Hart95;n8307390 said:
I don't mean that he could be the main character, but rather a supporting character. At the very least I expect him to return in future games as that.
Similar arguments still apply, though, if he plays a major role. And if he does not, then I do not really see the value it would add, other than providing fan service (which is not necessarily bad, but it depends on what cost it comes at). After all, as an NPC, he would have much less content than in Wild Hunt to begin with (in TW3: GOTY, the NPC with the most lines still has 15 times less than Geralt), so there would be limited room for further developing the character after seeing so much of him already in the previous games.
RepHope;n8309940 said:
They'd have to canonize an ending then, since he basically kills himself in one of them. They have canonized some stuff before so while I could see them doing it
I do not remember them canonizing major ending choices (those that give the narrated slides at the end of the game), although they were sometimes rendered irrelevant by events that happened off-screen between the games. One might say the end result is similar, but it is not the same. Smaller choices like Thaler's and Kalkstein's fate were canonized, these are more comparable for example to whether Lambert survives in TW3. In the interviews before release, it was said (if I recall correctly) that Wild Hunt has 36 ending states, which is an interesting number, I count more than that from the four main decisions. Those in theory give 3*3*3*3=81 endings, but Ciri empress implies Nilfgaard winning, so that eliminates 18 and leaves 63, and Ciri dead originally left Geralt's fate undetermined, which eliminates 18 more and we are left with 45. Perhaps I calculated something wrong, or the "bad" ending is not considered valid and then there would really be 36? Or the figure of 36 was simply based on some pre-release build of the game and CDPR forgot to update it.
In any case, Blood and Wine already more or less confirms that Geralt survives the bad ending.
When it comes to the issue of endings not being respected in a sequel, I think it is important to consider the value of what becomes possible at that cost vs. the damage done to the existing game(s), and whether it is feasible to implement a world state import feature reasonably well for the given choice. So, I may find it more acceptable if a minor choice (like the above mentioned Thaler example) is ignored, or if it happens for some major narrative reason to the ending of a title that is early in a trilogy, and following the other path(s) would have been very difficult. On the other hand, when a game is announced to be the last one in a saga, one might have more expectations of the endings being "final", and obviously also find it more objectionable if they end up being broken for the sake of a fan service cameo or similar reason.
I think it's far more likely if a new entry is created it will be separated by either time or space from the Geralt trilogy. A game set outside the Northern Kingdoms or far in the future.
I agree with that. Although it is possible that whatever the next game will be like has already been decided, the quote in
this post suggests that there are certain things that CDPR know but do not reveal to the public yet. Perhaps the unannounced other AAA title that is planned to be released after Cyberpunk 2077 is in fact a Witcher game and is already in an early stage of development?