Let’s dig into all the weeping and gnashing of teeth over the latest gaming controversy. The Witcher 4. This game will fail, and I’ll tell you why. Mostly it’s a numbers thing.

The target audience seems to be a subset of the fans of The Witcher. They are appealing to the fringes. Take all the fans of The Witcher and divide them, then appeal to the smallest subset. And that, kids, isn’t how to sell anything. And now with the latest controversy over the look of Ciri and lines being drawn in the sand, that fringe audience will just get smaller.

Good luck with that “People who do not play our games” thing. There will be tons of people not playing it.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: I don’t think there are enough people remotely interested in playing out someone fan fiction of Ciri being a Witcher. I’ve read the books, I enjoy the games. While Ciri was integral, the star of the show is Geralt. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for Netflix show runners and game developers but the title isn’t The Ciri… or The Yennefer. It’s “The Witcher”. The hero is Geralt.

And another thing. The audience has been ‘girl bossed’ to death. It’s boring. It feels like every franchise has fallen victim to the girl boss hand off. Where a hero we all loved suddenly hands everything over to a new overpowered girl boss. She’s sassy and strong and all that predictable crap. It’s boring.

In conclusion. The audience isn’t there for the game developers. People are tired of the girl boss trope. and lastly? I give zero fucks about how Witcher 3 ended. It simply doesn’t matter. It’s all just a story. And when you play out the reality of the Ciri as the Witcher? You’re going to fail. This is a franchise built on Geralt. You can bring up the books and highlight moments from the games till the cows come home, it won’t change anything. Witcher 4 is going to fail.