The biggest news when it comes to the forthcoming The Witcher Season 3 and those with a Netflix subscription for the past several months has been the departure of star Henry Cavill, who announced it himself way back in October 2022. The third season is his last as Geralt, with the role having already been turned over to Liam Hemsworth going forward. The reveal caused a lot of anger among the fandom, but now we all have something more positive to think about, because the fantasy hit has just revealed the first footage from Cavill’s final season, along with its new release strategy.
What Happens In The First Footage From Henry Cavill’s Final Season Of The Witcher?
Look, I could easily spend a paragraph or two telling you all about the first glimpse we’ve gotten of The Witcher Season 3, but wouldn’t you prefer to see it all for yourself so that we can talk about it like informed adults? Yeah, I knew you would! Observe:
Well, well, well! The Wild Hunt looks to be gunning for Ciri, and hard. But, that’s not the only development revealed in the teaser (which was posted to the streamer's YouTube channel) worth noting. The spot opens with Geralt preparing to fight, as he gets his full Witcher powers going. But, he also notes that he now understands “real fear” for “the first time.” We don’t see what he’s about to battle, but my guess is that his words have nothing to do with whatever monster Geralt has geared up to fight in the clip.
He, Ciri, and Yennefer were all transported to the home of The Wild Hunt during the Season 2 ending, and they all know that they’re after the powerful young princess. Unfortunately, the ghostly riders appear to now be on the Continent and much more capable of snatching Ciri for their own nefarious purposes, and one quick scene of the teaser shows them getting very close to accomplishing their goal, as a rider manages to put his hand on her shoulder while she’s trying to escape. Oooh, boy!
The gruff Witcher spent a significant portion of Season 1 trying to find Ciri, then all of the second season training her and working very hard to protect the young woman, but battling The Wild Hunt could easily prove to be one of the most intense fights Geralt has had so far. The clip also shows a bit of what Yenn will get up to, though the fact that she seems to be wearing the same outfit as when she first met Geralt for some of her time in the teaser implies that she may spend some time trapped in a hallucination or something else that’s magically induced.
We also get another showdown between Geralt and nearly unstoppable fire mage Rience (Please save that cat!), someone threatening Jaskier, and a warning that “everything changes” when the new season debuts this summer. And, with what the teaser shows next, it’s clear that that’s true in at least one, non-casting/non-story, aspect.
The Witcher Is Changing How It Releases Season 3
We’ve known since the Tudum Fan Event in September 2022 that this summer would see the release of the new season, but we now know exactly when that will be, and that the season will actually be released in two parts. The Witcher Season 3, Volume 1 debuts on June 29, while we’ll be able to watch Volume 2 exactly four weeks later, on July 27. This is the first time the fantasy has ever split up a season.
Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Tudum that she and her writers “didn’t have batching in mind” as they planned or wrote Season 3, but the story of the novel that this will be based on made it an easy decision. She added:
That said, for any fans who are familiar with The Time of Contempt novel, there’s an epic event that explodes the Continent as we know it — the lead-up to which provided a perfect cliff-hanger for us. We couldn’t have planned it better.
Of course, there’s also the (not so) little matter of this being the lead’s last season as Ciri’s surrogate father, which pissed fans off so much that they started a petition to have Cavill rehired and the writers fired instead (though there's no evidence that abandoning ship wasn't fully the actor's decision). Much controversy and many rumors about him leaving have followed, but this season has been said to provide viewers with a “heroic sendoff” for the star, and now we know exactly when it will all unfold.
