The second season of The Witcher has finally hit screens and it was definitely worth the wait. Now the question becomes how much longer will we have to wait for Season 3?
When Gizmodo Australia chatted to The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich earlier in the month things were looking good for Season 3.
“We are almost done writing it, which means the writer’s room has broken the stories and we have written the scripts and now we’re sort of ready to release them out into the production team,” Hissrich said. “But it’s really just the beginning of the creative process.”
That bodes well for a less than two-year wait this time around – pandemic pending of course.
As for the plot, Season 2 of The Witcher dives right into the events of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novel Blood of Elves. Following the book saga, this means Season 3 will take us into The Time of Contempt, something Hissrich was very excited about.
“The Time of Contempt is one of my favourite books,” she said. “It has such fan-favourite moments. You’ve got the Thanedd coup, you’ve got Ciri in the Korath desert, you have Codringher and Fenn and Geralt, you get to know the kingdom of Nilfgaard a bit better, you meet the Scoia’tael.”
“I think we are sticking very closely to the books for season 3 because there is so much rich material and I think fans are really going to love that too,” Hissrich told Gizmodo Australia.
The Witcher cinematic universe
Season 3 isn’t the only thing fans have to look forward to as Netflix continues to expand its universe of content set in the world of The Witcher.
Hissrich is overseeing a lot of this expansion acting as a producer on The Witcher, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf and the upcoming The Witcher: Blood Origin prequel.
“I sold The Witcher to Netflix in August of 2017 and I was not thinking in any sort of cinematic universe format. I was literally thinking we’ve got this one chance to make a great show, I hope people love it.” Hissrich explained. “The real opportunity that we’ve been given is we have this rich source material and we’re never going to be able to put it all on-screen in The Witcher mothership show.”
Hissrich said that the idea behind the expanding universe of The Witcher content was to choose elements of the books that neither the TV show nor the Sapkowski time to explore.
Nightmare of the Wolf took audiences through the life of a young Vesemir who witnesses the fall of the Witcher’s home, Kaer Morhen. This is a location that has now been introduced in live-action in Season 2 but Hissrich said it wasn’t necessary to be across all The Witcher content to enjoy yourself.
“It’s always our goal that you don’t have to watch everything. If anime is not your thing you’re not forced to watch it to understand what Season 2 is,” she said.
The Witcher: Blood Origin on the other hand is a live-action series that exists thousands of years earlier in the timeline and has no books to draw upon. It will explore the Conjunction of the Spheres, another event that has been referenced in The Witcher main show.
“What we really have tried to do is reward viewers who watch all of them.” Hissrich explained, “There are things that we see that may not mean so much when you see them this season, but when you watch Blood Origin, when it comes out, you’ll start to understand a little bit more.”
If you’re ready to take a journey through this dark fantastical world you can start by watching The Nightmare of the Wolf on Netflix before binging seasons 1 and 2 of The Witcher. The Witcher: Blood Origin can also be found on Netflix next year.
As for Season 3? Start tossing your shiniest coins and pray The Witcher will show up in 2022.