunk 2077 will have an online component, but this appears to be a very minor, optional feature (if it's even still in the game).

Cyberpunk 2077 has no official release date, but it appears likely that CDPR are targeting a late 2019 release if possible. Falling back to 2020, the date of the original Cyberpunk pen-and-paper setting, would also be appropriate.

Wertzone Classics: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Geralt of Rivia is a witcher, a monster-hunter who defends humanity from monstrous and supernatural threats. He has also has a habit of getting involved with the affairs of kings, mages and emperors. Reeling from the recovery of his missing memories, Geralt is caught up in grand events once more when the Nilfgaardian Empire invades the Northern Kingdom for the third time. He is commissioned by the Emperor to find his missing daughter, Ciri, who was also Geralt’s ward for some years. Geralt’s trail will lead through the war-torn no-man’s land of Velen, in Temaria, to the free city of Novigrad and the southern reaches of Redania beyond. His path will also take him to the Skellige Isles, the witcher stronghold of Kaer Morhen and the beautiful Nilfgaardian vassal state of Toussaint, before he can save Ciri and defeat his former allies turned enemies, the spectral Wild Hunt.

The Witcher 3 is a game that wears many hats. It is the third and concluding game in a trilogy that began with 2007’s The Witcher and continued with The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011), wrapping up lingering storylines and character arcs from both former games. It is a character-focused, story-heavy game which aspires to the very best of BioWare but it’s set in a vast open world that owes more than a nod to the likes of Bethesda and Rockstar. It is also a direct sequel to Andrzej Sapkowski’s five-volume Witcher novel series: the prior two games were more side-stories to that saga, with Geralt’s missing memories allowing them to stand alone, but this one directly deals with fall-out from the books and reintroduces characters from them. And on top of all of that it aspires to be a game that completely stands alone on its own two feet, with familiarity with neither the prior games nor novels required to enjoy it.

Somehow, it not only achieves those ambitions but utterly trounces them, deploying the kind of confidence, verve and ambition that you’d be forgiven had completely disappeared from modern video game design. It is, quite comfortably, one of the greatest video games of the last decade and the finest computer role-playing game since the release of Planescape: Torment last century.

Given that the previous two games in the series were both somewhat mediocre (both having a great atmosphere and some good character work undercut by awful pacing, inconsistent writing, repetitive fetch-quests and truly terrible combat), it’s quite remarkable that CD Projekt Red was able to pull this off. But they have, and with considerable style.

The Witcher 3 is a roleplaying game where you play as Geralt. Unlike other RPGs you can’t create your own character, but you can certainly guide Geralt’s development, both mechanically – you can favour a combat-heavy approach or one more based around magic or alchemy – and also in terms of personality, by getting Geralt to be more heroic or ambivalent in his response to requests for help and in the (very) frequent morally complex decisions he has to make. At any one time Geralt will have a main storyline quest to follow, related initially to the hunt for Ciri and later for the need to confront the Wild Hunt, and a large number of other objectives. These take the form of side-quests, story-rich missions which are unrelated to the Ciri situation; witcher contracts, where Geralt has to track down a monster, identify its weaknesses and dispatch it; and treasure hunts, where Geralt has to find large stashes of gold or high-value equipment based on information and maps he has found in the world. There are also a massive host of other past-times, including fight-fighting matches and horse races, and location objectives, such as liberating a village from bandits or destroying monster nests. There is never a shortage of anything to do in the game.

So far, so Skyrim. But the key difference between The Witcher 3 and Bethesda’s mega-RPG is in terms of the importance of character and narrative. These elements are usually under-developed in Bethesda’s Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, which instead want to give you as much freedom as possible to do the things you want, which is (or so it’s always been explained) not compatible with a complex, rich narrative which gives you lots of choices on how things unfold. That was already a dubious excuse (as exemplified by what Obsidian did with Fallout: New Vegas, using Bethesda’s own engine to embarrass them with that game’s narrative richness and malleability) but The Witcher 3 sets it on fire. The Witcher 3 has the freedom of Bethesda’s finest but combines it with an incredible depth of story and character. The characters – both Sapkowski-originated or those new to the games – are all complex, multi-layered individuals. Even merchants and one-off village bumpkins who provide intel on a monster attack are usually given a memorable character tic which sets them apart from everyone else. They’re veritable fonts of information, sources of new quests but also most of them are just plain fun to talk to.

For example, the character of Dijkstra comes across initially as a boorish thug, but (even if you haven’t read the books) you’ll quickly discover him to be a quick-witted, deceptively shrewd operator who has some personal affection for Geralt which quickly vanishes the second he thinks you’re working against his interests. The Duchess of Toussaint is a pleasant and intelligent young woman who has worked with Geralt before and is flexible when it comes to matters of the heart or in dealing with isolated incidents, but the second she thinks her duchy is in danger she becomes a steely, determined ruler capable of remarkable ruthlessness. The Witcher 3 is never interested in serving up caricatures or one-note villains, there’s also a motive for what people do and there’s always multiple ways of dealing with them.

In this sense The Witcher 3 encourages players to role-play. For example, Geralt has multiple romantic options in the game but the two primary ones are Yennefer and Triss. For those who’ve read the books, they know that Yennefer is the love of Geralt’s life and it makes sense for them to end up together. For those that haven’t but have played the video games, they will be far more familiar with Triss and may prefer to see Geralt end up with the character they’ve come to know quite well over two previous games spanning 70-odd hours. However, there’s also the fact that Triss did take advantage of Geralt’s amnesia to seduce him and kept him unaware of his prior feelings for Yennefer. This is something that you can make into either a big problem – Triss manipulated Geralt for her own ends – or accept as an unfortunate consequence of an emotionally difficult situation.

This element of choice pervades every moment of the game. Every now and then the game will pause and explain how Geralt’s actions from hours earlier have led to a significant shift in the game’s storyline or status quo, with everything from the destiny of characters to the fate of entire nations hinging on Geralt’s decisions. The game doesn’t judge things, though. As long as Geralt and Ciri are still breathing, the game will continue and events will unfold as they will, even if Geralt makes mistakes and catastrophe results.

Mechanically, the game is a vast improvement over its predecessors. Combat is much-improved, being reactive, intelligent and reasonably fair (although those easily frustrated are directed towards the easier difficulty levels). Intelligent use of swordplay, magic, potions, oils and bombs will see most foes dispatched. It’s worthwhile reading the in-game bestiary to get more information on particular creatures’ weaknesses and also using your “Witcher Senses” to pick up environmental clues to the nature of the creature, as well as tracking enemies across distances. As you level up, you can improve your magical skills which has applications both in and out of combat (such as using your mental manipulation Sign to positively impact on conversations). Later on, you can also gain mutations which dramatically improve your character’s powers, as well as glyphs and wards to further improve your weapons. The game keeps Geralt in a constantly escalating spiral of getting better weapons and armour, although you can also pursue treasure hunt side-quests to get even stronger gear.

The story and character depth, which can see even minor quests evolve into lengthy, epic, multi-hour stories packed with incident, sharp dialogue and dark humour, is certainly the main appeal of the game, whilst the mechanical competence of the gameplay certainly keeps things ticking over. The freedom of the world and the quality of its presentation is another key factor. Unlike say Skyrim, The Witcher 3 isn’t one massive open world. Instead, it’s divided into four distinct, large maps (White Orchard, Velen/Novigrad, Skellige and Toussaint), each with its own character and atmosphere.

Combined, the world space of the game is about twice that of Skyrim, and far denser in terms of quests, points of interests and optional activities. Graphically, the game is stunning. There’s some amazing lighting effects with, easily, the best sunsets and sunrises ever seen in a game. The environments are remarkable, with Novigrad and Beauclair (the main city in Toussaint) fighting for the title of the finest, most convincing fantasy city ever seen in a video game. The dungeons vary from small caves to sprawling, multi-level complexes, whilst massive castles, underwater environments and even quest-specific sojourns to a fairyland and the surface of another planet are included. The Witcher 3 is a visually rich and inventive game which never loses the ability to surprise the player with the diversity of its locations. Even more pleasing, exploring the world is never once slowed by a loading screen (apart from a brief pop-up as you move between the four maps) as you seamlessly pass from exteriors into interiors to subterranean caverns without slowing down. Bethesda’s Creation Engine is left looking especially decrepit at this point by comparison.

The game also has a plethora of monsters to fight, ranging from poison-spewing plants to incorporeal spectres, enormous royal wyverns, sentient killer trees and various giant arachnids. The game’s bestiary ends up being huge, with it never seeming to run out of new creatures to throw into a fight. Character graphics can be a little bit more hit and miss, with major NPCs looking fantastic and minor ones being far less detailed.

Other weaknesses in the game are notable only for their slightness. Geralt isn’t the most nimble-footed character and finely adjusting his position on a ledge can be quite clunky, although this is very rarely an issue. The Skellige Isles map is also slightly underwhelming in its scale. The massive, snow-capped mountains feel like they’re 1:5000 scale models, with what appears to be a massive, towering peak in the distance turning out to be moderate hill about thirty feet away that you can run up in five seconds flat. The other maps are all brilliant, but the illusion that CDPR is trying to sell you in Skellige is too easy to see through. Another weakness is that the war story, the conflict between Nilfgaard and the Northern Kingdoms, feels somewhat underdeveloped and the resolutions are, for the most part, superficial and not entirely logical.

The other issue is one that really will vary by player: the game may be too much for some people. It took me 88 hours to complete the main storyline and that for both expansions (Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, both included with the Game of the Year Edition), all of the Witcher Contracts and Treasure Hunts and most of the side-quests. But the maps are still plastered in “points of interest”, monster nests, occupied towns and unexplored caves. A thorough, exhaustive play-through could easily take two to three times as long. Conversely, those less concerned with not seeing everything the game can offer could get through it in maybe 50 hours if they focused on the main storyline and a few important, character-focused side-quests. These side-quests are particularly important as they allow you to assemble a crack team of badasses who will come to your aid in a major battle towards the end of the game. The more people you help out, the likelier you will survive and get the best possible outcome. This mechanic is not even spelled out in the game, unlike say Mass Effect 2’s comparable “loyalty missions” idea. It just develops naturally as events unfold. But there’s a huge amount of characters, moving parts and storylines to keep track of during this game.

But the game is so good that none of the criticisms feel relevant. It’s often very funny. The tone of the game can shift from bleak, grimdark nihilism (say during the ending of the harrowing, emotionally raw Bloody Baron storyline) to outright comedy (such as Geralt having to guide a randy ghost through one last party without letting anyone else know what’s going on) to genuine romance on the spin of a dime. It’s a game that knows when to engage in bleakness and when to let the wine and good times flow. There’s a strong sense of compassion, friendship and family to the game which few other video games have ever genuinely engaged with (probably the closest is the Mass Effect trilogy, but even that falls short of the genuine warmth that permeates The Witcher 3’s character relations). The somewhat pervy nature of Geralt’s relationship with women in the first game – which allowed you to collect cards of your sexual conquests – has been replaced by something more egalitarian in this game and more rooted in genuine romantic relationships (Geralt’s face when a woman treats him the way he treated women in the first game is particularly amusing). Attempts to try to play the field and bed every woman in the game can still be made, but this time around there’s consequences. This isn’t to say that the franchise has completely escaped its pervy roots – almost every female character has a plunging neckline, bare midriff or both, occasionally lampshaded in dialogue – but it’s certainly pushed back on it, even allowing you to control the (arguably) more powerful and capable character of Ciri in short but numerous sequences as you learn more about what she’s been up to.

Reviewing The Witcher 3 is a bit like trying to review a 30-book fantasy series in one go: there’s so much in this game that it’s frankly impossible. After 2,400 words I still haven’t mentioned the absolutely outstanding voice acting (apart from the actress who plays Ciri, who doesn’t quite nail it); the Crones, three of the creepiest villains ever seen in video games; the vast numbers of homages to other properties (everything from Game of Thrones to Skyrim to Police Squad!); the elaborate tourney sequence; Roach, your teleporting demon horse; your dilapidated house which you can rebuild slowly; and the full scope of the immense supporting cast, such as your genteel vampire who is overly fond of exposition to a minor demigod named “Johnny” to a dwarven bank manager to a persecuted shapeshifter called Dudu (which for some reason nobody brings up as being hilarious). There is so much here that the game will have you coming back for months, if not years, to try to track down that last missing quest or find that last monster lair.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (*****) is monstrously ambitious, epic on a scale none of its rivals (not even Dragon Age: Inquisition or Skyrim) can match and packed with genuinely well-written, witty and morally complex storylines. It is the foremost gaming achievement of this generation and it throws down a gauntlet to its rivals that I will be shocked if anyone can match it. It also raises the bar very, very high for CDPR’s own successor game in a totally different genre, Cyberpunk 2077. But after playing this game I am much more confident they can pull it off. The Witcher 3 is available (with its brilliant expansions) now for PC (Steam, GoG), X-Box One (UK, USA) and PlayStation 4 (UK, USA). 

The Witcher Franchise Familiariser

In the last ten years, the Witcher series has grown from a relatively obscure (to English-speaking audiences) Polish fantasy series to a major franchise, driven by three highly successful video games and an English translation of the original books. A Netflix TV series is now in development. But what if you haven’t yet sampled the series and want to find out what’s going on? Time for a franchise familiariser course.

Five of the primary characters of The Witcher saga, from left to right: Yennefer, Ciri, Geralt, Vesemir and Triss.

The Basics

The Witcher is a series of short stories, novels and videos games set in a land known only as “The Continent”. The Continent is divided between the Northern Kingdoms, which are the primary setting for both the books and games, and the massive Empire of Nilfgaard to the south. Nilfgaard invades the Northern Kingdoms three times in an attempt to annex them, and these wars form the backdrop for many of the stories in the series.

The titular “Witcher” is a reference to Geralt of Rivia, the primary protagonist and viewpoint character of the series. However, the books move away from Geralt as the only major character and introduce other characters of equal or arguably greater importance, such as the sorceress Yennefer and Geralt’s sort-of apprentice, Ciri.

The books were written by Andrzej Sapkowski (1948-present). These comprise two collections of short stories, a five-novel series (often known The Witcher Saga) and a stand-alone prequel novel. Sapkowski has mooted returning to the world for additional books and stories.

The video games were created by Polish developer CD Projekt Red. To date, three games have been developed and released, along with some additional spin-offs. A fourth game (which will be set in the same world but not carry on the previous storyline from the game) is tentatively planned. Sapkowski advised on the games, but did not write the storyline, which was instead written by a team of writers (Marcin Blacha is the only writer credited with working on all three games).

Netflix are developing a Witcher television series, with West Wing, Daredevil and Defenders writer Lauren Smith Hissrich serving as showrunner. Jarek Sawko and Tomek Baginski, who both worked on the video games, are attached as producers.

The Canon

The Witcher canon is a slightly complicated beast due to the fact that the franchise originated as a book series written by one author, but it was the video game trilogy which boosted it into a world-famous series. The video games take the books as canon, and frequently refer to events in the novels, but Sapkowski does not accept the video games as canon himself (although he has written nothing – so far – to contradict the games). For the purposes of this guide, we will assume that the novels and video games form one canon for now. It is unknown if the upcoming TV series will adapt the books, the video games, both or do something completely different.

The Witcher Short Stories by Andrzej Sapkowski (in chronological order)

The Last Wish (1993)

• The Voice of Reason
• The Witcher
• A Grain of Truth
• The Lesser Evil
• A Question of Price
• The Edge of the World
• The Last Wish

Sword of Destiny (1992)

• The Bounds of Reason
• A Shard of Ice
• Eternal Flame
• A Little Sacrifice
• The Sword of Destiny
• Something More

Note: The Last Wish was a reprint of an earlier short story collection called The Witcher (1990), which included all of the stories in that collection plus several new ones. However, although The Last Wish supersedes The Witcher in the canon, it omits the short story “The Road With No Return” (featuring Geralt’s mother and set before his birth).

The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski

1. Blood of Elves (1994)
2. Time of Contempt (1995)
3. Baptism of Fire (1996)
4. The Tower of Swallows (1997)
5. Lady of the Lake (1999)

The Witcher Stand-Alone Novels by Andrzej Sapkowski

• Season of Storms (2013)

The Witcher video game series by CD Projekt Red

1. The Witcher (2007)
2. The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings (2011)
3. The Witcher III: Wild Hunt (2015)
• The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone (2015)
• The Witcher III: Blood and Wine (2016)

A simplified map of the Northern Kingdoms from the first Witcher video game.

Backstory

The backstory of the Witcher saga is straightforward. According to myth, over two and a half thousand years ago, the world was the domain of the elder races, elves and dwarves. An event known as the “Conjunction of the Spheres” took place, during which time the world intersected with one and possibly two other worlds through an astral alignment. Portals opened which allowed the inhabitants of these worlds to cross over, including (allegedly) humans and various creatures and monsters. This event also introduced magic to the world, and the creation of the first mages (among the various races) as being who cold harness magic.

In the year 760 after the Resurrection (what exactly the Resurrection is remains unclear), humans crossed the Yaruga and Pontar rivers into what are now called the Northern Kingdoms in force. They initially settled along the coastlands before moving inland, displacing some of the native elven tribes. Other humans, particularly magic-users, aligned with the elves to learn their ways of magic. 

However, as the human settlements expanded from villages to towns to small cities, so the elves found themselves rapidly outnumbered by the rapidly-growing human nations. The elves found themselves forced to assimilate – where they often faced racial prejudice and suspicion – or flee. Some elves later banded together with renegade dwarves and other nonhumans (most notably halflings) to found the Scoia’tael or “Squirrels”, a guerrilla force that resists human encroachment on their lands with violence.

Two centuries later, the mages Alzur and Cosimo Malaspina founded the witchers. Witchers are trained in the art of monster-slaying, which requires them to gain superhuman and supernatural abilities. These are bestowed upon them through the consumption of potions and alchemical substances known as mutagens. Witchers are formidable warriors, far outstripping most human, elven or dwarven opponents due to superior reactions, faster healing abilities and uncanny reflexes. As well as physical combat, they are trained in the art of identifying supernatural monsters and how to kill, neutralise or banish them. They also gain a significantly expanded lifespan, but are rendered infertile in the process. The witchers were founded due to the large number of monsters still living in the Northern Kingdoms, and soon found themselves in regular employment as they made the lands safe for human settlement.

In 1239 the southern kingdom of Nilfgaard annexed Ebbing, a nation to the north. Although still far to the south of the Northern Kingdoms, this event alerted the north to the growing threat of Nilfgaard. Over the next several decades, as the small kingdoms and cities to the north of Ebbing fell, the threat of Nilfgaard became clearer.

Shortly after this time, the witcher Geralt of Rivia became known to the world at large. Geralt was noted for his skill, intelligence and combat abilities, all of which outclassed that of the witchers in general. In particular, Geralt was noted for his skills in avoiding unnecessary bloodshed: he made his name in particular by saving the daughter of King Foltest of Temaria, who had been transformed by a curse into a striga. Geralt defeated the striga and restored the princess to normal. The Witcher short stories relate various adventures which see Geralt’s rise to fame (or infamy).

Some years later, Geralt became involved in the events precipitated by Nilfgaard’s invasion of the Northern Kingdoms. Geralt’s acquaintance with a young girl named Ciri, whom he had trained in witcher combat techniques, proved instrumental in halting the stopping the war and bringing about peace (as related in the five Witcher Saga novels). During this period Geralt met and fell in love with the sorceress Yennefer, befriended the dwarf Zoltan and the bard Dandelion and became involved in the affairs of kings. Two years after the end of the war, Geralt (who had gone missing in the meantime) reappeared at the witcher stronghold of Kaer Morhen suffering from amnesia, unable to recall what had happened after his “death” (this marks the beginning of the Witcher video games).

Setting

The setting for the Witcher saga is a single, large landmass known only as “The Continent”. The Continent is divided into several regions by the vast Korath Desert in the middle of the landmass. The Northern Kingdoms lie to the north-west of the desert, the Nilfgaard Empire to the south-west, Hakland to the north-east and Zerrikania to the south-east.

The Northern Kingdoms are the primary setting for the action in the story. The kingdoms are (at the outset of the saga):

• Temeria, ruled by King Foltest from Vizima.
• Redania, ruled by King Radovid V from Trelogor.
• Cintra, ruled by Queen Calanthe and King Eist Tuirseach from Cintra City.
• Kaedwen, ruled by King Henselt from Ard Carraigh.
• Aedirn, ruled by King Demavend III from Vengerberg.
• Kovir, more properly Kovir and Poviss, ruled by King Tankred Thyssen from Pont Vanis and Lan Exeter.
• Lyria and Rivia, ruled by Queen Meve from Rivia and Lyria.
• Skellige, or the Skellige Isles, ruled by Jarl Eist Tuirseach from An Skellig (and Cintra City).

Other significant locations include Kaer Morhen, the witcher stronghold, located in north-eastern Kaedwen; and the free city of Novigrad, located close to Redania and Temaria.

The Nilfgaard Empire plays a major role in the story, although its capital of Nilfgaard, the City of the Golden Tower, is located a good thousand miles or so to the south of the Northern Kingdoms. Provinces of the Nilfgaardian Empire include Etolia, Gemmera¸ Geso, Metinna, Ebbing, Vicovaro, Ymlac, Mag Turga, Nazair and Toussaint. Only Toussaint is visited in the saga, in the Blood and Wine expansion for The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.

A spectacular fan map of the entire explored Continent from DwarfChieftain on DeviantArt.

Magic

Magic is used liberally in the Witcher saga, by both mages and sorceresses (or, less kindly, “witches”), as well as Geralt himself who has access to minor magical powers. However, the attitudes to magic radically shift from kingdom to kingdom. Temeria employs mages as advisors but is distrustful of unsponsored magic-users wandering the countryside. Redania is fiercely anti-mage and burns sorcerers at the stake. Nilfgaard strictly regulates them and forces them to the serve the Emperor’s will.

Monsters

Geralt’s day job – when he isn’t getting involved in high-level politics and deciding the fate of nations – is hunting down monsters roaming the countryside. Monsters, for the most part, are animalistic and cannot be reasoned with, but in some cases they can be banished rather than killed. Some monsters are actually humans transmogrified by a curse: in some cases they can be cured, in others not. Monsters include alghouls, basilisks, bruxa, cockatrices, drowners, echinops, ghoul, kikimores, noonwraiths, strigas and wyverns.

Other entities of interest include godlings, intelligent and mischievous (but not evil) child-like spirits, and creatures such as the Crones, three powerful creatures inhabiting the swamps of Velen. These beings are intelligent and capable of speech and bargaining, but they are also capricious. These kinds of entities are ones that even Geralt would hesitate to engage in battle, but in many cases it is unnecessary as they bound by strict rules governing their interaction with mortals.

More troublesome are spectres, ghosts and otherworldly beings who are unnatural to this world but still intelligent and reasonable beings. Geralt can dispel or banish such entities. The most troublesome and dangerous of these creatures is the army known as the Wild Hunt, who are constantly on the lookout for beings of true power to recruit into their ranks.

Conception and Development

Andrzej Sapkowski was born in Łódź, Poland, in 1948 when it was still under Soviet occupation. He studied economics and worked as a senior sales representative for a foreign trade company. He was a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, particularly the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. He later became a translator of science fiction. He wrote his first short story, “The Witcher”, which introduced the character Geralt of Rivia, for Fantastyka magazine in 1986. The story was popular and led to a number of sequels, which were assembled as a short story collection, The Witcher, in 1990. This was followed by a second collection, which also worked as a prelude to the longer novel series Sapkowski was planning, called Sword of Destiny (1992). In 1993 Sapkowski reworked The Witcher with some new stories and re-released it under its definitive title, The Last Wish. The first Witcher novel proper, Blood of Elves, was published in 1994 and was followed by four sequels.

After writing a series of historical novels, Sapkowski returned to the Witcher universe for a prequel novel, Season of Storms, in 2013. He has since confirmed that he has plans to write more books in the setting.

By 2007 the Witcher books had sold over 2 million copies and was extremely popular in Poland, Ukraine and Russia, with additional sales in France and Spain (among others). Although these sales were very modest compared to the big British and American fantasy authors, they were unprecedented for a European author writing in a language that was not English.

In 2001 a 13-part Witcher television series aired in Poland. It was a critical and commercial failure.

In 2007 CD Projekt released The Witcher, a PC video game based on the books (the opening cinematic adapts the short story “The Witcher”). Based on the Aurora Engine developed by BioWare for their 2002 game Neverwinter Nights, The Witcher was a surprise success: the game launched with severe bugs (including one that resulted in cripplingly long load times) and a mixed critical reception. CD Projekt quickly fixed these problems and issued an upgraded version of the game, known as The Witcher: Enhanced Edition a few months later. The company was forced to cancel a planned, ambitious console version of the game due to problems with the company handling the port.

In 2008 CD Projekt also launched GoG.com (originally Good Old Games), a service dedicated to resurrecting old games and releasing them in new editions compatible with modern game systems. 

This earned them a lot of goodwill from gamers. In 2011 CD Projekt released The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings, a much more successful game than its forebear due to its great technical achievements and console editions. In early 2015 they released The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, a massive open-world roleplaying game which attracted immediate and widespread critical acclaim. In the nearly-three-years since release, The Witcher III has been acclaimed as one of the greatest video games of all time. As of 2017, the Witcher video games have sold over 25 million copies, considerably more than the Dragon Age series, and rapidly closing in on The Elder Scrolls games (which have sold approximately 40 million).

In 2017 it was announced that Netflix had optioned the television rights for a new Witcher series. The new series, which will likely be between 10 and 13 episodes in length, will be made for an English-speaking audience and will involve both Sapkowski and several of the creative minds behind the video games as advisors. It is likely that this series will debut in early-to-mid 2019.

Further Reading

The Witcher Wikia

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Board game version of THE WITCHER in development

Having started out as a series of best-selling novels and short story collections before becoming a series of multi-million-selling video game RPGs, The Witcher franchise is now set to become a board game.

The game is being developed by Fantasy Flight in conjunction with CD Projekt Red, the developers of the video games. Its main designer is Ignacy Trzewiczek, whose track record in board games and RPGs is fairly impressive.

The board game is expected to be released later in 2014, possibly to tie in with the release of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt (expected around August).

WITCHER 3 announced, will be final game in the series

CDProjekt have confirmed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is in development and will be released in 2014. In a major break from the structure of the first two games, The Witcher 3 will be an open-world game similar to Bethesda's Elder Scrolls game (with Skyrim name-checked several times). The game world will be 30 times the size of The Witcher 2's, and about 20% larger than the setting of Skyrim and Oblivion.

Confirmed: The Witcher 3 will have beards, horses and trees.

CDProjekt have also confirmed that this will be the last game set in The Witcher universe. The games are based on Andrzej Sapkowski's novels, though they are not considered canon (as Sapkowski rather brusquely confirmed a few weeks ago) for the future books in the world that Sapkowski is planning. CDProjekt are also working on an RPG based on the Cyberpunk pen-and-paper system, with their first game in the setting, Cyberpunk 2077, expected to be released in 2015.

The Witcher 3 will be released in 2014 on PC and (almost certainly) next-generation consoles.

CDProjekt on CYBERPUNK 2077 and THE WITCHER 3

CDProjekt have released a CGI trailer for their upcoming SF RPG, Cyberpunk 2077 (based on the classic 1980s pen-and-paper RPG, Cyberpunk). It features lots of bullets and a woman in unseasonal garb:

Meanwhile, CDProjekt have also revealed that they have another game much closer to release and that everyone can guess what it is. There'll be more on this - almost certainly The Witcher 3 - next month.