Witcher 4 devs say they knew Ciri switch ‘could be controversial’
The Witcher 4’s narrative director has said CD Projekt knew the decision to change the series’ protagonist would be controversial with some fans, and that the team wants to prove it was the correct choice for the game.
Speaking to VGC in a soon-to-be-published interview, narrative director Phillipp Weber addressed the reaction from some fans to the reveal trailer of The Witcher 4, which confirmed that Ciri will be the game’s new main character.
Weber said he understood where the negativity from some fans was coming from, as he also loved playing as Geralt in the previous games, and said that if that’s what some fans think, then that’s a valid concern that the team wants to address with future reveals.
“I think we definitely knew it could be controversial for some people because of course, in the previous three Witcher games Geralt was the protagonist and I think everyone really loved playing as Geralt,” he told VGC.
“I really loved playing as Geralt, so I think we’re aware that if some people think right now that they would still prefer to be Geralt, I do think that’s a legitimate concern, so if this is where that concern is coming from, that’s valid.”
The official upload of the Witcher 4 trailer currently has 3.7 million views. 250K people have “liked” the video on YouTube, with 25K leaving “dislike” ratings on the trailer.
“The best thing that we can do, and I think this is really our goal, is to prove that with Ciri, we can do a lot of interesting things so we can really make it worth it because this decision to have Ciri as a protagonist wasn’t made yesterday, we started making this a very long time ago,” Weber continued.
“Ciri was already being set up as a second protagonist in the Andrzej Sapkowski novels and as the second playable character in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, so for us it really was the natural evolution of what we’ve already been making for so long. Also for people who really love Geralt, it lets us honour the ending that Geralt had in The Witcher 3 and
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