The Witcher season 2 is coming to Netflix, and it’ll continue the fantasy adventures of Geralt of Rivia, Ciri and Yennefer. The Witcher series is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, and in The Witcher season 2, we’re expecting a similar mix of monster hunting and political drama. The Witcher season 1 was a smash hit on Netflix, and one of the best Netflix shows of recent memory.
The Witcher season 2 release date is 2021, though no specific date has been set yet. Filming is now set to resume after a Covid-19-related on August 17, as confirmed in a tweet styled like a song by Jaskier the bard. Pre-production at the show’s Arborfield Studios has begun in preparation.
We know quite a lot about The Witcher season 2 so far in terms of the cast and story. The big thing to note about season 2 is that its story will be told in a more linear way than season 1, which tended to jump between timeframes to confusing effect for some viewers. The story will bring our favorite adventurers together after the events of season 1’s finale and will develop the source material in intriguing ways.
Here’s everything we know about The Witcher season 2’s release date, cast, new characters, story, trailer and more.
The Witcher season 2 release date: August 2021?
The Witcher 2 season release date will be in 2021, but an official date hasn’t been revealed by Netflix yet – and won’t be for a long time. On the subject of release dates, Lauren S. Hissrich said in a Reddit AMA that “We don’t yet have a target launch date for season 2, past 2021.” Still, we may now be able to narrow it down, based on intel from Redanian Intelligence.
Still, the reason we could expect The Witcher season 2 release date to be August 2021 is based on a report by Platige Image, a special effects company behind season 1 and 2. The report from April 27 said its work on all eight episodes of The Witcher season 2 is due July 2021. Their work for season 1 was due November 2019, and the show launched a month later.
After an extensive coronavirus-based delay, Netflix has officially confirmed that The Witcher season 2 will resume filming on August 17, 2020. It did so with the below tweet, written like one of Jaskier’s catchy songs. Pre-production has now started ahead of the resumption, according to Redanian Intelligience, but it’s unclear how many of the hundreds have staff have returned so far.
Expect The Witcher season 2 release date in 2021, then, even if the exact timing is unclear.
I’m dusting off my lute and quill,I have some news, some mead to spill:After all the months we’ve been apartIt’s time for production to restart.The Witcher and his bard – who’s flawless,Will reunite on set 17 August.June 22, 2020
The Witcher season 2 cast: new and returning cast members, including Vesemir
Henry Cavill (Geralt), Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) and Freya Allan (Ciri) are all set to return for The Witcher season 2. The full cast for the show has been revealed by Netflix, too, including key new characters.
Three new witchers are apparently joining the cast: Lambert, played by Paul Bullion, and Coën, played by Yasen Atour (Netflix only announced that both had joined the cast, while Redanian Intelligence reported they’re witchers). This has created the expectation that The Witcher season 2 will take us to Kaer Morhen, where witchers are trained. Could we see Ciri training here, too?
In May 2020, Redanian Intelligence rumored the third new witcher coming in The Witcher season 2: Hemrik, played by Joel Adrian.
Killing Eve’s Kim Bodnia plays witcher trainer, Vesemir, and Kristofer Hivju – best known as Game of Thrones’ Tormund Giantsbane – will play Nivellen. Other new castings include Mecia Simson as Francesca, Thue Ersted Rasmussen as Eskel, Aisha Fabienne Ross as Lydia and Agnes Bjorn as Vereena. Deadline reports that Carmel Laniado has joined the cast as a young character called Violet for at least three episodes.
Returning characters from season one include – thank the heavens – Jaskier (Joey Batey) and Triss (Anna Shaffer). Eamon Farren will be back as Cahir, too. Other familiar faces from season one will include Tissaia (MyAnna Buring), Filavandrel (Tom Canton), Stregobor (Lars Mikkelson), Artorius (Terence Maynard), Sabrina (Therica Wilson Read), Murta (Lilly Cooper), Yarpen Zigrin (Jeremy Crawford) and Istredd (Royce Pierreson). That wraps up The Witcher season 2 cast we know about so far.
Characters from The Witcher games look like they’re destined for The Witcher season 2, too. Queen Meve of Lyria and Rivia, introduced in the game Thronebreaker: The Witcher tales, is reportedly part of the second season.
The Witcher season 2 will have entirely different directors to season one, and Netflix has confirmed who they are:
- Ed Bazalgette (The Last Kingdom, Doctor Who)
- Sarah O’Gorman (Jamestown, Cursed)
- Geeta Patel (Santa Clarita Diet, Meet the Patels)
- Stephen Surjik (Daredevil, The Umbrella Academy)
When it comes to the writing team, Hissrich explained on Twitter her hiring process in terms of diversity and knowledge of the world of the Witcher. Responding to whether the best writers tend to be the most knowledgeable she wrote “Yes. And equally importantly, no.” Instead, Hissrich looks for a spectrum of life, writing, and genre experience who “love the world, but aren’t afraid to question it. Who are fans, but are willing to step back and open their minds, in order to bring their beloved world to our real (big) one.”
I believe I’ve covered in detail why diverse voices are important in tv. But there’s another part of this tweet that is worth discussing: when writing an adaptation, are the best writers always the ones most familiar with the world? https://t.co/Q95XTBsrTSJune 8, 2020
The Witcher season 2 trailer: is there one yet?
Sadly not. Since filming is still relatively early, don’t expect Netflix to release a trailer until 2021.
The Witcher season 2 story: what we know, and what happens in the books
A big talking point of The Witcher season 1 was how it told stories in multiple places and across a non-linear timeline (though the now-released official Witcher map and Witcher timeline really help) resulting in a multi-tale anthology of sorts.
In an interview with Vulture, Hissrich said that while she believes she didn’t give the audience too much credit – “the audience is incredibly smart” – she had “misunderstood what everyone was looking for in their entertainment”. She said “I love to be challenged when I’m watching TV,” but conceded that that wasn’t the case for everyone.
However, season one’s climax brought all the separate threads together nicely, priming The Witcher season 2 for a simpler plot. Hissrich has confirmed that Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer exist in the same timeline now, so their stories will be told simultaneously.
“That’s where we ended season one. That’s absolutely where we will pick up in season two. The stories will be told in a much more linear fashion. They won’t all be one story. It’s not like all three are together and happy all the time. But, I do want to employ some different ways to look at time series-wide.”
That doesn’t mean we won’t see any of the episodic Geralt monster-hunting adventures that we loved in season 1. Hissrich will be mining “different short stories” for The Witcher season 2, and suggests the chance of flashback scenes.
Ciri will be “center stage” in season 2, apparently. In the books, Ciri’s story makes up the central plot of ‘the saga’. The saga covers five books, starting with Blood of Elves, and centers on Ciri, her importance as a magical royal with Elven heritage, her relationship with Geralt, her ongoing efforts to survive, and how all this shapes events on The Continent.
The setup for this has already begun, as the very start of Blood of Elves is covered in season 1 by the siege, the downfall of Cintra, and Ciri’s subsequent escape. Elsewhere, expect to see more of life under Nilfgaardian rule in season 2, as tensions between humans and non-humans rise.
But Hissrich has been teasing that this’ll be an interesting season for Geralt, one in which is “internal conflict” will come to a head (via TV Guide). On the one hand, Hissrich explained, the Butcher of Blaviken has a “desire to not get involved” but “it’s all protecting the sort of internal desire to be a hero […] it’s all going to explode in season 2”. This challenge Henry Cavill nailed expertly in the first season, and there’s no reason why he won’t all over again next time.
That said, while we were a fan of Cavill’s performance, praise wasn’t universal. Addressing criticism of him, Cavill told Vanity Fair (via GamesRadar) “I’m on all the Reddit forums. I’m reading all the reviews. I’m literally trying to get everyone’s information. Some of it is not useful, and other criticisms are incredibly useful. I take it all in, and I look forward to bringing it even closer and closer to Sapkowski’s writing.”
“So for me, it’s about seeing that, understanding it, and working out how I can do my job better within the framework provided, appease and make those people feel comfortable that I do actually understand this character – and love this character just as much as they do.”
The grand location of Kaer Morhen should appear prominently in The Witcher season 2 as well. This is the ancestral home and stronghold of the witchers, and Geralt is required to take Ciri to the fortress for protection and training. Here, he takes closer guardianship of Ciri, becoming a father figure. With the appearance of a mysterious, powerful wizard – also pursuing Ciri – some more war, prophecies, dark magic and, of course, monster hunting, in mind, season 2 begins to sound promising.
It also looks like the initial bonding between Ciri and Geralt, something largely skipped over in the books, will be explored more in season 2. “We found in writing the show that we didn’t actually want to skip over those first months of them getting to know each other,” Hissrich told TV Guide, “that’s part of the fun.”
In terms of story specifics, Redanian Intelligence claims that another short story from The Last Wish will appear. This short story, A Grain of Truth, features Geralt meeting the cursed man, Nivellen (who we now know is played by Hivju), who has been turned into a beast.
Asked by Pure Fandom for a teaser on season 2, Hissrich had this to say: “Without spoilers, I will say that there’s a crop of new monsters, a new cost to magic, and new and unexpected pairings of our favorite characters.”
Expect to see more from magical villainess Fringilla, too. When asked by Vulture, Hissrich confirmed that “you will absolutely get more Fringillla […] we’re digging deeper into her past and how she ended up at Nilfgaard, who she is as a person, and how she and Yennefer ended up on such different paths.” In other words, expect more metal mind-control earworms. Ugh.
#tbt one month ago on the set of @witchernetflix. The sun will rise again. Until then, stay home and stay safe. pic.twitter.com/1PbeUa9YaOApril 10, 2020
Check out an image from The Witcher season 2 set above. Other changes are coming next year, too. The wrinkly Nilfgaardian armor, which some fans on the internet didn’t like, will be changed in season 2 as well. Hissrich told Flickering Myth’s Writer Experience podcast that, “the Nilfgaard armor will be totally different. You have that opportunity [in season two] to go back and course correct if you want to.
The Witcher season 2 will be accompanied by a Witcher animated movie
In addition to The Witcher season 2, an anime-style Witcher movie has been announced for Netflix called The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. No release date has been set for that one yet, but we expect it before season 2 arrives.
It’ll be written by Beau DeMayo (who scripted episode 3 of The Witcher season one), and it focuses on Vesemir, Geralt’s mentor. He’ll be familiar to anyone who knows the games and the books. It’ll be animated by Studio Mir, which was behind the acclaimed Legend of Korra series. The story will take us “back to a new threat facing the Continent.”
Now we know Kim Bodnia is playing Vesemir in The Witcher season 2, our prediction is he’ll voice him here too. An official synopsis was added to Netflix for Nightmare of the Wolf, which was later pulled. “Long before mentoring Geralt, Vesemir begins his own journey as a witcher after the mysterious Delgan claims him through the Law of Surprise.”
The Witcher season 3 looks likely, too
The Witcher could run on Netflix for a long time. Hissrich claims to have thought out ideas for a massive seven seasons. And we’re pretty certain there’s enough source material left for that to be viable.
We’ve got the entirety of Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer’s stories to play out. It takes them across The Continent to a rich variety of locations, and introduces us to some of the best fantasy characters around. Ciri’s development is a great basis for future tales in The Witcher universe that combine themes of family and love, and mystery and magic.
The Witcher feels like it’s here to stay on Netflix
The first season of The Witcher shrugged off the idea that it was just here to replace Game of Thrones. It confidently told stories in its own way and presented a fantasy world that has already captures people’s imaginations. And, while we are unlikely to see much spillover from the games – they are not really canon according to Sapkowski but rather a “free adaptation containing elements of [his] work” – we know fans will enjoy various subtle references to the series, as they did in season 1.
Hissrich and company aren’t in the business of rushing this out. Hissrich said that the series would need time: “We don’t want to rush the product. That doesn’t benefit anyone.” If it’s as good as season 1, it’ll be worth the wait.
If it’ll help pass the time until season 2, you can listen to the official version of ‘Toss a Coin to your Witcher’ on Spotify.