21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
Geralt Voice Actor Fires Back At 'The Witcher 4' Criticism, Tells Angry Fans To 'Read The Damn Books'
Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt in the Witcher game franchise, has hit back at criticism surrounding the upcoming sequel, The Witcher 4 , which features Ciri as its protagonist for the first time in the series.
Speaking during a video on the Fall Damage YouTube channel, Cockle reacted to the various memes surrounding the game franchise to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Witcher 3's release date. Amidst his hilarious commentary, the subject of The Witcher 4 was brought up, and how the game's shift to focus on Geralt's adoptive daughter Ciri as its protagonist led to anger from some fans online, who denounced the title as being 'woke'.
'There's nothing woke about it. [Ciri]'s a cool character from The Witcher , and they're gonna focus on that character, and that's awesome.' explained Cockle, 'We can't just have Geralt for every single game for The Witcher ad nauseam, out through eternity, We've seen the end of Geralt's journey. Blood and Wine was supposed to wrap up that journey.'
Cockle then proceeded to explain how the upcoming game will focus heavily on Ciri due to its connection to the franchise's original novel series by Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski. 'If you read the books, then you understand why CD Projekt went down this avenue. There's a whole rich world of stuff to explore with Ciri that they didn't do when they put her into Witcher 3 , because the story was about Geralt. But she hints at it.' he added, 'If you think it's woke, read the damn books — they're good, first of all. And secondly, you won't think it's so woke anymore.'
Although the Witcher franchise only follows Sapkowski's novels loosely, and is set after the end of the book's finale, The Witcher 4 might borrow elements from the final novel, The Lady of the Lake , which saw Ciri as a pivotal character and explains why she is the focus this time around. Cockle will still return as Geralt for the fourth entry, although in a limited role as a supporting character.
Despite Cockle's passionate defence, it still remains to be seen if The Witcher 4 would prove to be 'woke' after all, as not much information, apart from a brief cinematic trailer, has been revealed about the game, which is also set to be in development for a long time to come, with previous reports by CD Projekt stating that it will only be released in 2027.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying. Doug Cockle The Witcher The Witcher 4
