Henry Cavill’s heartfelt farewell to The Witcher family marked an emotional and memorable moment on set before his departure from the Netflix series.
After years of bringing Geralt of Rivia to life, Cavill shared his gratitude with the cast and crew, bidding a sincere goodbye to the world that defined one of his most iconic roles.
The news of his exit deeply affected his co-stars — Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) and Freya Allan (Ciri) — who both admitted they cried upon learning he was leaving. Their emotional reactions reflected not only their close bond with Cavill but also the impact he had on the The Witcher family throughout his journey as Geralt.

The Witcher star Henry Cavill has shared an emotional goodbye to his co-stars, thanking them for the time spent working with them.

The Witcher star Henry Cavill has shared an emotional goodbye with his co-stars, thanking them for the time spent working together.

Cavill recently announced his departure from the series, in which he played the Witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia – a character he loves deeply from reading the books and repeatedly playing the increasingly popular The Witcher 3 in his spare time. The role of Geralt will be recast following the finale of the show’s third season, which is split into two-parts, the first premiering on 29 June, and the second on 27 July. Liam Hemsworth will then take on the mantle for season four, as well as the recently announced season five.

Hemsworth’s casting hasn’t gone down well with fans who are threatening to boycott the series, in addition to review-bombing the new season alongside launching a campaign for Cavill to return – or even for the show to be cancelled entirely due to his absence.

Henry Cavill recently attended a press event for the upcoming season, where they addressed his departure directly. A heartfelt goodbye was given by Cavill who thanked the cast for his time on the show. He said: “I actually just want to talk about my co-stars here, because once again it was such a pleasure and an honour to be working with you guys. You guys bring so much nuance and detail to these characters, which are often at risk of being oversimplified, and what you guys have done with the characters has involved work, care, and effort … So, [I] just want to say I’m gonna miss you. I’m gonna miss you very much.”

The actor’s co-stars were equally as shocked about Cavill’s exit from the show, with Anya Chalotra, who plays Yennefer, recently saying it was “hard to take” due to him being such an enormous part of the show. Henry Cavill will now be moving onto his next adventure, starring and directing in an Amazon show about the Warhammer: 40K series, which is another one of his passions.

The third season of The Witcher will be fully-available to stream on Netflix by 29 July.

The showrunner behind Netflix’s The Witcher TV adaptation has finally revealed the official reason why Henry Cavill left the show, and it pretty much confirms what we assumed all along.

Season 4 of Netflix’s adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher is set to drop in a few days on October 30, but those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the drama behind the scenes may be surprised to see that Geralt of Rivia is sporting a new look (by which I mean, a new face) for the latest season.

Back in 2022, months before season 3 of The Witcher dropped, Henry Cavill released a post on Instagram detailing his return to the DCEU, following his cameo as Superman in the film Black Adam.

Roughly a week later, Cavill once again posted on Instagram about his departure from The Witcher, stating: “My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4. In my stead, the fantastic Mr Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf…”

Of course, Cavill wouldn’t end up reprising his role as Superman again, following a creative shift at Warner Bros that resulted in the creation of the DCU, and ultimately David Corenswet’s Superman film earlier this year.

Still, many assumed that, given the liberties that the writing team at Netflix took with the show, Cavill left following creative differences (as he has stated several times that he’s a huge fan of the source material).

Turns out that the simplest answer was the correct one the whole time, as The Witcher’s showrunner Lauren Hissrich told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview.

“He had plans for other roles that he really wanted to commit himself to,” Hissrich revealed to Entertainment Weekly.

“And for us, you don’t want to hold someone and force them to be doing something that they don’t want to do. I think that’s why it felt like a really symbiotic decision.”

I don’t doubt that Cavill had his issues with the changes that the Netflix team made to The Witcher’s story, but it’s pretty clear to me, given that there was barely a week in between his DC-related announcement and his The Witcher post on Instagram, that scheduling conflicts necessitated him leaving.

Kind of sucks for him that he ended up leaving one project he cared about for another project he cared about even more, only for neither to work out in the end.

 

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Updated 10:34 30 Oct 2025 GMTPublished 09:58 30 Oct 2025 GMT

Verdict Given on Liam Hemsworth’s Geralt, The Witcher Returns to Netflix

He may have been born for the role

Angharad Redden

The Witcher season four is finally here and with a new Geralt at the helm. And it seems as though the controversial replacement may have been worth it after all.

Back in 2022, it was announced that Henry Cavill would be stepping down from his role in Netflix’s The Witcher after taking on the role of Geralt of Rivia for three seasons.

With the actor reportedly not happy with the direction of both his character and the series as a whole, it seems his departure was mainly due to creative differences which is why his replacement was announced shortly after.

The role would now be handed to Australian actor Liam Hemsworth who will be starring as Geralt for the first time in The Witcher season four. Now that season four has debuted, early reviews hint that Hemsworth may just be the better of the two.

Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has already stated that Geralt will feel a lot different, the new season is set to focus on The Witcher finding his humanity after years of monster hunting.

Netflix

In a report by Charlene Badasie over on CBR, Hemsworth’s Geralt is a lot warmer and invites the audience closer and reminds the audience that this is a man “wrestling with purpose”.

“All these tweaks may be small, but together, they amounted to something much smarter than a cosmetic refresh,” the report reads.

“Hemsworth’s Geralt isn’t trying to replace Cavill’s; he’s designed to repair the show’s imbalance.

Where Cavill’s Geralt was powerful but often emotionally locked, Hemsworth’s interpretation opens the door to something the series has long needed: a Geralt who talks more, feels, and occasionally even smiles – the version closer in spirit to Andrzej Sapkowski’s books and CD Projekt Red’s games.

That’s the genius twist.”

The two sides of Geralt

As many The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt fans will know, Geralt is a multi-dimensional character capable of extreme harm and extreme kindness.

His love for Yennefer and Ciri for example shows his warm heart whilst his laid-back attitude can sometimes be viewed as cold and uncaring.

However, it seems as though Hemsworth understands this and is willing to show us the idiosyncrasies of Geralt of Rivia.

With all eight episodes of The Witcher season four expected to drop on Netflix on 30 October, we do not have long until we officially find out if this recast was a hit or a miss.

However, if this report is anything to go by, Hemsworth manages to capture both sides of Geralt of Rivia which will make for very exciting viewing indeed.

Featured Image Credit: Netflix

The powers that be in Netflix’s writing room have decided to kill off another big character during the events of The Witcher’s fourth season, and fans are, once again, not too happy with them for deviating so far from the source material.

The writers at Netflix clearly cannot help themselves, because they’ve once again decided to do the same thing that The Witcher’s fanbase has been criticising them for since the series began by killing off a character who survived in the books.

Obviously, if you’ve not gotten around to watching it yet, there’s going to be huge spoilers for season 4 of The Witcher from this point onwards. You have been warned!

Although the reason behind his departure isn’t as clear-cut as some have made it out to be, it’s clear that Henry Cavill wasn’t too pleased with the changes that Netflix made to Andrzej Sapkowski’s story in the TV adaptation.

So now that Cavill is out and Hemsworth is in, surely the folks at Netflix have learned from their mistakes and have attempted to make season four of The Witcher as accurate to the source material as possible… right?

It’s back for a fourth season with a new Geralt actor (Netflix)

Hah, no. As detailed in an article by TheGamer’s Vaspaan Dastoor, Vesemir, the wise old father figure to Geralt, has been unceremoniously killed off during his fight against Vilgefortz.

Naturally, the folks over on the r/witcher subreddit aren’t too thrilled with the random change.

“Can’t believe they killed of Vesemir. And his death even is a footnote in the story”, commented user Emperorkaiser01.

“When Yen brings Geralt the news he doesn’t really react as you would expect, given that Vesemir was somewhat of a father figure to him. Rant over.”

“Yeah this is crazy s**t. They did that the first season and got insane backlash for it. NOW THEY DID IT AGAIN???” replied user Feanixxxx.

“Keira, Vesemir, died out of nowhere for sheer shock value. The whole lodge storyline is just off the rails. Geralt was actually decent as they stuck to the books more”, commented user Unihornmermad.

RIP Vesemir (Netflix)

If you haven’t read the books, you might be surprised to learn that Vesemir actually survives the events of the entire series.

This might sound a little odd to those of you who have only played the games, because Vesemir dies during the events of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. So why does CD Projekt RED get away with killing a main character, but Netflix is criticised for it?

The simple explanation is that the events of The Witcher 3 take place after the conclusion of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, so there’s not any canon for the writers to deviate from at that point.

However, the funnier explanation is that Netflix’s adaptation of the books just kind of sucks, so the fans aren’t willing to give it as much leeway.

Way to get people hyped for the fifth season that you’ve already filmed, Netflix…

Featured Image Credit: Susie Allnutt/Netflix

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has never looked better, thanks to this stunning next-gen remaster.

Originally released in 2015 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, from Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED, is not only considered to be one of the best fantasy RPGs of all time, but it’s also widely considered to be one of the greatest video games ever to grace us with its presence.

Met with high praise across the board from critics and fans alike, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt scored an impressive 92 on the aggregate website, Metacritic, more than earning its “Must-Play” accolade.

“You are Geralt of Rivia, mercenary monster slayer. Before you stand on a war-torn, monster-infested continent, you can explore at will. Your current contract? Tracking down Ciri — the Child of Prophecy, a living weapon that can alter the shape of the world,” reads the synopsis of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

In December 2022, just when you thought that The Witcher 3 couldn’t look any better, CD Projekt RED released its long-awaited new-gen update on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

This free update not only made the game look and perform better than ever, but it also added a ton of new content, such as quests, cosmetic goodness, and more.

Just when you thought The Witcher 3 had hit its peak

Play

Thanks to the modern wonders of PC gaming and the ever-vibrant modding community, somehow, someway, The Witcher 3 is made to look ever better than the free new-gen upgrade. It looks truly next-gen.

As showcased on the YouTube channel, Digital Dreams, a modded version of The Witcher 3 is powered by a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, boosting it to a 4K resolution at 60 frames per second.

“It looks like The Witcher 4,” said NorbiGaming, in the comments section on YouTube.

“Better than The Witcher 4,” claimed grannysmith7326.

“What a different experience it was playing this game again 10 years later,” exclaimed ZaeBae22.

Obviously, you will need a beast of a PC to run The Witcher 3 to this level, and the mod list can be found on Nexusmods (the link is in the description of the video).

For the rest of us, we can play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as intended on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. At the time of writing, The Witcher 4 does not have a release date.