CD Project Red is really well known for the Witcher series, the Polish novel saga-based game that skyrocketed the studio into international fame and with the release of their next big project, highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, it’s speculation galore.
It all started with a throwaway bit of dialogue in Witcher 3, in which Geralt asks Ciri about some of the worlds she visited in her mad escape from Eridin. Ciri describes one of such places as “a world where people had metal in their heads and waged war from a distance” prompting many to speculate that our intrepid Witcher Princess may have visited a highly technologically advanced world at some point.
And with Cyberpunk 2077 being announced as far back as 2012, it’s understandable how some (actually a lot of) people would take the leap of logic and ask: wouldn’t it be cool if we saw Ciri in Cyberpunk? Well yes, yes it would.
This sentiment isn’t shared by the game’s director Adam Badowski though. In his interview for Polygon he expressed adamant animosity towards the idea. He said: “We are not Kingdom Hearts. We are not joining universes, and I know that there are a lot of fans on the team and they would like to have Ciri in the game. But I am totally against it”.
The glimmer of hope are these aforementioned fans on the team. A full-fledged Ciri cameo is unlikely, but it’s possible they may try to sneak an Easter Egg of sorts into the game. While it’s understandable why Badowski wouldn’t want to dilute the themes of the game with excessive self-referential humor, a tiiiny little nod wouldn’t be out of place, I think.
And given how even in the original novels by Sapkowski there were some… Interesting tidbits of information hinting at a larger, sci-fi world outside of the scope of little fantasy-European countries, and Cyberpunk’s usage of mysticism as a subversion of technocratic nature of the world, these two universes really aren’t that far apart.