The Witcher 4 got a surprise reveal at The Game Awards, and this one is all about Ciri

Can't wait to see the Netflix adaptation again with Henry Cavill as Ciri.
- You're joking but I feel like that would satisfy EVERYONE's fantasies
  
  Just cast him as all the roles. in everything
- I would crowdfund the shit out of that.

I hope she knows how to play Gwent.
- I liked gwent. Tried the app, didn't understand wtf was happening, deleted it.
  
  Same. The worst thing they can do to fuck Witcher 4 up is change the gameplay of Gwent

As if anyone expected to play as any other character than Ciri.
- I hoped for a witcher (whichever gender) from one of the other schools, tbh
  
  I kind of hoped for a custom character like V
  
  So did I, but I mean, given the current game development climate, Ciri was an extremely predictable pick.
  Not only is Ciri a woman, which modern games seem to be making super majority of main protagonists these days, but she also has market familiarity. Her character is recognizable and therefore has a builtin audience, where a new character does not.
- I did. The games already completely shit on the ciri book lore. I was hoping for a fresh slate with new characters, perhaps during a different time period entirely.
  
  Young vesemir FTW?
- In my opinion it doesn't make all that much sense because of major Witcher 3 spoilers.
  
  WITCHER 3 SPOILER BELOW ::: spoiler Spoiler How so? One of the endings literally has geralt gift a witcher sword to Ciri. The only thing I'm confused about is how she now seems to have the witcher mutations
  :::
  
  It makes perfect sense with two of the three endings, and could even work with the third depending on how much CDPR wants to explain the cosmology behind the white frost.

Super hyped, I've wanted a sequel with Ciri since finishing 3.
Please don't Cyberpunk this up, CDPR...
- They will cyberpunk this, because they also witchered Cyberpunk. As in "delivered less than promised and then mostly fixed it with patches".
  
  Yep, it's their business model. People were pissed about Cyberpunk because they'd only played Witcher 3 after it was complete.
  
  And I'm quick to forget that Witcher 3 had some nasty bugs at launch, too. I was stuck with at that damn giant in the ice cave for like a month before they fixed it.
- I'd argue each CDPR game improves on the one before including cyberpunk, but since it was a new franchise and perspective it was like creating witcher 1 all over again except... The combat offered more choice that the witcher games, better 3d level design, pretty solid endings (better than deus ex, and mass effect).
- what does that mean, cyberpunk is awesome
  
  It took over a year before it was made into something worthwhile.
  
  The worst release for CDPR ever, I say this as a CDPR fan.
  
  Play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided & come back

Is it just me or is her face a bit weird? Like too much jaw?
I'd love to play the game as Ciri though, hope they make up a good story, it felt the Wild Hunt was her story, IDK what can top that.
- Might be a character redesign. Geralt definitely got that treatment from 2 to 3.
  
  And from 1 to 2, which was desperately needed.
- I agree.
  As someone else pointed out, Geralt looked quite different in the game vs the first cinematic launch trailer.
  https://youtu.be/Swij8vsEEgQ?si=17YapBZ2Qzk1Bwhz
  So who knows, time will tell. Also keep in mind it’s a new engine
- Her face looks longer to me. I assume they're trying to make her look more like a real person.
  
  Problem is (well, not really, but still), she already looked like a real person. Personally know people who look a lot like Ciri, it's not the most uncommon look in Slavic countries.
  It may be just the trailer. In some scenes, she looks like herself from the 3rd game, just aged, but in most, she looks a bit... weird. It's really hard to tell what's going on because when you try to compare the models, they do match up.
- Reminds me of xiv. It always looks great ingame but half the time their cgi trailers mess up peoples face anatomy
- It looks like they created a monster trying to fit a bunch of features in a face. It's on all thumbnails, same as clickbait videos. It's a marketing stunt.
- She looks like a supermodel, what weird gooner take is this.
  
  I was not commenting on her attractiveness, just that the defining character features seem to be different. She doesn't look "older" or less attractive to me from Wild Hunt, just a different person.
  It's not as bad as when they dropped the voice actor for Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell though.
  
  You’re the one taking it to gooner/sexist territory, us fans of the series know the characters and when the overall face-shape changes but keeps defining features like the scar on her cheek, it’s a little unexpected and strange at first.

I was hoping for Eskel or Letho to be honest. Ciri is a safe choice but a bit on the boring side. Eskel would have been a lot more multi-layered protagonist and dialogues would have been funnier.
- I was praying for Letho even though we all knew it was going to be Ciri (for better or worse, we'll see).
  Leaning into the moral grey of the Witcher world with Letho would have been awesome, he says (in one of the endings to his story) he'll head out east over the mountains so we could have gotten some all-new environments and it would have been 100% CDPR IP so they could have done whatever they wanted without trampling over lore too much. Plus Letho is just an amazing character with huge protagonist energy. Oh well.
- Same. I was hoping for a totally different story or a different time period entirely. Instead it's just boring Ciri again. Rip.
  
  2.5 games of geralt? Just fine! 0.5 games as ciri? BoRiNg!!!!
  Yes ciri “existed” in the previous games but we never saw her and we never played as her until the Wild Hunt.

Feels like W4 being about Ciri is the worst kept secret in gaming.
- There was some speculations that the next game is gonna let the player create their own character. So, having Ciri as the main character is a surprise for some.
  
  To be honest, I was expecting an AC style game set during the Golden Age of Witchers. The schools of each nation are thriving, magic is abundant, Witchers are respected envoys to rulers, monster population is waning but one thing remains the same: Humans slaughter eachother in droves, rape pillage and plunder. Thus proving once more that Humans are the true monsters.

Looks great... but it uses Unreal Engine 5
- What's wrong with unreal engine 5...
  
  Performance mostly. But also even when made by various AAA studios, the resulting games often have this uncanny similar-ness to them. Personally i prefer in-house engines even if its just to maintain variety in the industry.
  Also obligatory shout out to id tech for continuing to show off their engines with indiana jones.
  
  Given my experience with it in Satisfactory it's rather heavy.
  
  Oh boy....
  https://youtu.be/M00DGjAP-mU?si=Rm1neh69DuD8bcLj
  https://youtu.be/6Ov9GhEV3eE?si=WOpPXz-FkY6TpC9X
  
  It's very heavy on your computer
- Hey maybe then we can get player character shadows that aren't nightmare demons
- like most engines, UE5 is whatever you hack it into being. I hate developing with Unreal but I do have to admit it's solid in a lot of ways. and has pretty mature content/LOD streaming, one of the biggest issues I saw with Cyberpunk at launch.
- GOOD
- At least the benefit is the team can develop without it so we hopefully won't see the issues it's crutches create.

I knew at the end of 3 she was gonna take Gerald's mantle at least for one game
- "It's Geralt." -Geralt

I can’t wait!!! A little sad the OG Ciri VA didn’t come back tho

Dread it. Run from it. Witcher 4 with playable CIri still arrives.

Wow.

Here goes the cycle anew. Thank you CD project red and all the consoomers happily enabling then.

Guys i need some input. I know im gonna get downvoted, but i really want some input and constructive criticism. Especially from woman.
How do you play a woman character? Like especially the witcher game?
Cuz i remember how many sex scenes were there, W3 never shy away from that aspect. And as a man I know and feel comfortable making those decisions for gerald you know? But if it is ciri, I would feel reaaaallllly weird controlling her "body" (you know?)
Like combat stuff and any other aspect, its the same. But when it gets to stuff that's by design gendered, I honestly don't know how or what to do.
Then there was this aspect of, ciri being a daughter of gerald. And I played gerald so internally i see ciri as like a daughter, and I would be kinda weird if the game starts to explore her sexuality or smth.
Like how many of you would wanna control/watch sex stuff for a character like that?
- I haven't played the witcher specifically, but I do think it's worth pointing out that this is the usual experience for women playing mainstream male-led titles with romance arcs. women have been playing and enjoying the witcher for a long while, including its sexual elements. if it's possible for us it could be possible for you too! I know if I'm replaying Mass Effect I'm actually probably more likely to play as male Shepard (because I can't be gay with Tali 😫)
  ultimately one of the coolest things a game can do imo is encourage you to step into the shoes of character unlike yourself in a situation you've never encountered and ask you to make decisions as them. If you're uncomfortable roleplaying romantic enounters as a woman, there might be some value in trying anyway! you may find the experience to be more similar than you'd expect. I recognize it's probably more complicated if you have more paternal feelings toward her, but telling her story from her viewpoint does mean including elements that conflict with how she's seen by Geralt - it's her story now and it'd be a disservice to only include what's comfortable from Geralt's POV.
  In any case, sexual content may be in the game and referenced here and there, but if it doesn't interest you I expect you'll be able to not see it. correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that you could play Geralt as aromantic and asexual if you wanted, yea? I imagine the same would be true here too.
  
  Hey thanks so much for taking the time to answer in detail. I really appreciate it.
  It is a bit strange that even though society at large has made so much progress in gender equality, there are still cases that stump me like this. Cuz I don't remember playing any game with a female protagonist that also had a romance element, but then again I haven't played that many games in general.
- She's an adult, and a videogame character. You're not actually her parent either. Just a player who experiences the game through a character.
- You've played Cyberpunk 2077? Majority of players played female V. I don't think they struggled to play as her either.
- See, I played the Witcher 3, and did not experience any Sex Scenes, because I wanted to kill monsters, not have sex. So I do not expect my experience with The Witcher 4 to be any different.

Honestly after their absolute shit show with cyberpunk I'm more excited to sit back and watch them fuck it up again than for the game. They've lost my respect and their credibility as developers. I will pirate anything from them
- They fixed CP2077 and as a matter of fact the game is pretty good, plus they are a European company so we should support them.
  
  Yeah, they did. I wasn't a fan of every part of Cyberpunk 2077, but I have to hand it to them: the gameplay was pretty solid compared to the mess I read about at launch. They even made the player controls responsive and reasonably nice to use. That alone was a huge improvement over The Witcher 3.
  (Geralt, I'll never forgive you for all the times you stepped forward into danger when I pressed back to avoid it, or decided to fiddle about with a candle when there was something more important for your hands to do, or moved like a lumbering sloth instead of... well... a witcher.)
  I'm optimistic about this one.
  
  I haven't played the game since launch so maybe I outta give it another try but I still lost respect for them. Releasing an unfinished product shouldn't be praised even if they did fix it. Should've been delayed in the first place.
  Why does them being European mean we should support them tho?
- They've given Cyberpunk 4 years of support for free since the initial launch, including a full overhaul of the game. I get the state of the launch was dogshit, and you can bet your ass I'm not pre-ordering, but still holding onto this grudge is just petty. How much more sorry do you need them to be?
  
  I paid dlc isn't free support.
  I don't need them to be sorry. They had years to make the game and released garbage. I'm sick of that happening in the gaming industry and I don't support companies that do it.
- Yeah it was a rough launch. I just picked it up during the last steam sale and it's fucking amazing now though! I can't put it down!
  
  I should give it another try but they stopped updating the game. I'm not expecting them to be like no man's sky but you still need mods to add in shit that was promised like the metro system
- The devs are amongst the best in the business, blame those responsible, the suits who demand unfinished products to be released. Nintendo with their older mentality of shipping phyisical media does not have the luxury to ship an unfinished product and more studios need to take a page from their book.
  A rushed product is forever stained by its bad launch, a delayed product is eventually good. People have been waiting for star citizen for over a decade, we can be patient.
  
  Nintendo is a shit company that hates its fans. Definitely not who I would use as a good example. And star citizen is a scam, not a game.
  
  Nintendo has patches now, they just also tie you to physical media for DRM and $$ extraction.
  I'd agree they seem to have fewer patches, though.

GOOD