Where do we go from here (or Witcher 4: Revenge of the Swallow)

[CTPhipps]

Where do we go from here (or Witcher 4: Revenge of the Swallow)

So, we have a bunch of leftover plots from the game for any future titles starring: Geralt, Ciri, or a new Witcher.

After all, it's not like publishers have never changed their minds before in stories so Geralt may return.

Ciri can also be toned down for a player character game. Geralt resets his levels for no damn reason we know.

New Witcher can also be designed with a complete personality rather than just a Vanilla one.

So, what would you like to see as a Witcher 4 premise based on the stuff we see in the Wild Hunt?

On my end, I think the first thing they need to do is drop the whole "choices carry over" thing and just do something which is vague enough that it manages to satisfy everyone. Bioware was able to pull off the Dragon Age: Inquisition changes with the Keep but that's a massive amount of effort for what isn't really going to work out that well. I think they should just make a canonical fate for most characters so we know what happened to: Adda, Siegfried, Radovid, Dijkstra, Roche, and so on.

No one really cared when Thaler showed up despite being able to kill him because Thaler is awesome.

On my end, I think they should declare the "Nilfgaard wins" ending canon and yet have the war still going on in the background. I also think they should make Ciri the Witcheress canon and have Emhyr chasing after her. We can throw a token bit there that Ciri is a "Runaway Princess" as a dialogue option after she realizes her father is a psychopath who wants her to be just like him.

Phillipa and Emhyr can be the villains.

Dandelion, Geralt, Yennefer, and Triss can show up as NPCs just as always. We can also do both male and female romances for Ciri. Which should satisfy the male gamer contingent who think girl on guy is icky (I wish I was making that up).

What would your ideal follow-up game be?

 

[ScoiataelWarrior]

I think skipping forward or backward in time and playing as a new Witcher is the easiest way to continue the series. If they go far forward enough, they don't have to worry about canon endings and if they go backwards it's the same deal. If they picked a time not done in the books and made a new Witcher, they wouldn't have to worry about keeping accuracy with the books and they could decide pretty much everything about the character themselves.

 

[Folkrom]

i havent give such a thing much thought, i guess i would be ok with whatever they came up with for a witcher 4, or witcher: "insert bombastic title here", but for now they have a lot of forum feedback to sift through and quite a bit to take to heart so they can improve the places the fell short, more over they need to pass that experience and feedback to the CP2077 team, for the time being focus on CP2077 and leave witcher on the back burner for a bit.

 

[Tiphereth]

I really hope there will be not a The Witcher 4. The Witcher 3 is already an ending (not totally the proper one the saga deserved, I think, but I would prefer an Enhanced Edition than a TW4), and I really want to see CD Projekt RED on something new.

I hope the huge success of The Witcher 3 (well deserved!) will not persuade the devs to just give up some other projects to focus on The Witcher (I want Cyberpunk !).

Seems hard to have Ciri as a main character since she can die in Wild Hunt. Or the devs choose a path for the player, but it would be a first time (but why not, it would not be stupid to have Ciri as a main character, in the books she's almost much important than Geralt in the story, and have a lot of chapters just for her).

The bad idea, to me, would be to let the player create his character. Not suitable with the narrative design of the serie until then. (And I found out CD Projekt RED is so good to build characters than I really prefer premade character.)

 

[CTPhipps]

I really hope there will be not a The Witcher 4. The Witcher 3 is already an ending (not totally the proper one the saga deserved, I think, but I would prefer an Enhanced Edition than a TW4), and I really want to see CD Projekt RED on something new.

I see no reason not to continue the series but I understand the feeling of letting stories "end."

Seems hard to have Ciri as a main character since she can die in Wild Hunt. Or the devs choose a path for the player, but it would be a first time (but why not, it would not be stupid to have Ciri as a main character, in the books she's almost much important than Geralt in the story, and have a lot of chapters just for her).

Ciri can teleport and we never saw the body!

 

[saricc]

I think they should focus on other IPs once they are done with all of the expansions... I mean don't get me wrong, I love the Witcher, but it would be shame if CD Projekt got caught up in a rut.

If they end up making another one I wouldn't be against playing as witcher Ciri. IMO Ciri has been chased enough. I think it would be better if she had her own story that didn't involve being hunted down.

 

[Folkrom]

tbh i hope they wont milk the witcher title dry, if anything it can only hurt them by doing that and the natural thing would be to have a final and definitive end for anything witcher related.

 

[saricc]

The bad idea, to me, would be to let the player create his character. Not suitable with the narrative design of the serie until then. (And I found out CD Projekt RED is so good to build characters than I really prefer premade character.)

I agree with this completely. I think character creation hurts stories more than it helps.

---------- Updated at 11:12 PM ----------

We can also do both male and female romances for Ciri. Which should satisfy the male gamer contingent who think girl on guy is icky (I wish I was making that up).

Yeah, it's sad that you aren't. With that being said we already know that Ciri is attracted to both genders.

 

[C0bR]

If they could come up with a good story for Ciri, I would really like a game with her (seeing as CDPR managed to handle her better than Sapkowski from about Baptism of Fire onwards).

I think it would not be too hard to get her to a similar starting point regardless of the endings of TW3. Assuming she stays alive in the Bad ending, she can always get back into the Witcher world, just without Geralt. They part in the Witcher ending anyway, so you could have her in the same place. The empress ending would be harder to deal with, but hey, if those Trade Unions decide that they simply won't pay that tax on fisstech she sets up for them, even teleporting won't save her from getting deposed. Have her survive that and you suddenly have her on the road too. Now you just gotta come up with a plot and account for at least some ending differences (probably related to Geralt, since we all know he would show up in a Ciri game and their fates continue to be tied together as long as both stay alive).

Yeah, it's a retcon to the n-th degree, but if you actually give the players a chance to have some cross-game continuum, you can only handle it for so many splits and branches.

Or you could build it around somehow making her the Witcher-Empress of the Mankind in all three endings ("I changed my mind!") and have her wage a continent encompassing war against an ancient enemy (I would advise to outsource this version to Bioware though).

 

[AdamSnow]

If they could come up with a good story for Ciri, I would really like a game with her (seeing as CDPR managed to handle her better than Sapkowski from about Baptism of Fire onwards).

I think it would not be too hard to get her to a similar starting point regardless of the endings of TW3. Assuming she stays alive in the Bad ending, she can always get back into the Witcher world, just without Geralt. They part in the Witcher ending anyway, so you could have her in the same place. The empress ending would be harder to deal with, but hey, if those Trade Unions decide that they simply won't pay that tax on fisstech she sets up for them, even teleporting won't save her from getting deposed. Have her survive that and you suddenly have her on the road too. Now you just gotta come up with a plot and account for at least some ending differences (probably related to Geralt, since we all know he would show up in a Ciri game and their fates continue to be tied together as long as both stay alive).

Yeah, it's a retcon to the n-th degree, but if you actually give the players a chance to have some cross-game continuum, you can only handle it for so many splits and branches.

Or you could build it around somehow making her the Witcher-Empress of the Mankind in all three endings ("I changed my mind!") and have her wage war a continent encompassing war against an ancient enemy (I would advise to outsource this version to Bioware though).

They could just save themselves the trouble and make a game about the "in between" time, from when Ciri disappeared and right before she came back to start the events of TW3 game.

 

[CTPhipps]

The Weaveress is the perfect antagonist for a Ciri game and would make a good focus for a mid-level part of the game, especially if Ciri's powers have been diminished. Since she took Vesemir's Witcher medallion and has a desire for revenge, you could do all sorts of crazy stuff with that plot thread.

One example would be summoning Vesemir's ghost and binding it to someone else's corpse or a suit of armor.

Imagine that sort of gut punch.

Another plot idea I had an idea is "Liberate Temeria from Nilfgaard control" and you could have Anais as the rallying cry for the resistance. She might be a teenage warlord by this time or a spoiled brat or whatever. If I was going to do epic fanservice, I'd also have Saskia being the one leading the resistance.

---------- Updated at 11:38 PM ----------

They could just save themselves the trouble and make a game about the "in between" time, from when Ciri disappeared and right before she came back to start the events of TW3 game.

Eh, that's less of a Witcher game and more of a Planescape game.

 

[AdamSnow]

The Weaveress is the perfect antagonist for a Ciri game and would make a good focus for a mid-level part of the game, especially if Ciri's powers have been diminished. Since she took Vesemir's Witcher medallion and has a desire for revenge, you could do all sorts of crazy stuff with that plot thread.

One example would be summoning Vesemir's ghost and binding it to someone else's corpse or a suit of armor.

Imagine that sort of gut punch.

Another plot idea I had an idea is "Liberate Temeria from Nilfgaard control" and you could have Anais as the rallying cry for the resistance. She might be a teenage warlord by this time or a spoiled brat or whatever. If I was going to do epic fanservice, I'd also have Saskia being the one leading the resistance.

---------- Updated at 11:38 PM ----------



Eh, that's less of a Witcher game and more of a Planescape game.

I get your point, thou she didn't really say exactly where she was - or did she?

 

[C0bR]

I get your point, thou she didn't really say exactly where she was - or did they?

I am quite sure she namedrops Cyberpunk world for example. Don't know how would they put a sprawling RPG into that kind of over-the-top setting.

If the do some world-hopping prequel with Ciri, they should totally make it in the vein of MGR - just a mad 20 hour action game, a total offshoot:hmm:

Not a fan of prequels in general though, tbh.

 

[lordhovis]

If there has to be a Witcher 4 or whatever they would end up calling it I would rather we didn't play as Ciri. In fact I'd rather they stayed away from Geralt and company's time period. Set it in the past or the future. CD Projekt have proved they can write new and interesting characters so let them do so instead of relying on the old familiar cast.

We could play as a young witcher during the early days of witchering in a land beset by monsters. Keep it mundane, no end of the world plots, just a tale of daily drudgery as we struggle to get by in a harsh world of fear and suspicion.

For now though I hope they focus long and hard on Cyberpunk 2077. I'm expecting it to be even better than the Witcher.

 

[OutgoingHermit]

I thought that the Ciri narrative was the least interesting facet of the novels, so I can't say I'd be a fan of the idea.

 

[AdamSnow]

I am quite sure she namedrops Cyberpunk world for example. Don't know how would they put a sprawling RPG into that kind of over-the-top setting.

If the do some world-hopping prequel with Ciri, they should totally make it in the vein of MGR - just a mad 20 hour action game, a total offshoot:hmm:

Imagine her showing up in Cyberpunk 2077 - even just as an Easter Egg.

 

[C0bR]

Imagine her showing up in Cyberpunk 2077 - even just as an Easter Egg.

She'll probably pass by the MC on the street and get called a shitty cosplayer by him/her. I have my money on that.

 

[saricc]

I get your point, thou she didn't really say exactly where she was - or did she?

The books leave off with her on a world where King Arthur actually exists (most likely it's our world), she says in the game that she visited some futuristic world that sounds like Cyberpunk, and she also talks to Geralt about another world during the "Payback" quest.

 

[Ljesnjanin]

Where? To Cyberpunk+expansions and Cyberpunk 2+expansions... That is the place we're going to

 

[Ortwyn]

Geralt's story has ended. Playing as Ciri might be interesting, but I would prefer a new character.

First - the setting. I believe it would be interesting to move from the Northern realms to Nilfgaard so that we can see how people live there. Proud and arrogant Nilfgaardians, obedient mages, slavery, powerful trade corporations...

Main protagonist - what about some bounty-hunter? I propose young Leo Bonhart. Instead of killing monsters, we would kill all sorts of outlaws and...witchers.

Joking aside. Mages in the witcher world have a great potential. Playing as some bad-ass wandering mage and adventurer sounds good for me. Such a guy might use a sword, magic and potions just as the witcher does. He can accept all sorts of quests - killing monsters not for coin, but for rare substances, searching for ancient artifacts and so on. He can engage in politics. And he can have multiple romances (also with sorceresses).

Anyway, I just hope there will be another game from the witcher setting and that we will see Philippa Eilhart again.