As The Witcher 3's development was wrapping up, gamers were told that the crossfit-Santa, better known as Geralt of Rivia, was not going to be returning in another sequel after the events of the third game and its DLC wrapped up. Many gamers assumed that this meant the end of the The Witcher franchise. However, according to CD Projekt Red The Witcher can still go strong even if Geralt isn't the lead character, and it's very possible that the Polish developers could still make a new game in the series... it just wouldn't be The Witcher 4.
In an interview with a Polish gaming outlet called Bankier [via VG24/7] CD Projekt Red's CEO, Adam Kicinski, confirmed that there would be more games made within The Witcher universe, just don't expect it to be The Witcher 4. Kinsinski stated...
The first three Witchers were by definition a trilogy, so we simply could not name the next game The Witcher 4. This does not mean, of course, that we will leave the world of The Witcher, created by us for over a dozen years. The Witcher is one of two franchises on which to build in the future activities of the company. Today, unfortunately, I can not reveal anything more.
Most people assume that if there would be another game in the franchise it would likely center around a spin-off of Ciri's adventures, who managed to survive in the last game. In fact, The Witcher 3 seemed to set itself up to turn over the reigns from Geralt to his surrogate daughter, Ciri.
If that happened to be the case, I wonder if they would keep the name the same or would there be some sort of subtitle attached to it?
However, given that the company already mentioned that Geralt's adventures have come to a close, it should come as no surprise that the next game will not feature him as a lead, almost similar to Nathan Drake's adventures rounding out in Uncharted 4.
It's very interesting that Kinsinski talks about a second franchise on which CD Projekt plans to further build and expand the company. While you might assume that he's talking about GWENT, the free-to-play card game. The reality is that the game is already based on The Witcher franchise, so it's doubtful that he's referring to that.
The other alternative would be the Cyberpunk series, with the first game being Cyberpunk 2077, based on the pen and paper game, Cyberpunk 2020. It's possible that if things go over well with the game, CD Projekt Red could make a couple of sequels out of it.
Despite being considered one of the best developers in the world right now, the company actually doesn't have many properties under its belt, but the few it does have are very well recognized.
So, maybe after Cyberpunk 2077 finally launches we'll see the developer return to The Witcher franchise with another action-RPG outing, but this time with a new lead character. It would make sense to continue the story from the perspective of an already established character in the universe, but maybe CD Projekt will pull something else out of the bag and surprise us all?
