Netflix’s First ‘The Witcher’ Trailer Is Here And It Looks Incredible

Paul TassiContributor

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Comic Con seems like just about the best place possible to debut the trailer for the big-budget fantasy series adaptation you’re putting on your streaming service, and so we have our first trailer at long last for Netflix’s The Witcher series.

Simply put, it looks absolutely stunning.

The Witcher has been the subject of much hesitation among fans, both those who read the books but mainly those who played the CD Projekt Red games, as everyone is worried that the series might not be done justice. Controversies have arisen from everything from casting to armor design but…

…it feels like it’s time to put most of those fears to bed.

The two minute spot is a “teaser,” but shows off a ton of footage that looks fantastic. Henry Cavill, a Witcher superfan, looks perfect as Geralt and he’s clearly kept his monstrous Superman physique, as seen above. One fun tidbit we learned from SDCC is that showrunner Lauren Hissirch met Cavill first, who was dying to play the part, told him they weren’t casting yet, saw 200 other potential Geralts and ultimately went back to him.

In the trailer we also see Witcher staples Yennefer, Ciri and I think even Triss had a brief cameo. The show briefly showed glimpses of a few of its monsters, but appears to be keeping most of them under wraps. Many fans of The Witchergames have openly complained about differences like Geralt not having a beard or carrying two swords, but those are almost always answered by pointing to the books (in the books Geralt hates beards, in the books Geralt keeps his second sword on Roach).

I see very little in this that book fans or game fans should be able to complain about. There have been some unfortunate annoying cries about this version of The Witcherbeing “social justice” focused, and while we can see that many characters of color have been added to the cast (the games especially feature almost an entirely white collection of NPCs), it seems like a perfectly normal addition to me.

I’ve watched this three times already and while it’s hard to judge too much from a trailer alone, it certainly has the vibe of “serious Game of Thrones competitor” written all over it, something Netflix has been desperate for and unable to replicate thus far, though that’s true of everyone who isn’t HBO (Amazon will try for its own high fantasy series with Lord of the Rings down the road).

This looks incredible, full stop. I cannot wait to rrereally.

I write about video games, television, movies and the internet.