Geralt of Rivia, a brooding professional monster hunter for hire also known as witcher, struggles to keep his humanity in a medieval dark fantasy world ruled by corrupt kings, queens and mages, where poverty, violence and intolerance are rampant, normal humans are sometimes worse than actual monsters and most jobs that pay well involve the darkest of human emotions and desires. Yennefer of Vengerberg is an ambitious mage who came from nothing and wants everything. Princess Cirilla or Ciri is a young girl who may or may not possess some great mysterious power within her. Their destinies, seemingly quite different, slowly intertwine in a rather cosmic fashion. Their companions include Jaskier the bard, Geralt's endearingly annoying friend and hype man vowed to spread the word of his heroics throughout the continent even if he has to embellish them a little for a few coins more, Tissaia de Vries, Yennefer's secretive mentor who believes in tough love, and Triss Merigold, a good-natured druidic mage and trustworthy friend. The Nilfgaardian Empire's sudden brutal invasion of the kingdom of Cintra ruled by Cirilla's protective grandmother, warrior queen Calanthe, puts their lives in great danger.
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Tomek Baginski, who directed the cinematic trailers for the video games, is the one who originally pitched The Witcher to Netflix, and he stayed on as an executive producer through the show's production. His own company is behind the series as well.
The Striga's leaping attacks in season one weren't done with pure CGI. Stunt coordinators relied heavily on ropework, essentially rigging the performers to wires and yanking them through the air, to sell the monster's speed and the scene where it crashes through the floor with Geralt.
Starting with season four, Liam Hemsworth stepped into the role of Geralt of Rivia for the final two seasons of the show, alongside Laurence Fishburne joining as the centuries-old vampire barber-surgeon Regis.
Rather than shooting one season, wrapping, and starting fresh later, the production filmed season four and the upcoming fifth and final season together in one continuous stretch, which is how the show plans to close out its story.
To smooth over the recast, the show didn't just move on quietly. Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has said they went back and reshot pivotal older moments with Liam Hemsworth in them instead of Henry Cavill, specifically so the change wouldn't feel glossed over.
Watch the opening recap of season four closely and you'll notice the Butcher of Blaviken flashback, originally Henry Cavill's scene from the very first episode, now plays out with Liam Hemsworth's face instead. It's framed as a story being retold generations later by an unreliable narrator, which is the show's clever in-universe excuse for the switch.
The recasting announcement didn't go down well with a lot of fans, and Liam Hemsworth reportedly stepped away from social media for roughly a year to avoid the pile-on before his first season as Geralt even aired.
A huge chunk of season one's Continent was actually Hungary. The town of Blaviken and the great hall of Cintra were both built as sets at Mafilm and Origo Studios near Budapest, with the crew also shooting real locations like the Kiscelli Museum for the Aretuza scenes.
Season one traveled across Hungary, Poland, and Spain, but the pandemic made that kind of globe-trotting impossible for season two. So the entire season, including the witchers' stronghold Kaer Morhen, ended up being built and filmed at Arborfield Film Studios, a converted former army barracks outside London.
Vengerberg, the town Yennefer grew up in, was filmed at the Szentendre Skanzen Village Museum in Hungary, a site normally dedicated to preserving traditional Carpathian folk architecture rather than housing fictional sorceresses.
