The Witcher Season 4 is going to be a major game-changer for the Netflix hit. Original series star Henry Cavill will be gone, with The Hunger Games‘s star Liam Hemsworth replacing him in the key role of Geralt of Rivia. That’s not all that will be different.
**Spoilers for The Witcher Season 3: Volume 2 Ahead**
As The Witcher Season 3 finale sets up, Milva (Meng’er Zhang) will be a major new ally for Geralt in his quest to save Ciri (Freya Allan), while Ciri herself will be undergoing a transformation. When we last see her in The Witcher Season 3, she is joining an unruly gang of thieves known as The Rats and she is going by the name “Falka.” Elsewhere, Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) is being tasked with rebuilding Aretuza after her mentor Tissaia (MyAnna Buring) dies and Jaskier’s lover Radovid (Hugh Skinner) finds himself installed on the Redanian throne by spymasters Dijkstra (Graham McTavish) and Phillipa (Cassie Clare). And we can’t overlook what it now means that Geralt has finally declared himself against Nilfgaard, which is ruled by Emperor Emhyr (Bart Edwards).
Even if Henry Cavill had stuck with The Witcher, in Season 4, nothing will be the same. But what do we know so far about The Witcher Season 4? When will The Witcher Season 4 premiere on Netflix? And which books by author Andrzej Sapkowski should you look to for clues about what might come next? Here’s everything we know so far about The Witcher Season 4 on Netflix…
Yes! There will most definitely be a fourth season of The Witcher on Netflix.
On October 29, 2022, Netflix announced — via press email and social media posts on both Henry Cavill and Liam Hemsworth’s Instagrams — that The Witcher Season 4 would premiere with a new Geralt of Rivia. Cavill was stepping down from the role he originated all the way back in 2019. Liam Hemsworth would play Geralt in The Witcher Season 4.
We don’t yet know when The Witcher Season 4 might premiere on Netflix. The earliest we’d expect it to premiere would be Winter 2024-2025. This is based on the fact that there were 18 months between the second and third seasons of The Witcher. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a wait of two whole years between the first two seasons.
However, we expect the wait for The Witcher Season 4 to be a bit longer than that. That’s because production on key Netflix series, including the final season of Stranger Things, has been put on hold due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Until the AMPTP comes to the table to offer both unions a fair and equitable deal, production on The Witcher Season 4 will be delayed.
The good news for Witcher fans? The show’s casting director Sophie Holland let it slip that not only were they set to go into production on Season 4 as recently as May 2023, but that the plan was to start filming The Witcher Season 5 (!) after “a short gap.”
Fans of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher books and short stories no doubt recognized many of Season 3’s twists and turns from the novel Time of Contempt. Given that information, it stands to reason that The Witcher Season 4 will use the next installment in the series, Baptism of Fire, as a primary source of inspiration.
If so, we might see more of Cahir’s (Eamon Farren) redemption arc, meet a friendly vampire named Regis, and follow Ciri’s descent as the murder-happy Falka. But then again, we might not! The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich could have some swerves to throw at fans in Season 4.
Liam Hemsworth does not appear at all in the third season of The Witcher. There is no scene where Geralt ingests a potion and magically transforms from Henry Cavill to Liam Hemsworth. It’s all Cavill, bay-bay!
We will not get a peek of Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia until The Witcher Season 4 goes into production. Note: the pic above is a photoshop by Decider’s brilliant Dillen Phelps.
Nope! Like we said before, Netflix plans to continue in The Witcher business with or without Henry Cavill. We only officially have confirmation that The Witcher Season 4 is happening, but Holland’s comments suggest that Netflix has quietly renewed the series through Season 5.