The Witcher (Polish: Wiedźmin) is a fantasy action role-playing game series created by CD Projekt Red and released by CD Projekt. It is based on a book series with the same name written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The games are not part of the original story from the books.
The main series started in 2007 with the release of The Witcher and ended in 2015 with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. By 2022, the series included three main games, two expansion packs, and seven other games. As of March 2023, the series has sold 75 million copies.
In March 2022, a fourth game in the series was announced to be in early development. This game is planned to begin a new trilogy. In October 2022, a remake of The Witcher was announced. Fool's Theory will lead the development of this remake, with guidance from the The Witcher team and CD Projekt Red. Another game will be made by The Molasses Flood, with support from CD Projekt Red.
The series has also inspired a collection of graphic novels published by Dark Horse Comics.
Gameplay
The series follows Geralt of Rivia, a skilled monster hunter, as he explores a fantasy world filled with magic, political conflicts, and dangerous creatures. The game focuses on exploration, combat, and decision-making as players guide Geralt through the game world, complete quests, and fight enemies. The series is known for its complex stories, choices that are not clearly right or wrong, and detailed environments that create rich, immersive worlds for players to explore.
The games are played from a third-person view, showing the action from a distance, not as Geralt. Players must make difficult choices that affect the story’s ending and the game world. These choices can have short-term and long-term effects, changing relationships between characters, unlocking new quests, and altering story paths.
Quests in the game have multiple solutions and different story paths based on the player’s decisions, increasing the game’s replayability and encouraging exploration. Many quests require interacting with other characters and building relationships, which can lead to different outcomes and story paths. The series includes various quest types, such as main story quests, side quests, contracts, and treasure hunts. Each type offers unique challenges and rewards, such as advancing the story, finding rare items, or unlocking new areas.
Potions are items Geralt can use to temporarily improve his abilities. Players can choose which skills to develop based on their preferred way of playing and adjust Geralt’s abilities accordingly. In addition to potions and skills, the game includes upgrading weapons and armor to strengthen Geralt’s abilities. Crafting and upgrading gear is an important part of the game, requiring players to collect resources and work with other characters to create equipment that fits Geralt’s needs.
Main series
In 1996 and 1997, a video game called The Witcher (Polish: Wiedźmin) was being created by Metropolis Software in Poland, but the project was canceled. The game’s director was Adrian Chmielarz, a former co-owner and creative director of People Can Fly. He created the name “The Witcher” during the game’s development. Chmielarz said the game would have been a 3D action-adventure game with role-playing features, such as making moral choices and earning experience points.
In 2003, Polish game developer CD Projekt Red worked with Sapkowski to gain the rights to The Witcher, as the earlier project by Metropolis Software had not been completed. CD Projekt Red released The Witcher, a role-playing game based on Sapkowski’s books, in October 2007 for personal computers. The game was widely publicized and received praise from critics in Europe and North America despite being the company’s first game. The Witcher was published in Poland by CD Projekt and worldwide by Atari. A console version, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, was planned for release in fall 2009 but was canceled in spring 2009. The story of this version takes place about five years after the events in Sapkowski’s books.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Polish: Wiedźmin 2: Zabójcy królów) is the sequel to The Witcher, developed by CD Projekt Red. On September 16, 2009, before the game was officially announced, a video of the game was leaked online. Two days later, CD Projekt Red confirmed the game was in development. Assassins of Kings was published in Poland by CD Projekt, in Europe by Namco Bandai Games, and in North America by Atari. The game was also sold digitally through Steam and DRM-free on Good Old Games. The story takes place about six months after the events of the first game.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Polish: Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon) was released on May 19, 2015. It quickly became one of the most highly praised video games of all time, selling over ten million copies by March 2016. Two expansion packs were later released: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Hearts of Stone (Polish: Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon – Serca z kamienia) in 2015 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine (Polish: Wiedźmin 3: Dziki Gon – Krew i wino) in 2016. In December 2022, the game was updated with visual improvements and gameplay changes.
A remake of The Witcher (2007) was first mentioned under the codename Canis Majoris. The original game will be rebuilt from the beginning using Unreal Engine 5 by Fool’s Theory, with full creative oversight from The Witcher series staff and CD Projekt Red.
Polaris is the codename for the next game in The Witcher series. It will use Unreal Engine 5 instead of REDengine, which was used in the previous two games. Polaris will begin a new story. CD Projekt Red plans to release two more Witcher games after Polaris, creating a new trilogy of AAA role-playing games.
In November 2024, CD Projekt Red announced that Polaris has entered full production. A month later, in December, a cinematic trailer was shown at The Games Awards. The trailer featured Ciri, now a witcher, as the main character of the new game.
Spin-offs
The Witcher: Crimson Trail (Polish: Wiedźmin: Krwawy szlak, "The Witcher: Bloody Trail"), also called The Witcher Mobile, is a mobile phone action game made by Breakpoint with permission from CD Projekt in November 2007. It follows a young Geralt, a new witcher who has finished his training to become a monster-slayer.
The Witcher Adventure Game (Polish: Wiedźmin: Gra przygodowa) is a video game version of a board game with the same name, released in 2014.
CD Projekt Red announced The Witcher Battle Arena, a free online game where players compete against each other, in July 2014. The game ended in late 2015.
Gwent: The Witcher Card Game (Polish: Gwint: Wiedźmińska gra karciana) is a digital collectible card game released in 2018.
In October 2018, CD Projekt Red released Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (Polish: Wojna Krwi: Wiedźmińskie Opowieści, "War of Blood: The Witcher Tales"), a turn-based roleplaying game with gameplay similar to Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. Thronebreaker’s campaign lasts about 30 hours, and players control Queen Meve, the ruler of Lyria and Rivia, during events before the first Witcher game. The game includes five regions never seen in The Witcher series: Rivia, Lyria, Angren, Mahakam, and Lower Aedirn. The game received mostly positive reviews.
The Witcher: Monster Slayer (Polish: Wiedźmin: Pogromca Potworów) was an augmented reality video game for mobile devices released in 2021.
Roach Race is a free online platform and side-scrolling game made with Crunching Koalas. It was released for iOS and Android on September 6, 2022. The game also appears as an arcade minigame in Cyberpunk 2077, which was added with Patch 1.6 on the same day.
Sirius is a code name for a game developed by The Molasses Flood with help from CDPR. It is said to include both single-player and multiplayer features, such as a campaign with quests and a story. In March 2023, CD Projekt Red announced that the game’s development had been restarted.
CD Projekt Red worked with Go On Board to create several games based on The Witcher, including The Witcher: Old World in 2023 and The Witcher: Legacy, which was crowdfunded in 2025.
Reception
The Witcher series has received mostly positive reviews from both critics and players.
The first game, The Witcher, was praised for its story, choices players could make in conversations, mature themes, world setting, role-playing features, character development system, and the main character, Geralt. However, some aspects like fighting, movement, and how long the game took to load were criticized.
The second game, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, was considered better than the first in areas like fighting, player customization, graphics, environments, and storytelling. However, some players found the early parts of the game very difficult, and some scenes had too much nudity.
The third game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, was highly praised by critics and players. It is often called one of the greatest games ever made. People liked its gameplay, story, world design, fighting system, music, and visuals. It had some small technical problems, but these were minor.
By March 2018, the series had sold over 33 million copies. This number grew to more than 50 million by May 2020. By March 2023, the series had sold over 75 million copies, with more than 50 million of those being The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. In January 2026, CD Projekt’s CEO, Michał Nowakowski, announced that The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings had sold 10 million and 15 million copies, respectively. This brought the total sales for the franchise to 85 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video game series ever.
In October 2018, Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the books that inspired the games, asked CD Projekt to pay him more money for the sales of The Witcher games. He requested over 60 million Polish złoty (more than US$15 million), which would be between 5% and 15% of the games’ total earnings. Sapkowski had originally agreed to a one-time payment for the license, but now believes he should receive more because the series became more successful than expected. CD Projekt said they had met their initial obligations but would work with Sapkowski’s lawyers to reach a fair agreement. By February 2019, a settlement was reached that gave Sapkowski extra payments, though not as much as he had asked. The agreement was finalized in December 2019.