Is there any official information on exactly how they treat the books as the games' back story ? I mean, there are two possible approaches to that, and there is an important difference between them:
1. Books are canon to the games until the beginning of the games' storyline, that is, the Rivian pogrom in 1268. After that, the stories are separate, and game events e.g. in the 1270's no longer have to be consistent with the books. I clearly prefer this approach that allows for more creative freedom while still providing a pre-defined background history to start from.
2. Books are canon to the games in any case, even in the games' own time frame. That is, the games have to be written in a way that they follow the events (both past and future) already established in the books, and they can only fill in "holes" that are left in the story. This is bad in my opinion, and also not safe for the future, because the holes may disappear later, should more books be written e.g. to continue Ciri's story.
The games obviously treat most of the *existing* material Sapkowski has written to date as canon. There are minor disrepancies, but nothing major. And it's in fact pretty easy to discount those small things, since there's not a minute "hard canon" even across the books - Sapkowski actually manages to contradict himself a few times on some details, mostly dates and how long it has supposedly been between certain events.
So you can read the books and jump into the games and treat them as a direct sequel taking place in the same timeline. And like I said, even all of W3's endstates can be a match with what we've learned about the future from the books. Some (like Empress Ciri) just a take a little more mental gymnastics than some others (like Witcher Ciri).
Now, if Sapkowski ever writes anything new that directly contradicts what's in the games, there's obviously no way for CDPR to fit that into their existing narrative. And I don't think anyone expects them to start retconning things either. I know I sure don't. That's when we'll have two different timelines that branch after the Rivian pogrom. But as of right now, 99% of what Sapkowski's ever written can be directly applied as the games' backstory.
Now that I think of it, Sapkowski writing a sequel to the saga could actually offer an interesting out for CDPR if they ever wish to start developing The Witcher 4. Then they could simply dump the existing trilogy and W3's various endstates altogether and make a new game that follows Sapkowski's new material. That'd sure be a curious take on things.
As for the comic picking up one of W3's endings and expanding on it... While I brought forward the idea that they simply picked the Witcher Ciri ending as a starting point because it best matches Sapkowski's work, I certainly don't wish to enforce the notion that there should be one single canon path. After all, it pretty much goes against the idea of a branching narrative woven into the games themselves. I know I prefer the neutral ending for W1, Iorveth path for W2 and Witcher Ciri for W3 (and I'm happy that my preferences match the stories told in other mediums), but if there's ever a comic or something else that contradicts one of those choices, I simply treat it as a description of events in a timeline where Geralt chose differently.
And that's how I think we all should treat this new comic (and how those who chose the Roche path in W2 should treat the Saskia comic), and any possible sequel that may or may not be coming from Sapkowski.
