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23 January 2026

Hemsworth couldn’t maintain The Witcher’s success

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Sofiia Didenko in Pedreguer, Spain

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Liam Hemsworth (right) as Geralt and Laurence Fishburne as Regis in ‘The Witcher’, season 4.

Picture by: LANDMARK MEDIA | Alamy

In 2019, the much-anticipated first episode of the fantasy adaptation of The Witcher series was released.

This is based on the series of bookswritten by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, first published in 1994, which later inspiredthe popular video game series made by CD Projekt Red.

The Witcher follows the life and adventures of Geralt of Rivia, a magically enhanced monster hunter. His path becomes intertwined with Ciri, a princess who he raises as her own daughter, and Yennefer, a powerful sorceress whose destiny was tied to Geralt’s by the wish of a djinn (elemental genie of the air).

The Netflix series is loved by fans of the story and made $930m over the three seasons where actor Henry Cavill played the main character, Geralt. Not only that, but it was the fifth-largest driver of revenue for the streaming company from 2020 to mid 2025.

However, season 4, which launched in October 2025, has impaired the show’s success. Cavill has been replaced by Liam Hemsworth, even though the former actor was loved by the audience – many think he represented a better depiction of the character.

The stated reasons for Cavill’s departure were that he wanted to pursue other projects. Despite this, rumours circulated that Cavill, who is an avid gamer, left because of creative differences when it came to his vision for the character.

Cavill announced his departure from the show on his Instagram account:“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.”

He also announced that Hemsworth will be taking his place, adding “Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find.”

Liam Hemsworth was positively surprised by the sudden offer from Netflix. He said:“I think if I wasn’t a fan myself, if I didn’t care about it, I wouldn’t have come on board… I thought that I could do justice to this character. I thought that could bring an interesting interpretation to this part of the story.”

However, it seems that audiences weren’t that keen on the change. The fourth season recorded the lowest first-week viewershipin the franchise’s history, scoring only 7.4 million views – a drastic drop of 52% from the third season’s 15.2 million views and the second’s 18.5 million views.

Not only that, but season 4 has supposedly also been “review-bombed” on Rotten Tomatoes, making its audience score a shockingly low 19%. Online commentator ‘Liz’ wrote: “ I tried to watch the new season, but it’s just too hard. The face features are just off for me. I can’t get past it. I really enjoyed watching The Witcher, but unfortunately will not be able to continue.”

Regardless, Netflix has confirmed that the fifth – and final – season will appear later this year.

Perhaps some fans can get a break from their disappointment with the upcoming release of the latest video game: The Witcher 4. It will be set after the events of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but this time the protagonist is Ciri, not Geralt. CD Projekt Red has confirmed that it has been in “full-scale production” since the end of 2024, but it will not launch until 2027 “at the earliest”.

Written by:

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Sofiia Didenko

Writer

Denia, Spain

Born in 2007 in Kyiv, Sofiia studies in Benitachell, Spain. She is interested in business studies, particularly marketing and plans to study at Geneva Business School in Barcelona. For Harbingers’ Magazine, she writes about gaming and books.

In her free time, Sofiia enjoys video games, reads dystopian fiction, and spends time with her dog. She also was a part of a debating team in Ukraine and won the best speaker award at the Dnipro Open Debating Tournament in 2022.

Sofiia speaks Ukrainian, English, Russian, French, and a bit of Spanish.

Edited by:

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Lola Kadas

Society Section Editor 2025

Budapest, Hungary

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