After a season of separation, the fourth season of The Witcher concluded by placing its main characters in their most precarious situations yet. Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has explained that this was a deliberate creative choice, setting the stage for the show’s two-part final act.
The fourth season, which debuted on October 30, 2025, saw Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri on vastly different and challenging paths. In a recent interview, Hissrich revealed that Seasons 4 and 5 were written and filmed back-to-back, functioning as one long narrative split in two. The difficult positions our heroes find themselves in at the end of Season 4 are a necessary prelude to their journeys in the final season.
“We made a really conscious decision to not end this season on the characters’ higher moments,” Hissrich told Variety. “When we’re doing Seasons 4 and 5 back to back, in some ways it feels like one big season that we split. We thought it would be interesting to put all of our characters in the darkest places imaginable because we know that some redemption is going to come.”
Geralt’s Bittersweet Knighthood
Geralt of Rivia, now played by Liam Hemsworth, achieved a lifelong dream this season, but it came with a heavy price. During the Battle of the Bridge, Geralt and his company of allies fought alongside Queen Meve of Lyria and Rivia against the Nilfgaardian army. In gratitude, the Queen officially knighted him, making him Geralt of Rivia in title and truth, rather than just a name he invented for better witcher contracts.
However, the honor bound him to servitude under the Queen. For a witcher whose primary goal is to find his lost daughter, Ciri, the knighthood acts as a “chain binding him to servitude,” preventing him from freely continuing his search. To make matters worse, the season’s final scene showed Emhyr var Emreis, Ciri’s father, using Renfri’s brooch—a item tied to one of Geralt’s greatest regrets—to set a powerful monster on his trail.
Yennefer’s Perilous Mission
Yennefer spent much of the season uniting mages against the threat of Vilgefortz and establishing the foundations for the Lodge of Sorceresses. With that sisterhood secured, she turned her focus to what she believed was her next crucial task: hunting down Vilgefortz while he was weakened.
Despite warnings from her friend Triss Merigold, Yennefer used a portal to track the villain. Triss cautioned that the spell could send her to a location entirely of Vilgefortz’s advantage. The warning proved accurate; the portal dropped Yennefer into the middle of a stormy ocean, where she was last seen being pulled into a violent whirlpool, leaving her fate unknown as the season concluded.
Ciri’s “Baptism of Fire”
Ciri’s storyline in Season 4 was perhaps the most tragic. After adopting the name Falka, she found a sense of belonging with a gang of young thieves known as the Rats. This found family was brutally ripped away when the notorious bounty hunter Leo Bonhart slaughtered the entire group and took Ciri captive.
Hissrich described this devastating loss as a crucial turning point for Ciri’s character. The event forces her to confront the deep-seated fears she has carried throughout the series.
“This is going to be Ciri letting go and touching those deepest, darkest places within herself that she’s always pushed away,” Hissrich explained. “She’s said several times across the series that she worries that there’s something wrong with her. She worries that death follows her, that she is a monster inside. Once she deals with the heartbreak and loss of the Rats, we get to see her start to access that for a while. It’s her baptism of fire that needs to happen before she can be redeemed.”
According to reports, Season 5 will pick up with Ciri still held captive by Bonhart, forced to fight in a pit before she eventually escapes. This “darkest place” sets her on a path that will ultimately lead her back to Geralt and Yennefer, with the core trio expected to reunite in the second half of the final season.
The Road to the Final Season
Filming for The Witcher Season 5 has already been completed, with the final season expected to debut on Netflix in 2026. The show has promised to conclude its story by adhering to the ending of Andrzej Sapkowski’s original book series, despite some changes in the journey to get there.
Hissrich noted that the books “go a little crazy” in their finale in “wonderful ways,” and the show plans to “lean hardcore into fantasy” for its conclusion. The final season will adapt the events from the novels The Tower of the Swallow and The Lady of the Lake.
Also Read: The Witcher Showrunner Explains Why Liam Hemsworth Is the Right Geralt for Season 4
