Nothing against the new actor, but can you imagine being the producer whose job it is to be a high level personnel management and decision maker, and your decisions leading to the super popular star of the show leaving. Many of us will not return for the next season. What an IP waste.

Watching the Witcher 4 trailer, I was very excited like most of you. But as the trailer went on, I couldn't help but find various flaws. I just can't understand why cdpr chose to do it this way.

Some of the things I didn't like or found lacking:

Survival

In the beginning of the trailer, we see that the villagers are all gathered outside. Yet, we don't see Ciri going house to house and looting everything that's not bolted down.

What did Geralt even teach her? In the witcher ending of witcher 3, they say that Geralt taught Ciri all he knew. But it looks like Geralt didn't teach her one of the basic things that he himself does.

Combat

This was one of the bigger disappointments. Firstly, she is silent during the fight. I expected her to say something like "What now you piece of filth?" or at least "How'd you like that silver?"

Secondly, what is that horrible style of fighting? Why wasn't she spinning around like an out of control beyblade?

Contract

Finally the ending of the trailer. Ciri seems to soft hearted. Why didn't she immediately demand payment from the grieving father? And we didn't see her haggling and demanding for the highest possible price(prior to the fight).

Conclusion

I'm disappointed with cdpr. I hope these issues can be fixed by the next trailer.

Possible additions for the next trailer:

Ciri calling for her horse only to find it stuck on a fence or a rooftop.

Immediately dying from a 10 foot drop.

Asking for a round of cards directly after a poor peasant has just finished his sob story.

I saw a lot of people asking a lot of questions about the decisions CD PR made and some even questioning if they can justify what they chose. Now, of course, I don't know how they're gonna write it, what I do know is a lot about the media it's based on. Be it the books or the stuff Cd Pr made.

For those unaware, CdPr takes most of the events in the witcher books as canon, and they keeps the books' lore pretty consistent. There are some contradictions but for the greater part of the games they keep it in line with the lore to an astounding degree. There were some details changed so the story could continue. But most (I'd argue 90% at least) of the new story in the games expands the lore from the books, doesn't contradict it.

Now to address the general questions/points I've seen people raise:

1. Isn't Ciri OP at the end of the Witcher 3?

Most people seem to forget that most of her power is dimensional travel and/or bending time and space, but mostly space. While a very strong power it's not really a combative power where it has that godly level of strength. She still struggled against Caranthir and most big monsters formidable opponents with great reaction time. For example, against someone like the Unseen Elder she would stand no chance simply because even Geralt, who is not exactly stronger but who has a faster reaction time, can't react to the Unseen elder. Ciri has a body as fragile as any human, or now a witcher I suppose, she would lose to him all the same. Also, the average monster would still pose a great threat to her, she can't teleport to safety that easily, small jumps are possible for her, big jumps take concentration if she wants them to be safe. People seem to forget how strong and fast the average monster is. The only time we saw her be "godly in combat" is at the end once she gets the blink. What is she fighting? Slow wild hunt warriors. The hunt's warriors are strong because they are big hunks and skilled fighters, but they have nowhere near the speed and flesh durability of the average monster.

Now if you still think her having the lady of space and time powers is bullshit. The easiest way is to remove the powers as a result of her stopping the white frost. That or partly nerf them. Would be cheaper imo but it could work.

2. We see her use Elder blood magic though.

No.... we don't. It's bluey in how it looks, could be a combination but it's 100% not just that. Her elder blood power is in her, we see her pull magic from outside, from a source, and using an element at that. This is how sorcerers and sorceresses use magic in the witcher universe. None of them have a lot of magic inside themselves, they are adept at pulling magic from around them, some use staffs to channel it better, but most of the magic prowess comes from the outside. Life itself is a source but it's a last resort for a sorcerer to use their own life energy. At the end of the witcher books Yennefer nearly dies because she drained herself in trying to save Geralt. Also Yennefer uses the tree in the garden in Skellige to revive Skjol, a very longevive and powerful life was needed, since necromancy is insanely draining in the witcher verse (as stated by Yen herself). Still... source = life or other magical presence in the environment. So Ciri is more than surely using normal magic there, also signs are the same thing, they are magic. Witchers use their medallions to help them detect source and cast from it, it's a channeler. But they are still pulling magic from the outside. What do we see Ciri cast? Sings.

In the books Ciri loses her magical connection to source in "Time of Contempt". But there's no reason for it to be permanent. A Ciri that lost most/all of her Elder Blood powers but is reconnecting with her normal casting abilities would make for interesting plot.

3. How did Ciri turn into a witcher? it makes no sense.

The trail of the Grasses was an alchemical process developed by the mage Alzur along with his master, his apprentice and a few others. The goal? Make the ultimate monster killing machine. 38 girls and boys were selected for the experiment, of which 5 boys survived. After that he focused his efforts only on males and stabilized it to be with a 3/10 survival ratio. Alzur had a bit of success and said fuck it, only dudes will be witchers.

This point will be a bit of speculation in my part. In real life medical science has been for the better part of our history male dominated, which resulted in poorer treatments for women, where would would have needed adjustments because of different biology. Now I'm no witcher historian but we see that the northen kingdoms are largely... not very progressive, and it probably was even worse then Alzur was alive which was roughly 1000 years before the events in the books and games. So a bunch of dude mages, using dude research probably made mainly for dudes probably led to a lot of mishaps and things not taken into account in regards woman biology.

But now you may wonder how would Ciri figure out how to mutate herself? Well Alzur focused only on getting results and not involving magic directly. He never used magic as a precaution to prevent damage. In witcher 3 though, we see a trail that is on a magically modified lifeform with vastly different biology, Uma. And even in its original state (Meanin Avallach) I certainly doubt that elves have a near identical biology to humans, so it was a very law chance of survival. We saw it succeed because Yennefer was there to magically protect Uma's body, a less than desirable candidate for the trail.

We also see Geralt find further research into mutages in Touissant plus the added fact that Ciri knows a lot of people. She has/could get the resources needed to mutate herself and others, and maybe even make it more safe. A healthy Ciri with a greatly improved mutation process, with magical protection couldn't survive the trail when Uma did in horrendous circumstances? There's more than enough ways to justify it, it's just up to CdPr to make it right, but they 100% can.

It's to early to draw any conclusions, of course, but I don't like seeing people that seem to have no understanding of the media they consumed jump the gun that the story will make no sense.

ive watched all the seasons so far, but with Henry gone — and from what ive read about the show drifting even further from the original story — im honestly not sure ill keep watching. i think its time to start reading the books and experience the story the way it was meant to be told.

I knew it was witcher 4 just from first scene yay

They are about to start shooting S5 soon too LMAO

Why UE5 not RedEngine?