The first-ever WitcherCon is in full swing, with panels and events revealing a number of new, exciting details about the second season of The Witcher on Netflix. We’ve learned a lot about both what to expect and what the process of filming the new season has been liked from various segments, including a panel of cast members, and have even gotten a release date for the second season targeting the end of this year.
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Here’s everything we learned today:
The Witcher continues to be very much about family
Much of The Witcher’s story is focused on families, exploring the differences between ties of blood, adoption, and chosen families of friends and comrades. During the cast panel, the relationship between the Witchers of the story is described as being like a “military family,” with showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich talking about the upcoming scenes between the Witchers at Kaer Mohan as representing their brotherly bonds: they roughhouse, and they’re constantly teasing each other. “We want it to be light and fun,” she said.
Paul Bullion watched Season 1 already knowing he was cast as Lambert
“It was quite surreal,” he said during the panel. “I actually watched Season 1 knowing that I would join Season 2, which was strange but exciting.” Bullion added that everyone on set was very welcoming, and that Henry Cavill described the Witchers to him as “like a band of Navy Seals.”
Freya Allen had a lot of fun filming her scenes with The Witchers
Allen, who plays Ciri, talked about her and her character’s relationship with all the Witchers, especially as the only woman in a group of men with close, brotherly bonds, in an environment where she’s struggling to reach her full potential. She described joining in on the teasing, and told an anecdote about Lambert trying and failing to cut a training dummy in half, but constantly missing. “I tried to hold it together in the scene, but I couldn’t help but burst into laughter because every time it was failing.”
Bullion responded: “When I do finally cut it in half, Freya is very aware that the camera is over her shoulder and they’re not getting her reaction. So I look up to Freya trying not to make eye contact with me, because she’s laughing, and I’m meant to be stern, and I’m just looking at Freya laughing. And then they shout, ‘Cut!’ and she goes, ‘Finally.'”
Later, when Allen had to chop the head off a dummy, someone on set joked that she had “Better beat Paul.” She did it in one shot.
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Everyone really loved filming the training sequences
Bullion said the training sequence with with the Witchers and Ciri was his favorite to film. He said it was very hot, in the summertime, but there was fake snow everywhere, making for a weird combination. He said that this was when the real camaraderie between the cast started to come through.
At one point during the filming, Bullion told Freya Allen that he loved sour candies, a comment that turned into a competition between the two. He started looking online for the most sour sweets he could find, but Allen out-soured them all. “But she did have to go to set with a blue tongue, so I wasn’t very popular with the make-up department,” said Bullion.
Vesemir will play a major role in season 2
When asked about new characters in season 2, Hissrich said, “Vesemir is the one I’m most looking forward to our audience meeting.”
Vesemir, a father figure to Geralt and another Witcher, is the focus of the upcoming anime prequel, Nightmare of the Wolf, and is being portrayed by Killing Eve’s Kim Bodnia. Hissrich says he is “integral to the story we are telling” about Geralt becoming a father figure to Ciri.
Jaskier gets a new look
Actor Joey Batey made a brief appearance in the panel to reveal a brand new look for Jaskier in season 2. Here he is:
A new monster appears: The Leshy
We got a very brief, enticing teaser of a new monster appearing in Season 2. It’s called a Leshy, and you might be familiar with it if you’ve played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. We saw a very, very small bit of the ominous forest monster, just enough to invite speculation as to how it will appear in the new season.
New episode titles revealed
Netflix rapidly showed us the titles of seven of the eight episodes in its upcoming season, offering hints at what’s to come. The eighth episode’s title remains a secret, though.
We got a tour of Kaer Morhen
In the Witcher series, Kaer Morhen is the home of the Witchers, and it will be a key location in Witcher Season 2. During the WitcherCon stream, Hissrich offered a tour of the famous key alongside commentary. The tour includes shots of both the Season 2 set and the forthcoming Witcher anime, which was also shown today. You can watch it above.
The Season 2 Release Date
At last, we learned the release date for The Witcher’s second season on Netflix: It’s December 17!
More news about Season 2 of The Witcher on Netflix, as well as other Witcher franchise updates, is expected out of WitcherCon today, which is going on now. Expect panels with figures from both the Netflix series and game developers CD Projekt Red, lore deep dives, and of course, more Gwent.
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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
