Skip to main content

The Witcher IV gets a surprise reveal at The Game Awards

The Witcher IV — Cinematic Reveal Trailer | The Game Awards 2024
Key art for The Game Awards 2023.
This story is part of our coverage of The Game Awards 2024

CD Projekt made a massive surprise announcement early in The Game Awards 2024 with a cinematic trailer for The Witcher IV. This new chapter in the epic RPG saga will give Ciri the spotlight as the new monster hunter, but currently has no release date.

Recommended Videos

The trailer starts with familiar Witcher imagery, showing off a hooded witcher using signs and preparing a silver sword. It isn’t long before we see that this isn’t Geralt but an older Ciri preparing to stop a sacrificial ritual. While all cinematic, the trailer shows many elements that could be proof of concept for the game itself. When facing off against the mutated beast, Ciri utilizes potions, signs, and a sword as expected, but also has a new chain weapon she uses to finish off the fiend.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

After realizing she still failed to save the young girl, Ciri confronts the villagers who are trying to defend their actions as being “for the gods.” This prompts Ciri to reply, “There are no gods here, only monsters,” which is a clever callback to an early Witcher III trailer.

Ciri looking at a village in The Witcher 4.
CD Projekt Red

The only additional details shared about The Witcher IV is that it will be a new single-player RPG built on Unreal Engine 5 that they are aiming to make “the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date.” The team is aiming for this title to show us Ciri’s journey to becoming a true Witcher and will be the “start of a new saga.”

CD Projekt has already revealed multiple projects in the Witcher universe, including a remake of the original game and another codenamed Polaris that we now can confirm is The Witcher IV. No release date or window was given for the game, and while we do hear Geralt’s voice in the trailer, it is also unclear if he will be present in the game, though his voice actor did make comments suggesting Geralt would show up in a smaller role.

The Witcher IV currently has no confirmed platforms or release window.

Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over four years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…
Samsung brings a Squid Game season 2 surprise to the Galaxy Store
A promotional image for the launch of the Netflix app in the Samsung Galaxy Store.

Samsung is working hard to attract Galaxy device owners to visit and download apps from the Galaxy Store, its own app store, which rivals Google's Play Store and is pre-installed on all certified Android phones. To do this, Samsung has announced the arrival of Netflix and an exclusive incentive to download it — a special Samsung-only look at the forthcoming Squid Game season 2 Netflix series.

Visit the Galaxy Store and an “exclusive, never-before-seen clip” from Squid Game season 2 will be yours, which is said to provide a “darker, twisted look into the storyline for the upcoming season, and is only available on the Galaxy Store.” You’ll have to be quick to see it, though, as the clip expires on December 26, when Squid Game season 2 premiers on Netflix.

Read more
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound led a new kind of retro revival wave at The Game Awards
Promotional Image for Save State with the NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound key art.

As the first announcement of The Game Awards 2024 Opening Act, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound kicked off a retro revival trend that permeated throughout Geoff Keighley’s gaming event.

In the hours following Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s reveal, new games in series like Pac-Man, Virtua Fighter, Screamer, Onimusha, Turok, Okami, and Double Dragon games were announced. Some were radical reimaginings, like Shadow Labyrinth turning Pac-Man into a gritty action platformer, and the new Screamer game giving the cult classic 3D racer a new anime-inspired aesthetic. Others, like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, look like modern takes on a formula that was perfected in the 8-bit era.

Read more
Some of 2024’s best games were only as long as movies
A shattered screen shows an emergency warning in Mouthwashing.

Video games have gotten big. Really big. As budgets have ballooned, so has the scale of a full-priced game. It’s very rare these days to play a big-budget game that you can finish in under 10 hours. If you wanted to play a story-driven game in 2024, that likely meant setting aside up to 80 hours for something like Metaphor: ReFantazio or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. That’s great for those who want the most bang from their buck, but it makes gaming even more difficult in terms of the time commitment.

Not all developers follow that trend, though. The independent scene has long been rich with more concise experiences that don’t waste a second of their precious runtime, and 2024 showed how that mentality can pay off. Some of the year’s best -- or at least most interesting -- games were no longer than a feature-length film. Thank Goodness You’re Here packed an uproariously funny slapstick comedy into under three hours. Clickolding only keeps players captive for an unforgettable (and uncomfortable) 45 minutes. Mouthwashing does what many horror games could only dream of pulling off in just a few short hours.

Read more