Author Andrzej Sapkowski published the last book in The Witcher world 2013 with Season of Storms. That book was a standalone prequel of sorts set between The Witcher short stories and The Last Wish and told the story of one of Geralt’s monster-hunting contracts that went wrong. To be fair, most of his contracts seem to go wrong in one way or another. Anyway, it turns out Season of Storms is not the end of Sapkowski’s writings in the Continent. Sapkowski said in a livestream with Fantastic Talks that he’s been working on a new Witcher book “quite diligently.” He said that finishing the book should take him around a year, but no longer. And now, Sapkowski has shared the release date window for when we might expect this new entry into The Witcher‘s world as well as a tease of its contents.
We first saw the news of a new Witcher book on Polygon (with translation from Redanian Intelligence). Sapkowski has said more than once the main Witcher series ended with The Lady of the Lake (published in 1999). He won’t write additional books about those events after the series’ conclusion. Then Season of Storms came in 2013. We heard in 2020 that the author had plans for a new Witcher, but this has been the most concrete update since.
Given what Sapkowski has said about the main Witcher series being done, we don’t expect a continuation of that story. The Lady of the Lake wraps Ciri’s story, with the character jumping to the world of Camelot. Yes, that Camelot. Given that, Sapkowski likely will leave the series as is. It sounds like what we’re getting with this upcoming The Witcher book is actually a new Geralt standalone story. Sapkowski shared, “No, that’s not my plan now,” in response to this new title being linked to The Witcher‘s other works. He noted, “This new book is going to be a standalone, but maybe, who can say. The book is directly about Geralt, but I won’t say more. It is outside the pentalogy.”
Most recently, IGN reported on when we might expect the novel to arrive. According to the publication, Sapkowski shared at Comic-Con Vienna that the new Witcher book would debut in Poland in late 2024 and would then release worldwide in early 2025. That’s not too long to wait. It’s kind of fitting to have this new Witcher novel on the horizon as Netflix is on the precipice of a major change in its adaptation. Season three of the series recently ended, and season four will see Liam Hemsworth take the place of Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia.
Originally published on August 7, 2023.