Back when The Witcher 4 was first revealed at The Game Awards in 2024, a big stink was made about how Ciri looked a little different, mostly down to the passage of time and that the game featured an older Ciri. A couple of months later, a behind-the-scenes video for the making of the trailer convinced people that CD Projekt Red had buckled to the pressure and altered her face a little, but this is something that the studio has vehemently denied.
The Witcher 4’s New Trailer Made “Subtle Changes” To Ciri’s Face
And thanks to this new tech demo, we’re back for round two of this extremely tiring discourse. Shortly after the demo went live, many took to social media to claim that CD Projekt Red has now “fixed” Ciri’s face and that her facial features are now softer. Turns out, they’re just seeing things, or they just don’t want to admit they were wrong, as CD Projekt Red has once again come out and stated that they’ve changed barely anything.
In a new statement to Kotaku, a spokesperson for CD Projekt Red has explained that the character model for Ciri in this tech demo and the one in the game’s reveal trailer are exactly the same, apart from two “subtle changes”. These are “slightly raised eyebrows” and a “more relaxed eye area”, both of which were made to improve animation quality.
Apart from that, the model is the exact same as the one in the 2024 reveal trailer, so anyone comparing jawlines and facial structures is wasting their time. In fact, Ciri’s face is apparently copied directly from The Witcher 3’s model, and has been “adapted to work with the latest MetaHuman technology”, so there really was no reason for such an outcry in the first place. I’m sure that won’t stop people from bringing the issue up again whenever we get that gameplay trailer though.
