The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf animated film gets August release date in new trailer

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Strap in for a prequel story about Geralt's mentor

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
(Image credit: Netflix)

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf animated film will air on Netflix August 23.

The film's release date was announced during today's opening WitcherCon festivities. (There's plenty of news still to come, so here's how to watch WitcherCon 2021 if you're looking to tune in.) A brief teaser trailer brought us the good news that we're barely over a month away from our next dosage of Witcher lore – about 81 minutes of it, according to earlier reports – this time in Netflix's tried-and-true anime format, and it's a cool look at the film's setup. It's got plenty of familiar and spooky motifs and monsters, and crucially, it also gives us a look at our (relatively) young hero.

Nightmare of the Wolf stars Vesemir, the mentor to the Witcher series' main protagonist Geralt. A tweet from Netflix Geeked notes that "without Vesemir, there'd be no Geralt," and that's a pretty good summary of his character. He's both a father figure and a teacher to Geralt, and a pinnacle of the Witcher profession besides. 

Last month, producer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich discussed the direction for the film and its approach to Vesemir as a character. "There are things I wanted to know about, what it takes to become a Witcher, how Geralt became a Witcher, where his journey started, and who was important to him," Hissrich explained. 

Elsewhere in Witcher land, The Witcher season 2 release date has been set for December. I don't want to pigeonhole the Nightmare of the Wolf as a mere snack to tide us over until the main series returns – honestly, I'm more excited to see a Witcher anime – but there's no denying that it'll make the wait a little less painful. The news of series prequel Blood Origin casting Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon actor Michelle Yeoh is also still in our rear-view mirror as a tidy reminder that there are plenty of promising Witcher productions on the horizon. 

These are the best Netflix movies to watch right now, and with Netflix's beloved Castlevania anime on our list of the best Netflix shows, Nightmare of the Wolf is probably going to be something to see.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.