‘The Witcher’ Season 2: Filming Wrapped Up & Everything We Know So Far

Netflix’s first season of The Witcher left fans ravenous for a second season, and everyone will be delighted to learn that filming has now wrapped on the second season. While filming has ended we’re continuing to keep track of all the information you need to know on the second season of The Witcher including post-production updates, what to expect, casting news, and ultimately the Netflix release date.

Subscribers had to wait for what seemed like an eternity before the premiere of The Witcher. After binging the first season over the weekend, we can gladly say that it was more than worth the wait for the adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s greatest work. Henry Cavill played Geralt of Rivia in fine form. He was a perfect portrayal, so it could be enjoyed by both video-game and book fans.

Redanian Intelligence is doing an amazing job of providing a monthly update on The Witcher 2 news.

• The March 2021 Roundup
• Roundup February 20,21
• Roundup January 2021
• The December 2020 Roundup

What is the Netflix release date of The Witcher 2?

Unfortunately, due to delays in filming caused by the pandemic worldwide, the release date for The Witcher Season 2 has been moved further back.

The series had been scheduled to arrive in early 2021, but now it’s looking more likely that we’ll see The Witcher return in early 2022.

Expected release date: early 2022

What are The Witcher's cast members for season 2?

The Witcher's second season will see the return of these cast members:

Role	Cast Member	Where Have I Seen/Heard Them Before?
Geralt of Rivia	Henry Cavill	Man of Steel | Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice | Justice League
Princess Ciri	Freya Allan	The War of the Worlds | Into the Badlands | Captain Fierce
Yennefer of Vengerberg	Anya Chalotra	Wanderlust | The ABC Murders | Sherwood
Tissaia de Vries	MyAnna Buring	Kill List | The Descent | Doomsday
Fringilla Vigo	Mimi Ndiweni	The Legend of Tarzan | Cinderella | Mr Selfridge
Jaskier	Joey Batey	The White Queen | Knightfall | Strike

With the deaths of Queen Calanthe, King Eist Tuirseach, Mousesack, and Princess Renfri in the first season, we aren’t expecting to see the respective cast members return to portray their roles. Flashbacks that include the mentioned characters are their only chance of them returning.*SPOILER ALERT*

The Witcher Season Two Casting News

There’s been plenty of developments throughout February, and plenty of new cast members have been announced to star in the second season of The Witcher:

Role	Cast Member	Where Have I Seen/Heard Them Before?
Vereena	Agnes Bjorn	Monster
Nivellen	Kristofer Hivju	Game of Thrones | Fast & Furious 8 | Beck
Eskel	Thue Ersted Rasmussen	Fast & Furious 9 | Sunday | The Way to Mandalay
Lydia	Aisha Fabienne Ross	The Danish Girl | Alleycats | Drama
Francesca	Mecia Simson	He Who Has It All | Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model

Kaine Zajaz will play Francesa Findabair, the Elven sorceress' brother, in the second season.

The Witcher's next season will feature seven more cast members, with one casting that was revealed in 2020.

Role	Cast Member	Where Have I Seen/Heard Them Before?
Nenneke	Adjoa Andoh	Invictus | Fractured | Bridgerton
Phillippa Eilhart	Cassie Clare	What Happened to Monday | Beauty and the Beast | Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
Fenn	Liz Carr	Silent Witness | Les Miserables | The OA
Dijkstra	Graham McTavish	The Hobbit | Rambo | Outlander
Ba’lian	Kevin Doyle	Downton Abbey | The Libertine | Blackpool
Codringher	Simon Callow	Four Weddings and a Funeral | A Room with a View | Shakespeare in Love
Rience	Chris Fulton	Outlaw King | Clique | Our Ladies

Cast the Witchers

The next season will feature Witchers that are not Geralt, according to both the videogames and the books.

Danish actor Kim Bodnia will be reprising his role as the veteran Witcher, and Geralt’s tutor Vesemir. Bodnia has already portrayed Vesemir in the series, as his voice was heard during one of Geralt’s flashback.

Lambert, a favorite of video-game enthusiasts, has been confirmed as appearing in The Witcher's second season.

Paul Bullion (who starred previously in Peaky Blinders) will play Lambert, a young Witcher who is more skilled in the killing of monsters than Geralt.

A character held dearly in the hearts of book readers, the youngest of the Witchers at Kaer Mohen, Coën will make his debut in season two. Coën is being portrayed by Yasen Atour who previously starred in Ben-Hur and Robin Hood.

The prettiest of the Witcher bunch and Geralt’s childhood friend, Eskel will also be making an appearance in season two.

Thue Ersted Rasmussen was previously cast, but has been replaced by Basil Eidenbenz.

The Witcher Season 2: What can you expect?

*Spoilers Below*

After a dramatic and dramatic end to season one, Yennefer was able use fire magic to repel the Nilfgaard armies. However, he mysteriously vanished in the middle of the battle. Geralt and Ciri have found one another, greeting each other almost as if they were fathers to their daughters. Ciri, who had never met Yennefer, asked Geralt about her.

What's the next step for Geralt and Ciri?

After finally finding each other, Geralt and Ciri can now continue destiny’s will. Geralt, thanks to the law of surprising and the deaths of Ciri's parents, is now her adoptive father. The Nilfgaard army remains a threat. With spies constantly hunting Ciri for information, Geralt will bring her to Kaer Morhen which is the stronghold of Witchers.

Ciri, a result of her Elven blood, is extremely gifted in magic and great for killing monsters. Geralt is likely to begin his training as a Witcher just like him. Ciri’s training would be a grueling and difficult process, but her talents with magic combined with Witcher training would make her an incredibly strong combatant, giving her the ability to protect herself and others.

Where can I find Yennefer

Both Tissaia and Yennefer survived the massacre of many mages. Yennefer was told by Tissaia to let her “chaos explode”, taking her seriously, Yennefer unleashed hell upon the Nilfgaardians, using forbidden fire magic to annihilate anyone that came close. Tissaia was left confused by her disappearance after she defeated the Nilfgaard forces.

As an incredibly powerful and talented Mage, Yennefer isn’t dead. It’s unclear where she may have disappeared too, but Yennefer would likely have portalled herself away from the battlefield.

Thanks to Geralt’s wish, we can definitely expect to see the pair reunite some point in the second season. Not to mention the fact that with Ciri’s magical potential, who better to teach her how to use actual magic than one of the most talented mages alive.

Nilfgaard, the Northern Kingdoms and go to war

It’s unclear how many Nilfgaardians were killed in the Battle of Sodden, but it’s clear a significant amount of men were slain by the mages of Aretuza. Nilfgaard will continue to seek the Northern Kingdoms' conquest, although they will be unable to carry on their campaign after suffering significant losses.

King Foltest from Temeria was the first to reach Northern Kingdoms. Foltest, despite not being present at the fight, could view the chaos that was erupting between Nilfgaard's mages from far away. Temeria could counterattack Nilfgaard's campaign by attacking the Nilfgaardian campaign at the right time, as Nilfgaard has suffered huge losses.

Was will become of the Aretuza mages?

The Nilfgaard army was defeated by the Aretuza mages at great cost. Yennefer and the academy's loss of so many powerful mages meant that there were not enough to stop a possible Nilfgaard attack against Aretuza.

With some mages already defecting to Nilfgaard, there’s potential for a coup to happen that could result in the destruction of Aretuza or at the very least, susceptible mages joining Nilfgaard.

Jaskier is located where?

Jaskier, the beloved bard was always in trouble around Geralt. The pair often travel together over the years, but they always end up reuniting years later. Jaskier is likely to be found out there, wooing women of court and getting in trouble. As the only known friend of Geralt, if any Nilfgaard’s men come looking for Geralt, then Jaskier may know his whereabouts.

Lauren S Hissrich, showrunner

‘Gravemaster’ from Redanian Intelligence had the chance to interview with Lauren S Hissrich, the showrunner of The Witcher. She was able clarify the plot for Geralt, Ciri and Jaskier during the interview.

Discuss Geralt and Ciri

As expected from the saga, Ciri really takes center stage in season two. The whole world is after her, and she has to find safety and respite with Geralt (and eventually, Yennefer). Problem is, they’re complete strangers. She doesn’t know Geralt, doesn’t see why she should automatically trust him, and really doesn’t love when he starts making big decisions in her life especially when she’s still mourning the loss of her grandmother in Cintra. For his part, Geralt dutifully wants to protect Ciri, but also doesn’t know anything about being a dad, and certainly doesn’t know how to balance that with the need to continue doing his job. There’s some comedy in how these two come together and eventually bond, but that belies a deeper reflection on what it means to become a family.

Jaskier also gets his moment on The Witcher's second season.

Yes! One of my favorite moments with Jaskier is from Episode 106, when he and Geralt are sitting on the cliff’s edge, and he says “I’m just thinking about what pleases me.” You have this character who has quite literally attached himself to the coattails of our Witcher, in order to rustle up material for songs. But what happens instead is… he finds a friend. Jaskier starts to think about what he needs and wants in the world, and in season two, we’ll see him begin to discover it.

What books will The Witcher Series cover in Season 2?

Those who have seen The Witcher will know that the original season featured multiple timelines. This allowed for the characters of Geralt and Yennefer to be told in different time periods. The episodes had a lot of events that were covered in the books The Last Wish (or Sword of Destiny) as chronologically ordered. Both books are a fantastic read and precursors to the ‘official’ start of The Witcher Saga.

Having said all that, The Witcher's first season was a prologue to its end.

In total there are eight books in The Witcher, but only six of them take place in ‘The Witcher Saga’. The Last Wish (2006) and Sword of Destiny (2015) were novels that served as prequels and accompanied the main storyline with several short stories. Season of Storms has short stories that are interspersed with flashbacks and short stories from the original book.

The first season of The Witcher Saga's official series will be covered by the second, which will focus on Blood of Elves. The third will follow with Time of Contempt, the final book of the series.

Is The Witcher still in production?

Official Production Status: Filming complete (Last Updated 01/14/2021).

Filming for the second season has been delayed numerous times since February 17, 2020. Filming has now officially ended for season 2 as of the date of this update

The filming of the series is complete. Now, it will undergo extensive post-production.

Is filming happening where?

Budapest will be used as the location of filming for this series, alongside London, for large sets.

Most recently we’ve learned that the scouting team for locations for The Witcher has recently been to Scotland. The team was particularly on the stunning island of Skye off the coast from mainland Scotland.

You can clearly see that some of these locations are breathtaking, as you will see in the photos above. We’ll be curious to learn which region in the continent of The Witcher will use any of the locations above.

According to Redenian Intelligence, an entire city is currently being constructed at Arborfield Studios in the UK.

Season 2 will return with 8 episodes.

Now, we know that eight more episodes of the second season are coming.

We’re a long way off learning the episode titles but we do know which directors are lined up for the upcoming season:

Episode	Director	Previously Worked On
2×1	Stephen Surjik	The Umbrella Academy | The Punisher | Lost in Space
2×2	Stephen Surjik	———————————————————
2×3	Sarah O’Gorman	Cursed | Jamestown | No Offence
2×4	Sarah O’Gorman	———————————————————
2×5	Ed Bazalgette	Doctor Who | Poldark | The Last Kingdom
2×6	Geeta Patel	Meet the Patels | Dead to Me | Santa Clarita Diet
2×7	Geeta Patel	———————————————————
2×8	Ed Bazalgette	———————————————————

How long does each episode run?

Each episode lasted at least 60 minutes, with only eight episodes in the original. The second season will follow the first.

Is Netflix releasing a trailer of The Witcher 2?

We can expect to see a teaser trailer far earlier than most Originals, but we’re still a long way off from receiving a trailer for season two.

If we’re lucky, we could potentially see a trailer drop in Fall 2020.

As a placeholder, here is the delectable Henry ‘Geralt of Rivia’ Cavill reading from The Witcher books by author Andrez Sapkowski.

Are we likely to get more seasons of The Witcher available on Netflix?

The Witcher, if Lauren S. Hissrich (showrunner) has any comments, will remain on Netflix for quite some time.

In an interview with inverse.com’s Just Lunning, Lauren S. Hissrich discussed the possibility of future seasons of The Witcher;

 I love that the quote about “seven seasons” got picked up so quickly by the press. I swear in another interview, I said, “I could write this series for 20 years.” It’s not that I just don’t understand how numbers work, there is so much material, I believe that we could write forever.

Hissrich responded to a question about how many seasons could go beyond what the books can hold:

It’s not my intention to go past the books. We’re doing plenty of sort of fun exploration of things that are in the books already. We’re trying to add to the lore. You know, in general, authors end things when they feel like they should be ended. We would honor that as well.

The interview was incredibly insightful and from the showrunner’s answers, you can tell that The Witcher is in the best hands.

From across all the cast and crew, there appears to be a great deal of respect for the world created by Andrez Sapkowski, and we can’t wait to see more magic and monsters The Witcher has in store for us.

What have critics and subscribers responded to The Witcher's story?

Subscribers have responded to criticisms more positively than subscribers.

The Witcher currently has an 8.9/10 score on IMDb. Over 55,000 people have submitted scores. Rotten Tomatoes also shows that the Original series has an audience score of only 92%. This clearly shows how subscribers loved the original season.

Unfortunately, now we have to talk about the critics. We are completely behind everyone's right to express their opinions, but some critics of The Witcher were outlandish. Some critics have sadly not even bothered to watch the entire season, formulating an opinion on the first episode alone, which has resulted in one of the worst reviews we’ve ever read. Lauren S. Hissrich, series creator and showrunner of the show responded to this review:

Other critics have taken to comparing The Witcher to that of Game of Thrones, but after watching the series ourselves we would argue that The Witcher is not the next Game of Thrones and instead should be looked as the very first The Witcher.

There will be a lot of pressure for Netflix to deliver on the second season of The Witcher, but if it’s anything like the first then we can’t wait.

Do you look forward to the new season of The Witcher Season 2? Comment below to let us know your excitement for the second season of The Witcher!