The Witcher 4 may not have Geralt after all: his actor was "slapped by CD Projekt" for accidentally sharing a rumor that he'd be in it, just not as the protagonist

gamesradar.com:

It turns out that everyone's favorite Witcher could, in some far-flung outlier, return as the protagonist in The Witcher 4 after all, or he could be missing from the RPG entirely, as Geralt actor Doug Cockle reveals that he accidentally shared a rumor earlier this year that led to him being "slapped by CD Projekt."

Very little has been revealed about The Witcher 4 and the journey it'll take us on, but back in August, Cockle – who voices Geralt in The Witcher games – said that his character "will be a part of the game. We just don't know how much, and the game won't focus on Geralt, so it's not about him this time." 

Intriguing stuff, but also, it turns out, not necessarily accurate stuff, as in a recent interview at MCM Comic Con Birmingham (shared by Geektown on YouTube), Cockle says he "went off a rumor," and he's now unsure if it's actually true.

"I did go online and I said something about this, and then I got slapped by CD Projekt because… I don't know how true it is," he begins when asked his thoughts about no longer being the main character. "I went off a rumor – I thought I'd seen somebody from CD Projekt say that Geralt will be in Witcher 4 but he won't be the main character, and I don't actually know if that's true now, because they came back and they went, 'We haven't put anything out there, don't say anything!'" 

Continuing, he admits: "I don't know what it's gonna be. I have ideas – I thought I had an idea of what it was – and then I was kind of basically told, 'We haven't told anybody what it is, so where you got that information we don't know.'"

So where did that original rumor come from? Cockle speculates it might have been "from a really, really old statement that somebody who no longer works for CD Projekt actually put out about three years ago," but regardless, it certainly sounds like the current devs aren't ready to publicly commit to the idea one way or the other. 

Either way, it could mean a few things for the upcoming game – Geralt returning