The Witcher IV - My Honest Take on the Trailers So Far

I've beaten Witcher 2 twice. Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is my favorite game, full stop, no close second. Thousands of hours. I've replayed the main story and every side quest more times than I can count. I could recite half the Bloody Baron questline from memory right now if you asked. So when I say I have concerns about The Witcher IV, understand where that's coming from. This isn't someone looking for reasons to be negative. This is someone who wants this game to be as good as the last one was, and isn't sure yet that it will be.

The Graphics Are Not the Problem

Let's start with what's working. The Witcher IV looks incredible on a technical level. Unreal Engine 5 gives CD Projekt Red tools they never had for Witcher 3, and it shows. Lighting, texture detail, the way water and fabric move. None of that is in question. If graphics alone won games, this would already be a lock.

Ciri as the Protagonist Doesn't Sit Right With Me

Here's my actual concern, and it starts with the choice to put Ciri front and center as the new protagonist.

I get why CD Projekt Red made that call. Ciri is a known, loved character. Putting her in the lead seat is a safe, marketable decision, and I understand the business logic behind it. But something about it doesn't sit right with me. It doesn't feel earned yet, at least not from what the trailers have shown. Geralt's story worked because three games built him slowly. Ciri stepping into the lead role after being a supporting character, however important, in the previous trilogy is a bigger leap than the marketing seems to acknowledge.

I'll say something that might sound shallow but matters to me for a specific reason: she also looks less striking in these trailers than she did in Witcher 3. That's not really about her design in isolation. It's part of a larger pattern I keep noticing across every trailer released so far, which is the next point.

The Trailers Feel Like a Tech Demo, Not a Story

Witcher 3's reveal trailers told you something about tone before you ever picked up a controller. Grim, weathered, a world with weight to it. Every shot said something about what kind of story you were about to play.

The Witcher IV trailers haven't done that for me yet. They look colorful, polished, and genuinely impressive as a showcase of what Unreal Engine 5 can do. But that's exactly the problem. They play like a tech demo built to prove the engine works, not like footage that tells me anything about the story CD Projekt Red wants to tell. Witcher 3's trailers had teeth. These have polish. Those aren't the same thing, and for a Witcher game specifically, tone was always half the pitch.

Medieval dark fantasy has always been Witcher's identity. What I've seen so far reads closer to a bright, modern showcase reel than the grounded world Geralt walked through. Maybe that changes once we see more. I hope it does.

Why I'm Still In, For Now

None of this means I've written the game off. CD Projekt Red earned a huge amount of trust with Witcher 3, and one round of trailers focused on tech over tone isn't enough to undo that. Studios often lead with visual showcases early and save story-focused footage for later in the marketing cycle. There's a real chance the next trailer flips my read on this completely.

We'll cover every new trailer the moment it drops, on this site, as soon as it's available. That's not a formality. I want to see if my read on this changes.

For now, my plan hasn't changed either. I'm buying The Witcher IV on day one. But I'm going in with genuine questions this time, not the blind confidence I had walking into Witcher 3. If CD Projekt Red proves those questions wrong, I'll be the first to say so. If they don't, we'll cover that too.

We'll see.

Check the full release details on our game page for everything confirmed about The Witcher IV so far.