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The Witcher IV Cinematic Reveal Trailer Released

The Witcher IV Cinematic Reveal Trailer Released - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 December 2024 / 2,783 Views

CD Projekt RED during The Game Awards 2024 released the cinematic reveal trailer for The Witcher IV. Platforms and a release date were not announced.

"We’re kicking off a brand-new Witcher saga, this time with Ciri as the heart of the story!" said Game Director Sebastian Kalemba. "It feels so good to finally be able to say those words—for the longest time we knew that we wanted Ciri to be the protagonist of The Witcher IV; it just felt natural to us and we believe that Ciri deserves it.

"In this game we want to explore what it means to truly become a witcher by following Ciri on her Path. This trailer is a taste of both that, and just how dark and grounded the world of The Witcher can be."

View the trailer below:

Read details on the game below:

During this year’s The Game Awards, CD PROJEKT RED offered a first look at The Witcher IV, previously known by its codename Polaris. The game, a successor to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt—considered one of the most acclaimed games of all time—marks the beginning of a new Witcher saga with Ciri stepping into the role of the protagonist.

In the nearly six-minute trailer, viewers were introduced to Ciri, the adopted daughter of Geralt of Rivia, as she takes on a witcher contract in a remote village that has been terrorized for generations by a fearsome monster demanding human sacrifices. Framed as a short, self-contained Witcher story, the trailer showcases Ciri’s new abilities and tools, including a chain and advanced magic powers.

At the heart of the trailer is Ciri’s perspective as an outsider to the village. As the villagers say goodbye to one of their own — a young girl they are preparing for a traditional ritual sacrifice—Ciri chooses to intervene. Aiming to slay the beast and save the girl at the same time, Ciri finds herself at odds with the prejudices and superstitions of the people she tries to protect, leading her to confront a painful witcher lesson: that monsters come in all forms.

The trailer is pre-rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU. Powered by the same tech that The Witcher IV is built on, using assets and models from the game itself, it aims to provide players with a cinematic look at the kind of experience the game is aspiring to provide. The trailer was created through a close collaboration between CD PROJEKT RED and Platige Image, who are no strangers to The Witcher universe, having been responsible for intro cinematics in the previous installments of the series.

The Witcher IV is a single-player, open-world RPG from CD Projekt RED. At the start of a new saga, players take on the role of Ciri and embark on a journey through a brutal dark fantasy world. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it aims to be the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date.


A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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28 Comments
UnderwaterFunktown (on 13 December 2024)

2030 here we come!

  • +7
shikamaru317 UnderwaterFunktown (on 15 December 2024)

I don't think it will take that long, hopefully anyway. Cyberpunk took 8 years (2012-2020), but it was a new IP (which take longer than sequels) and alot of the work they got done the first 3 or 4 years got scrapped in a development reboot. They also had to spend a substantial amount of time upgrading Red Engine for Cyberpunk.

Witcher 4 by comparison is a sequel, not a new IP, started development about 3 years ago and already has it's dev team up to full size, hasn't had any reboots that we have heard of, and is running on Unreal 5 instead of a new build of Red Engine that CD Projekt had to take time to make. I'm thinking 2027-2028 probably.

  • +1
Dante9 (on 13 December 2024)

Cool, but what happened to Ciri's face? She looks like a member of the local branch of Desperate Housewives or something.

  • +4
EnricoPallazzo Dante9 (on 13 December 2024)

and with a big chin

  • +2
Hiku EnricoPallazzo (on 13 December 2024)

Literally normal female features. It's like you guys have never interacted with a woman. Or seen a new engine adapt a bit more realistic look for every character, and she's a bit older. This happens. Nero, Dante & Vergil. Solid Snake. Kratos, etc.

  • +2
JuliusHackebeil Hiku (on 14 December 2024)

These are normal female features, yes. You know what else is normal - being ugly. Uglyfication has taken a new victim. Nero, Dante & Vergil, Solid Snake, Kratos in their latest versions could all be male models. These are extremly beautiful guys. And if Siri was portraied as beautiful as any of these men, nobody would have a problem.

And it is also not atypical for a witcher game to portray hot people. Geralt totaly is a hottie. So was Siri. Not anymore.

Does not mean anything significant about the quality of the game of course. But it is very noticable.

  • -2
Otter JuliusHackebeil (on 14 December 2024)

Gerald also looks completely different in the CGI compared to the game, they've just given Ciri a more mature weathered look. Less like a super model and still conventionally attractive.

  • 0
JuliusHackebeil Otter (on 14 December 2024)

Geralt looks different in cgi, but still very attractive. I would argue even hotter. Now I get that these things are subjective. But I would be surprised to learn that anybody finds Ciri more attractive now. Would have been possible to make her so, but it is not what they did. And mature and weathered does not mean less attractive. There are many real women much older and more atractive than cgi Ciri in part 4.

Again, not very important to the overall game for me, but noticable. Also noticable that some people on here seemingly could not bring themselves to say "less atractive", even if she just had one eye and big scars all over her face. At least that is what it feels like. Dishonesty for the sake of being nice to a fictional character. But perhaps it is really just different tastes. I don't know.

  • +3
Otter JuliusHackebeil (on 16 December 2024)

Probably because the primary metric they're judging character design is not on how attractive she is. I immediately was taken to this version of Ciri over Witcher 3's because she actually looks hardened and more sinister. Good character design is not just scale of hotness and again this Ciri is still a conventionally attractive women.

Meanwhile my first complaints about Henry Cavil playing Gerald was actually that he was too handsome, square jawed and not rugged/weathered enough to reflect the hardship of Geralds life. He still done a great job but again attractiveness is not the barometer of bringing a character to life.

  • 0
JuliusHackebeil Otter (on 17 December 2024)

Just to make sure, I am not saying at all that character design is mostly or primarily how attractive a character is. It is just really noticable in this case and many others.

  • 0
smroadkill15 JuliusHackebeil (on 14 December 2024)

Ciri looks like how she would if she was older, but with more scars (duh). She certainly doesn't look ugly lol. Far from it. It's almost like you don't understand how aging works. She was 21 in the Witcher 3. You think she should still look the same and not have any blemishes or scars?

  • -1
JuliusHackebeil smroadkill15 (on 15 December 2024)

Hey, if you think she is not made uglier on purpose, more power to you. I know many real life women much older and much more beautiful. And as an adult in part 3 Ciri was super hot. I cannot see that downgrade as natural. But as I said in the above comment, it is surely subjective in parts. Perhaps she just aged quite badly. Who knows.
And just to clarify, I would not call her outright ugly either. Just definitively uglier beyond ages effect.

And (I know you ment it in jest) I really do not understand how aging works. It is a very complicated process.

  • 0
EnricoPallazzo JuliusHackebeil (on 16 December 2024)

it seems modern audiences like ugly people as they reflect better the world we live in. Now imagine if movies started to do the same thing.

  • +1
shikamaru317 Dante9 (on 15 December 2024)

The same thing that has happened to most female game characters developed by western game studios in the last 7 years or so. They always seem to find a way to make their female characters look worse than in past games with said character, or worse than the mocap/facescan model. Countless examples of this phenomenon in recent years, with the earliest I can recall being Sarah Ryder in Mass Effect Andromeda looking substantially worse than her face-scan/mo-cap actress. Since then the female character issue in western games has gotten worse year by year, more and more games per year doing it and examples that are more and more egregious.

At least in this case the difference is relatively subtle and can largely be chalked up to aging, though are definitely changes to Ciri's character model beyond what just aging would do (the lower face and chin have been made bulkier and the forehead smaller, aging can't cause bone structure changes). I'll wait for her in-game character model reveal for full judgment in this case, but this early trailer using in-engine assets looking that way is definitely concerning.

  • +2
EnricoPallazzo shikamaru317 (on 16 December 2024)

aging does no make your chin being pushed forwards and be more prominent and does not make you jaw gets stronger like she has been doing mowing for 20 years. It is definitely an artistic choice to make women uglier and more male.

  • +2
shikamaru317 EnricoPallazzo (on 16 December 2024)

Agreed. I have no idea why the agenda is being pushed, I can only assume because there are more women in game development now than in the past and because most game studios in the west are in big cities with a high concentration of 4th wave feminists. I just hope the trend passes soon, not only am I tired of female game characters looking less attractive than in the past, I know plenty of others are tired of it too, both male and female gamers tired of the trend.

  • 0
WhiteEaglePL (on 13 December 2024)

The reveal is very early, but happy to know Ciri is the protagonist now and she's a full on witcher

  • +2
Kristof81 (on 13 December 2024)

For the first time in my life, I'm less worried if my PC be good enough to run this game and more worried if I'm gonna be still alive when it comes out

  • +2
EricHiggin Kristof81 (on 13 December 2024)

Oh it'll be out in time for you to play, you'll just never live to see it in a playable state...

  • 0
animeblend (on 15 December 2024)

this won’t sell as well as w3. Too controversial already , and not in the good way

  • +1
Koragg (on 13 December 2024)

Can't wait for this, I wonder if they will nerf her because she was insanely strong in the witcher 3

  • +1
Random_Matt Koragg (on 13 December 2024)

Of course, the game does not make sense already. They should of allowed gamer's to create their own witcher.

  • -4
WhiteEaglePL Random_Matt (on 13 December 2024)

Nah going for Ciri is the natural choice, making your own witcher might have given some backlash from fans. They just need a reason as to why she is not using her Elder Blood powers (at least for this monster) while being a Witcher

  • +1
smroadkill15 (on 14 December 2024)

This was an a great trailer. They really know how to put together cinematic trailers to get people excited.

  • 0
Mystro-Sama (on 13 December 2024)

Anyone calling this woke has clearly never played a Witcher game.

  • 0
Random_Matt (on 13 December 2024)

All the W3 development team left years ago, I'll temper my expectations.

  • -1
Hiku Random_Matt (on 13 December 2024)

That's not true. The Witcher 3 writer is still there, and was one of the two who wrote Cyberpunk as well. Likely writing W4.
Don't know how many left, but considering all the bugs they tend to have at launch, and taking years to patch out for Cyberpunk, maybe some new blood would be better.

  • 0
Random_Matt Hiku (on 13 December 2024)

I should of said the majority, my bad.

  • +1