The Witcher Season 4 Review
The Penultimate Season of This Gruesome Fantasy
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN DISCUSSIONS involving SPOILERS FROM The Witcher Seasons 1 through 4. It also contains discussions about violence. CONSIDER WHEN AND WHERE IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO READ THIS PIECE.
Streaming Now
All four seasons of The Witcher Are Now Available to Stream on NetflixThe story of The Witcher has captured large audiences across multiple mediums of entertainment. From the humble beginnings of a book series to multiple video games, the storytelling and creative vision of this fantasy has always been immaculate. Two of the books in The Witcher achieved New York Times Best Seller status, and the game – The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt – earned the highest honor in gaming, Game of the Year, an award given to only one game per year. For me, The Witcher 3 is one of the greatest games I have ever played. Now, season 4 of The Witcher live action TV show has been released on Netflix. While it is a tough ask, The Witcher on Netflix is expected to live up to the benchmark of excellence that the books and games have set.
The Witcher season 1 lived up to these high expectations. It was quite honestly awesome – great fight scenes, unreal CGI, and near-perfect character casting. However, season 2 and 3 both failed to meet expectations, each worse than the last and large steps away from the expected quality from The Witcher franchise. Coming into season 4 of The Witcher, many fans including myself had one question: Will The Witcher Season 4 recover and live up to benchmark of excellence? This answer came before the season even released – absolutely NOT!
Steeped in controversy, The Witcher season 4 was dead on arrival when it was released on October 30, 2025. Yes, fans still watched it with the hope that it would get better, but those hopes were quickly dashed. The actor for THE Witcher was replaced coming into season 4. It was also well known that story of the show has been straying further away from the source materials in the books and games. All of this could have been forgiven if the story that season 4 told was actually good, but unfortunately it was even worse than season 2 and 3. Put lightly, The Witcher season 4 was mediocre at best.
The Witcher Controversy
There are two massive controversies that overshadowed the release of season 4 of the Witcher. The biggest was Henry Cavill, the actor for the show’s namesake - Geralt of Rivia, being replaced after season 3. Cavill had cemented himself as Geralt since season 1; he had the build, the look, the voice, and the acting that made him one with Geralt. On top of that, he had a deep respect and passion for the source material, having read all the books and even played the games. However, his passion was a doubled-edged sword. As each season strayed further from the source material, Cavil became increasingly critical of the TV show he played the lead role in. This reached a boiling point by the end of season 3, when the production team and Henry Cavill mutually agreed that he should step down from his role as the Witcher.
Cavill was replaced by Liam Hemsworth, who is a great actor in his own right, but he is not the Geralt fans came to know and love. Hemsworth does not have the build, the look, the voice, the acting, or the passion for the series that Cavill brought to the table. In all fairness, Hemsworth is not the reason season 4 is mediocre but he does not make it better either. The lead actor being replaced could kill any other show, but Netflix decided to try and keep The Witcher alive.
The second controversy was what pushed season 4 to mediocrity. Mentioned a couple times above, it is no secret that the Netflix show was straying further from the source materials. Season 4 felt like a betrayal of the books and games. Not only did this issue cause the replacement of the lead actor, but it is also the reason for why the story continued to get worse. My knowledge of the source material is limited to The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt game, but even I can see the massive differences between the show and the source materials. For example, the events of The Witcher 3 have not yet begun in the show, but multiple side characters in The Witcher 3 game that are important to its story are already dead in the show. I will not spoil who is dead, but this shows just how much the production team is straying from and betraying the source materials.
Season 4’s Story
Season 4 of The Witcher picks up right after the events of season 3. At the end of season 3, the two main antagonists, Vilgefortz – a powerful rogue mage – and Emhyr – the Emperor of Nilfgaard, teamed up capture Princess Cirilla, aka Ciri, who is currently under the guidance and protection of Geralt – THE Witcher – and Yennifer – a non-rogue mage. Vilgefortz baits Geralt and Yennifer into a fight by creating the illusion that he has already captured and delivered Ciri to Emhyr. The outcome of this fight is that Geralt and Yennifer are separated and Vilgefortz is able to monopolize the use of portal magic through ancient forbidden magic. This makes it so Yennifer cannot use her magic to reunite with Geralt and Ciri, which is where season 4 begins.
This is where things get weird. The entire story of season 4 is technically told 100 years in the future, being read from a book of poems written by Jaskier, a bard and friend to Geralt that has travelled with him throughout all his adventures since season 1. No other season was told this way. From that standpoint, season 4 follows the separate stories of three of our main characters, Geralt, Yennifer, and Ciri, as well as the stories of Vilgefortz and Emhyr to an extent. Due to this, none of the stories are very well fleshed because all five stories are fighting for screen time. Nonetheless, I’ll summarize each story.
Geralt is trying to recover from his injury while also travelling toward Nilfgaard, where he believes Ciri is being held. He is accompanied by Jaskier and Milva, both former allies to him. He is later joined by a gnome – Percival; two dwarves – Zoltan and Yarpen; a vampire – Regis; and a former Nilfgaardian enemy – Cahir. All of them share stories and fight off enemies with the goal of reaching Nilfgaard and finding Ciri.
Yennifer is trying to find Ciri as well, but in a different way. She is trying to unite all the other mages she knows against Vilgefortz and retake the use of portal magic. Then, by using portal magic she will reunite with Geralt and portal them into Nilfgaard castle, rescue Ciri, and portal out all with very little conflict.
Emperor Emhyr believes he has Ciri, who is also his daughter by blood that he has not seen since she was a baby. He intends on marrying her to fulfill the prophecy and conquer all the northern kingdoms. However, Emhyr soon realizes that the Ciri that Vilgefortz brought him is an imposter. His alliance with Vilgefortz begins to crumble, so he also begins frantically scouring the continent for Ciri.
Vilgefortz is building an army for rogue mages to use for his ambitions to become more powerful and permanently monopolize portal magic. The final piece he needs is someone powerful enough to power his monolith, and the only person with that power is Ciri. The problem is that Vilgefortz never actually captured Ciri and does not know where she is. Despite having the use of portal magic, he is also trying to find Ciri.
Literally everyone is trying to find Ciri. For her story, Ciri was randomly portaled into the arms of a group of young thieves called “The Rats.” She joins them in their heists while also trying to grapple with the crimes they commit. Effectively, Ciri is ALSO trying to find herself and decide whether she should run from her destiny forever or embrace it. By the end of the season, no body finds Ciri, including herself. This is a large part of why season 4 is mediocre.
Amazon Prime’s Fallout Review
A nuclear sized hit to the beloved franchiseSeason 5 and Beyond
Season 4 is basically one big set up for season 5 of The Witcher on Netflix. Due to the bad storytelling for season 4, nothing really happens and the story is not progressed. Therefore, season 5 needs to have a lot happen for the story to start being good. Unfortunately, the departure of Henry Cavill caused Netflix to reduce the total number of planned seasons from 7 to 5, so season 5 will be the final season. This could indicate that season 5 does not only have to complete all the set-up storylines from season 4, but it also must include some of what would have been in seasons 6 and 7. Fitting all of this into one 8-episode season and doing it well is a very tough ask for even the best shows. Given the track record of The Witcher getting progressively worse and season 4 being the worst of all so far, there is little hope for season 5. In good faith, I cannot recommend watching season 4 of The Witcher on Netflix to anyone.
On a positive note, the newest game in the series – The Witcher 4 – will like release in 2026 or 2027. I’m very hopeful that this game will be great, just like The Witcher 3, and will cover up the blemish on the benchmark of excellence that the TV show will likely leave behind.
Matt
New video game, movie, or TV show? Matt probably has it on his radar, and he might even be in the middle of reviewing it. This digital entertainment enjoying dude is a Content Writer during work hours, then plays games, watches movies, binges shows, and writes about all of it in his free time.