Last week during The Game Awards, CD Projekt Red unveiled The Witcher 4, the next chapter in its popular RPG saga. The sequel’s announcement sent players back to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it seems, as the player count for the game rose shortly after the reveal of the fourth title.
Data on SteamDB reveals shows that The Witcher 3 player count hovered around 10,000 players on the day before The Game Awards. Since The Witcher 4 was announced last week Thursday, the player count quadrupled to over 40,000 players this Sunday – more specifically, 44,179 players at its peak. This is the highest player count since a big update for the game dropped in June 2024.
Of course, we also have to take into account that several thousands (or hundreds of thousands) more players also hopped into the game either on PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately we don’t have those stats but we imagine there was also a considerable spike in player count on those platforms. The Witcher 3 can also be played through GOG on PC, though those stats are also unknown at the time of writing. Simply going by Steam users though, there was definitely a rejuvenated interest in the game.
In related news, CD Projekt Red has recast of the role of Ciri in The Witcher 4. Jo Wyatt, who previously voiced Ciri in The Witcher 3, has been replaced by Ciara Berkeley, who will also provide motion capture for her face.
The Witcher 3 was seen as the last adventure for former protagonist, Geralt of Rivia. Depending on the ending you got, Geralt passed the mantle onto Ciri who will be the main character of the next game (and presumably the saga going forward). However, that’s not to say that Geralt will be completely absent from the next entry. The character’s voice actor, Doug Cockle, confirmed back in August that he does play a smaller role in the story but he’s not the focus this time.
Source: SteamDB
