The Witcher 4's moody and opulent announcement trailer is an "adaptation" of a planned quest from the forthcoming RPG, CD Projekt have confirmed, designed to show off both the "tough choices" in store and, more specifically, set new lead Ciri apart from previous protagonist Geralt by having her "mirror" another female character.
All that's from a new making-of video, which also dips into the design of the announcement trailer's monster, the Bauk - part goblin, part scorpion, part jaguar and part dinosaur.
You probably don't need CD Projekt to spell these things out - the trailer framing is hardly subtle - but it's useful, nonetheless, to get some brief firsthand insight on how the trailer relates to the main game.
The trailer takes place in the village of Stromford, which has a tradition of sacrificing young girls to the Bauk to stop it coming into town and eating everybody.
Classic Grendel shenanigans. Mioni is the latest sacrifice. She's also, in a way, Ciri's doppelganger. "Mioni and Ciri are a little bit [like] mirrors of each other," narrative director Philipp Weber comments in the video. "The traditions of Stromford mean that Mioni has to be sacrificed.