The Witcher 4 director refutes claims that Ciri's appearance has changed since the reveal trailer: "We have not modified it"

The director of The Witcher 4 says that Ciri's character model has not changed since the game's recent reveal trailer.

The Witcher 4 was officially revealed during The Game Awards in December, with a trailer that saw Ciri take up Geralt's mantle. In that trailer, Ciri finds herself stumbling through the woods at dusk in pursuit of a mystery monster, some suitably spooky camera angles not exactly capturing all her best angles. That led to speculation by some that developer CD Projekt Red had substantially altered her appearance for the new game.

When a recent behind-the-scenes video dug into the making of that original trailer, some viewers assumed that the differences they perceived were evidence that CDPR had walked back the changes to Ciri's updated model. As it turns out, however, Ciri's model in the reveal trailer is identical to the one in the behind-the-scenes video, and any differences you might think you spotted are just camera trickery at work.

In a tweet yesterday, The Witcher 4 director Sebastian Kalemba confirmed that "the behind-the-scenes video features the same in-game model of Ciri as seen in the original trailer. We have not modified it." If you think you can see a difference, it's because "what you're seeing is raw footage - without facial animation, lighting, or virtual camera lenses."

To clear it up, the behind-the-scenes shots are a "snapshot taken before we applied cinematic touches" like funky angles or specific lenses that altered Ciri's appearance to the camera. Kalemba says that variation "is a natural part of the game development process," reminding fans that "any character's appearance may vary depending on the medium - whether it's in a trailer, a 3D model, or in-game." In other words, in the likely significant amount of time between now and the release of The Witcher 4, you're probably going to see many slightly different versions of Ciri, and that's a completely normal part of the process.

There are "many very valid worries and responses" to Ciri taking the lead in The Witcher 4, but CDPR says, "we're not suddenly making up stuff just because we want to"