The first new character in The Witcher 4 appears to have been accidentally revealed by its actor, although it tells us next to nothing about the game itself.
Over the weekend, Reddit user KekanKok discovered that the entry for actor Jake Lampert on Spotlight, a UK casting website, featured an entry for a role on The Witcher 4, under its Polaris codename. Pointing to the 2025 placeholder date that CD Projekt Red is currently using, Lampert's entry says that he's playing a character named Branko.
Beyond the entry's statement that he was directed by Kate Saxon, who did mocap direction for The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3 as well as several other video game projects, we've got next to nothing to go on about Branko. A little extra research suggests that it's a common name in Croatia and Serbia, but given the Witcher series' slavic origins, that's no huge surprise. It could mean that we're going a little further afield that CD Projekt's native Poland, but the series' inspirations have long-since ranged further than a single country.
While Branko gives me the sense of the most generic Witcher NPC imaginable, he's notable as only the second character to actually be confirmed for the The Witcher 4. Geralt actor Doug Cockle says that he'll be "a part" of The Witcher 4, even if he's not the "focus" of the game, but beyond that we know next to nothing about the story or characters that will feature in the RPG. Popular odds suggest we'll be focusing on Ciri, and the mysterious Lynx medallion that marks pretty much the only concrete information we have about the game might offer another clue, but for now, it's looking like Branko and Geralt all the way.
