The Witcher Season 2 VFX Breakdown Highlights How Its Monsters Were Made

Now that Netflix’s The Witcher Season 2 has been released, the streaming platform has been sharing odds and ends featuring behind-the-scenes content like deleted scenes and so on in order to give audiences a better idea of how it all came together — and how much work went into it. The latest promotional material is a video that breaks down the visual effects necessary to create the monsters in the new season, and as usual for this sort of thing, it’s wild to see how far the folks working on the show took the footage of actors running around in green tights and a foam head to the final product.

Warning: There be spoilers for The Witcher Season 2 below.

The breakdown, which you can check out below, starts with Kristofer Hivju’s Nivellen but quickly, and largely, focuses on the big fight against the basilisks near the end of the season. It remains fascinating to see how the footage of physical actors, spandex-wearing stand-ins, and digital critters comes together.

it wouldn't be THE WITCHER without incredible monsters

from the leshy to the basilisks, here's how THE WITCHER visual effects team brought the monsters of Season 2 to life pic.twitter.com/o3CER22UjV

— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) January 3, 2022

In general, the first eight-episode season of Netflix‘s The Witcher is now available on Netflix as well as the second eight-episode season as of December 17th. Netflix also previously announced The Witcher Season 3 as well as some kind of show for kids and families. Making The Witcher, a documentary special, is also available to stream on Netflix. The first season of The Witcher: A Look Inside the Episodes is additionally available to stream on the platform now. And last, but not least, the anime film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is also now available.

Lauren S. Hissrich serves as showrunner on The Witcher. It stars Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer, Freya Allan as Ciri, and Joey Batey as Jaskier. New cast members for Season 2 include Kim Bodnia (Killing Eve) as Vesemir, Yasen Atour (Young Wallender) as Coen, Agnes Bjorn as Vereena, Paul Bullion (Peaky Blinders) as Lambert, Basil Eidenbenz as Eskel, Aisha Fabienne Ross (The Danish Girl) as Lydia, Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) as Nivellen, and Mecia Simson as Francesca — among others. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Netflix’s The Witcher right here.

Have you had a chance to watch Netflix’s The Witcher Season 2? If so, what did you think about the visual effects in the new season? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!