The Witcher Showrunner on How the Pandemic Has Affected Season 2’s Story

When The Witcher picks back up for production of Season 2 in August, it will have been several months since it shut down due to coronavirus concerns, and it sounds like it’s going to be a completely different experience, at least according to how showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich describes it. After noting that a cast member, Kristofer Hivju, had actually contracted it, she admitted that the new precautions will obviously impact the season’s story.

“[I]t’s going to impact story. It will have to. But one of the best things about being a writer on set is that I’m there to make those changes as we need them,” Hissrich told The Wrap earlier this month. “Really, in terms of writing, we’ve just been honing a lot over the last eight weeks. Really digging back into scripts, making some big shifts, especially in the emotional journeys of our characters and making sure that everything we’re writing feels really grounded and true.”

What, exactly, that looks like remains to be seen, but it was announced last week that production is officially kicking back into gear beginning August 17th. Assuming there is no further delay beyond that, we should begin to have some idea of exactly how production is handling all the new restrictions and so on soon.

The first eight-episode season of Netflix’s The Witcher is available to stream on the platform now. As noted above, a second season is in the works, but it had paused filming due to coronavirus concerns. It has now been announced that Season 2 production will restart on August 17th. Lauren S. Hissrich serves as showrunner. It stars Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer, and Freya Allan as Ciri. 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, Thue Ersted Rasmussen (Fast and Furious 9) as Eskel, Aisha Fabienne Ross (The Danish Girl) as Lydia, Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) as Nivellen, and Mecia Simson as Francesca. 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? Are you excited for Season 2? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!