Please respect player choice, by having multiple prologues in Witcher 4 (Witcher 3 spoilers)

[AvarageEnjoyer]

Can agree on this one

Gerald had an amnesia, so player can shape his personality how he wants

On the other hand, Ciri is already well established characters and mature enough(21 in W3) to have more o less stable traits. So roleplaying with her is much more difficult and may feel unnatural

Eeeh, that depends, really.
In Witcher 3 Geralt remembers everything - and there is still player choice in how he would act in certain situations.
Ciri is also way younger than Geralt, so it's not outlandish for her to change in personality in her late 20's or whenever the game will be set.

 

[Dmitriy_1981]

I've always been amused by these conversations about the importance of player choice in the Witcher series, which in fact never affect anything.
That is, the player went through the entire first game with Shani, but at the beginning of the second game, Geralt is still with Triss. The player killed Aryan La Valette in The Witcher 2, but in the third part, this simply makes the conversation with his mother, Baroness La Valette, a couple of lines shorter and that's it. When Geralt asks Philippa about the fate of the dragon Saskia, which was presented to the player with great pathos in The Witcher 2, she gets off with a monosyllable. And so on.

Here, the players themselves simply agree, stupidly, supposedly "elegantly", to overthrow Empress Ciri from the throne and force her to become a witcher, after which events should develop "standardly", that is, they by default accept that the choice should not change anything in the game.

Although in fact, if we take into account the endings of The Witcher 3, they should completely affect the entire further plot, and the entire game of The Witcher 4 for the empress and for the witcher should be different.

 

[Kyrylo]

I've always been amused by these conversations about the importance of player choice in the Witcher series, which in fact never affect anything.
That is, the player went through the entire first game with Shani, but at the beginning of the second game, Geralt is still with Triss. The player killed Aryan La Valette in The Witcher 2, but in the third part, this simply makes the conversation with his mother, Baroness La Valette, a couple of lines shorter and that's it. When Geralt asks Philippa about the fate of the dragon Saskia, which was presented to the player with great pathos in The Witcher 2, she gets off with a monosyllable. And so on.

Here, the players themselves simply agree, stupidly, supposedly "elegantly", to overthrow Empress Ciri from the throne and force her to become a witcher, after which events should develop "standardly", that is, they by default accept that the choice should not change anything in the game.

Although in fact, if we take into account the endings of The Witcher 3, they should completely affect the entire further plot, and the entire game of The Witcher 4 for the empress and for the witcher should be different.

Yes, some decisions wasn't transferred to new games, but not all

Plus, devs have more freedom with W4, cuz it takes place in different region, so it's easier to save W3 from creating canon for it

Plus, new games should take some pros from previous and make it better, not another way around

Post automatically merged: Apr 27, 2025

Eeeh, that depends, really.
In Witcher 3 Geralt remembers everything - and there is still player choice in how he would act in certain situations.
Ciri is also way younger than Geralt, so it's not outlandish for her to change in personality in her late 20's or whenever the game will be set.

But still Geralt personality from before amnesia and after should coexist, so we can argue that he can't be a different person in our interpretation, where his after amnesia traits are dominant. Or in other words there is still some sence and reasoning why we can create our own Geralt in games

With Ciri it is a little bit different. Late 20s is time when personality mostly has been shaped already, so Devs need or some sort of plot with amnesia or some really dramatic events in order to let the player reshape her personality from previous games

 

[EmeraldShadows]

I’m more interested in seeing how they handle Geralt’s other choices from Witcher 3, namely his romance choices.

Given Witcher 4 features Ciri as a protagonist, and Geralt has been confirmed to appear, it’s a near guarantee that Yennefer will also appear, given it’s a game about her adopted daughter.

Not saying Triss won’t also appear, but am still very unsure about whether they would go to the effort of creating two different scenarios for Geralt and Yennefer, and Geralt and Triss, especially in light of the redundancy of the romance choice with the Witcher 1, where even if you pick Shani, Triss is the canon romance choice in Witcher 2.

I ultimately think it would be a disservice massively to Yennefer, and her relationship with Ciri, if in Witcher 4 her potential involvement is only in one scenario that is locked behind a choice from the previous game.

 

[Dmitriy_1981]

Empress Ciri gets overthrown and has to flee Nilfgaard, eventually becoming a Witcher.

On the contrary, such a decision is precisely disrespect for the player's choice, because it is an obvious, simple plot device. It is impossible to come up with anything worse on purpose.
It is amazing how little you need...

 

[Toyen]

I’m more interested in seeing how they handle Geralt’s other choices from Witcher 3, namely his romance choices.

Regardless of who Geralt Romances, both Triss and Yennefer end up in the same place whether with Geralt or alone.

Triss is in Kovir alone or with Geralt.
Yennefer is somewhere in the North (precise location not mentioned) alone or with Geralt.

That is the canon Tw3 ending for these characters regardless if they were romanced or not. (Touissant is more of a holiday home for the couple.)

So it would make more sense to me that both Triss and Yennefer appear in TW4 whether they were romanced or not and if they were romanced then Geralt appears with them in certain scenarios.

Other than that, Geralt can appear independently in a separate 'Geralt' scenario either alone or with Triss/Yen accompanying him if they were romanced.

1. New Players / No Romance

- Geralt Scenario: Geralt appears alone or with Dandelion/Zoltan

- Triss Scenario: Triss appears alone in Kovir

- Yen Scenario: Yen appears alone in the North

2. Triss Romance

- Geralt Scenario: Geralt appears with Triss

- Triss Scenario: Triss appears with Geralt in Kovir

- Yen Scenario: Yen appears alone in the North

3. Yen Romance

- Geralt Scenario: Geralt appears with Yen

- Triss Scenario: Triss appears alone in Kovir

- Yen Scenario: Yen appears with Geralt in the North

It is going to be more work for the devs sure, but it definitely can and should be done. If there is one choice from TW3 devs shouldn't ignore it's definitely the romance / Geralt's ending.

 

[EmeraldShadows]

I mean definitely in an ideal world it would be nice to see both scenarios fleshed out and given their due

I’m fairly certain we’ll be seeing both Yennefer and Triss regardless in the Witcher IV given its northern setting

it does just seem a lot of extra work creating two distinct paths for Geralt, Yennefer, and Triss’ characters in IV based on Geralt ends up with at the end of 3

that said with Geralt not being the protagonist maybe it will actually be easier to handle this as opposed to when he was the protagonist of the original trilogy

 

[WitcherWannaBe]

I agree.

Something similar to Cyberpunk's start scenarios would be nice. Granted, it's different with an existing character who can be interpreted to die in one previous ending, but it isn't impossible. It'd probably be just a matter of writing, which CDPR certainly are good at.

I will be disappointed if they simply make the "Ciri becomes a witcher" ending canon.

Starting locations are cool. But why for start only? Cyberpunk could've had 5 different one. 1 at the beginning, then 2 in the middle of the game, and 2 later.

 

[Quenmysaviour]

I’m more interested in seeing how they handle Geralt’s other choices from Witcher 3, namely his romance choices.

Given Witcher 4 features Ciri as a protagonist, and Geralt has been confirmed to appear, it’s a near guarantee that Yennefer will also appear, given it’s a game about her adopted daughter.

Not saying Triss won’t also appear, but am still very unsure about whether they would go to the effort of creating two different scenarios for Geralt and Yennefer, and Geralt and Triss, especially in light of the redundancy of the romance choice with the Witcher 1, where even if you pick Shani, Triss is the canon romance choice in Witcher 2.

I ultimately think it would be a disservice massively to Yennefer, and her relationship with Ciri, if in Witcher 4 her potential involvement is only in one scenario that is locked behind a choice from the previous game.

I think Yen should show like Geralt and Triss (we know Geralt will show and maybe Triss cos it is Kovir, though all three obviously would have very limited roles). It'd be unfair to leave out Yennefer again, especially now that this is Ciri's turn, and Yen is her mother figure and just as important to Ciri. It could make up for the fact that she practically ignores Yennefer in Witcher 3. I have my theory that Yen will serve as part of the tutorial with Geralt, so you, as the player/Ciri are reacquainted with magic again, perfect opportunity for mother-daughter time.

For Geralt's romance, there will probably be canon/regular game dialogue and then an imported save option, which would add in some new lines about Triss/single Geralt. Same with Ciri's fate I reckon, import the empress ending save, then mention it a few times and give a reason why it didn't work out or something. It'd be awful if Ciri doesn't at least bring up Yen, I love this series but man was witcher 3 disappointing for her and Yens relationship.

 

[ReptilePZ]

I think I may have mentioned this in another thread, so apologies if I'm just repeating myself, but I'd rather CDPR focus telling one Witcher 3 ending path well instead of trying to resolve and bring them all together during a prologue. If they really do want to respect player choice from the previous games, it'd take a lot more than a prologue to achieve, in my opinion. Assuming they can't/won't dedicate so much effort to this, I think it'd be better to pick a canon ending and really explore its consequences to Ciri and the wider story.

Geralt's romantical partner has so little bearing on Ciri's story, imo, that I don't even know why it's being emphasised so heavily here. I'm sure we'll meet all the major characters and they'll have dialog to reflect their standing in the world.

 

[Dmitriy_1981]

If they really do want to respect player choice from the previous games, it'd take a lot more than a prologue to achieve, in my opinion. Assuming they can't/won't dedicate so much effort to this, I think it'd be better to pick a canon ending and really explore its consequences to Ciri and the wider story.

I also think that it is better not to make any consequences of the choice at all, leaving the player's decision options outside the brackets, than to make these consequences badly, using cheap tricks in the spirit of "the empress was overthrown", which in fact devalue the player's choice, showing once again that the choice means nothing in the overall story.