The "bittersweet" ending might be totally misunderstood! (Witcher 4 speculation)
I just rewatched the "empress" ending (didn't wan't to spoil anything in the title already).
Guess what - Noone ever says Ciri is being crowned !!!
They just say "Ciri went to Nilfgaard, where Emhyr prepares to make her his successor" and "she had the necessary qualities".
Again - she is no Empress yet in the end, she just prepares for the coronation.
This might be an extremely clever move to allow a "Witcher 4" sequel with Ciri as protagonist - They just need two intro sequences. In one she spent a few months witchering around with Geralt before the new story begins, while in the other she spent a few months on her way to nilfgaard and at court.
So, even for those people who conclude TW3 with the "Empress ending", the game would very soon reach a common starting point. I assume something like the new threat killing Emhyr and making Nilfgaard collapse, destroying Ciri's plans to become empress and making her a little known Witcherette again, free to start a new adventure without being known by everybody.
The game would then probaly take place in regions not affected too much by events in Witcher 3, so the whole political situation at the end of TW3 would not result in big changes to the gameworld.
Imagine the game takes place south of the Yaruga, maybe in Cintra. The political situation there is totally unaffected by TW3.
Witcher Ciri might be there to hunt monsters and to explore her past, while not-yet-empress Ciri might be in "her" home Kingdom to prepare for the coronation (re-learning court etiquette or whatever).
Empress-to-be Ciri might have to flee the castle when it's attacked in the dramatic intro sequence, being presumed dead. Witcher Ciri instead would see the events more like a bystander, being drawn into the main narrative through different means.
Flashbacks to her childhood trauma - where, at the age of 12, she had to flee the burning caste of Cintra while her grandmother (the queen) and almost everyone she knew died there - would provide some powerful emotional moments to start the story with a bang.
The great distance between Cintra (or anything else south of the Yaruga river) to the supposed whereabout of Geralt, Yen and Triss somewhere far in the North (Kovir?) would allow the devs to keep Geralt plausibly out of the first half or 3/4 of the story, fulfilling their promise that his story is over and someone else takes over. He could still make a cameo for the final showdown.
The scenario above is just my wild imagination, but the main point is another one: The empress ending might not exclude Ciri from being the protagonist of TW4, as I previously imagined. This is important, as it was one of the few things that kept me from firmly believing Ciri would be the next protagonist.
Guess what - Noone ever says Ciri is being crowned !!!
They just say "Ciri went to Nilfgaard, where Emhyr prepares to make her his successor" and "she had the necessary qualities".
Again - she is no Empress yet in the end, she just prepares for the coronation.
This might be an extremely clever move to allow a "Witcher 4" sequel with Ciri as protagonist - They just need two intro sequences. In one she spent a few months witchering around with Geralt before the new story begins, while in the other she spent a few months on her way to nilfgaard and at court.
So, even for those people who conclude TW3 with the "Empress ending", the game would very soon reach a common starting point. I assume something like the new threat killing Emhyr and making Nilfgaard collapse, destroying Ciri's plans to become empress and making her a little known Witcherette again, free to start a new adventure without being known by everybody.
The game would then probaly take place in regions not affected too much by events in Witcher 3, so the whole political situation at the end of TW3 would not result in big changes to the gameworld.
Imagine the game takes place south of the Yaruga, maybe in Cintra. The political situation there is totally unaffected by TW3.
Witcher Ciri might be there to hunt monsters and to explore her past, while not-yet-empress Ciri might be in "her" home Kingdom to prepare for the coronation (re-learning court etiquette or whatever).
Empress-to-be Ciri might have to flee the castle when it's attacked in the dramatic intro sequence, being presumed dead. Witcher Ciri instead would see the events more like a bystander, being drawn into the main narrative through different means.
Flashbacks to her childhood trauma - where, at the age of 12, she had to flee the burning caste of Cintra while her grandmother (the queen) and almost everyone she knew died there - would provide some powerful emotional moments to start the story with a bang.
The great distance between Cintra (or anything else south of the Yaruga river) to the supposed whereabout of Geralt, Yen and Triss somewhere far in the North (Kovir?) would allow the devs to keep Geralt plausibly out of the first half or 3/4 of the story, fulfilling their promise that his story is over and someone else takes over. He could still make a cameo for the final showdown.
The scenario above is just my wild imagination, but the main point is another one: The empress ending might not exclude Ciri from being the protagonist of TW4, as I previously imagined. This is important, as it was one of the few things that kept me from firmly believing Ciri would be the next protagonist.
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