A Witcher anime film is coming to Netflix

Tub Geralt
(Image credit: CD Project)

The Witcher on Netflix is big—maybe its biggest season-one series ever—and so it's no surprise that The Witcher season 2 is already in the works. But that's not all: A Writers Guild of America West listing, spotted by Witcher fan site Redanian Intelligence, indicates that Netflix is also working on a standalone animated film called The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.

Shortly after that WGA listing was found, Netflix confirmed the existence of an "anime film" from the live-action show's creator and the studio that animated Legend of Korra:

See more

The tweet contains all the information revealed so far, which obviously isn't much. Beau DeMayo wrote the Betrayer Moon episode of The Witcher series ("a great episode," we said in our recap, "with strong horror elements, some wonderfully gruesome monster design, and a palpable, rumbling tension throughout") and the presence of showrunner Hissrich has to be encouraging. 

The South Korea-based Studio Mir may be best known for The Legend of Korra animated series on Nickelodeon, and more recently has worked on Voltron: Legendary Defender, Lego Elves: Secrets of Elvendale, and Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeats for Netflix.

"Take us back to a new threat," as Netflix said in the tweet, is weird wording. But it may simply reflect the time-hopping nature of the live-action show's first season, which is easier to follow with Netflix's timeline map.

There's no word yet on when Nightmare of the Wolf will be out, or whether Henry Cavill and other members of the series cast will be involved. I hope they are: I had doubts about Cavill's ability to really convey the rugged character of Geralt, but he's really killing it, including in the voice department, which draws inspiration from Witcher videogame voice actor Doug Cockle. An anime released while The Witcher series is still active, but with a different voice for Geralt, just wouldn't seem right. (That is, unless they can get Cockle himself for the job, in which case, sorry, Henry. Go do another Mission Impossible or something.)

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.