At the 2024 Game Awards, developer CD Projekt Red gave players their first official look at The Witcher 4. We’ve known the team was working on a new game in the long-running series for a bit, but the first trailer finally showed Ciri, the series’ new protagonist, in action. With The Witcher 4 dropping Geralt for Ciri, the developers want to inject new blood into the popular series. With that in mind, the team may let players explore a few unexplored regions on The Continent.
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Considering Ciri is taking over as the player character in The Witcher 4, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if CD Projekt Red revealed that we’ll be going to Cintra. After all, that’s the young witcher’s homeland, and her father, Emhyr var Emreis, was the Emperor of Nilfgaard and King of Cintra. While we haven’t seen Cintra in the games, the region plays a major role in the books and Netflix show. That could make it a great way to bring in fans of the show.
However, The Witcher 4‘s trailer might’ve provided a telling hint that shows we won’t be going to Cintra. If CD Projekt Red did take us there, it would be one of the most southern locations we’ve been in the series. Technically, Toussaint is slightly more south, and we explored that region in The Witcher 3‘s Blood and Wine expansion, but Cintra is still firmly in the south of the Northern Kingdoms.
In the first trailer, we see Ciri visiting a village called Stromford. In interviews following the trailer, the developers have confirmed that the location is in The Witcher 4 and called it “an isolated village up north.” Cintra is in the Northern Kingdoms, but “up north” suggests that we’re headed much further up the map.
Thus far, The Witcher’s northern-most location is Kaer Morhen, the former home of the School of the Wolf, where Geralt and Ciri were trained as witchers. However, that’s far from the only location in the north that might make an excellent location to explore.
Kovir and Poviss are untapped regions for exploration. Tankred Thyssen, the king of the region, was mentioned in both The Witcher 3 and its expansion, Blood and Wine. Notably, he helped Triss Merigold get mages out of Novigrad and offered her the position of his advisor. He also has a connection to the Redania region, as his relative and original king of Kovir and Poviss was Radovid I’s brother.
Tankred directly went against Radovid V in helping the mages, so CD Projekt Red has some ready-made intrigue to explore if they take us to Kovir and Poviss. The region would also serve as a gateway to the Far North, which would make a perfect location for Ciri to explore.
Not much is known about the Far North. However, we know it contains the Dragon Mountains, Velhad, and Vespaden. All three locations are well-known for their monster populations. Taking fans to such a dangerous location is an easy way to prove Ciri is more than capable as a monster hunter.
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Plus, we haven’t seen dragons since The Witcher 2. We know Geralt doesn’t traditionally kill dragons unless he has to, so it stands to reason that Ciri wouldn’t agree to a contract where she has to kill one of the monsters. That said, Geralt has been known to befriend dragons in their human forms. In fact, his former companion, Saskia, is a dragon herself.
It would be great to see Saskia reappear in The Witcher 4, potentially as a mentor figure to Ciri. Either way, the Far North would make a great location for The Witcher 4. Its unexplored wilderness would show off Ciri’s growing abilities, and it’s surrounded by locations filled with storytelling potential.
In a perfect world, we’d love to see the initial chapter take place in the Far North to show how much Ciri has improved as a Witcher. As the story progresses, she’d head further south, potentially to Cintra. It’s unlikely that CD Projekt Red would give us the entire map of The Continent to explore, but a few large landmasses would be just as good.
What’s clear is that CD Projekt Red has several potential locations for The Witcher 4. We hope the developers take advantage of the unexplored locations on the map and take fans to places we’ve never seen before. Fortunately, the first three games didn’t reuse locations, so chances are high that we’ll get exactly what we want when The Witcher 4 launches.
