'The Witcher: Blood Origin': What We Know

Netflix has a highly anticipated spinoff of The Witcher in the works, which has both new and old [...]

By Michael Hein

Netflix has a highly anticipated spinoff of The Witcher in the works, which has both new and old fans of the franchise excited. The streaming service announced The Witcher: Blood Origin back in July of 2020, and details have trickled out slowly so far. Whether you've read the books or played the video games, there is a lot to look forward to when this show premieres.

The Witcher: Blood Origin is set about 1,200 years before the events of the main series. According to Netflix, it takes place in a time when "the worlds of monsters, men and elves merged into one, and the first Witcher came to be." In this series, that time is known as "the conjunction of the spheres." The showrunner of The Witcher, Lauren S. Hissrichwillbe executive producing this new series, along with staff writer Declan de Barra, who is writing the spinoff. Blood Origin will be a six-episode limited series rather than an ongoing saga.

Fans went wild for this news when it first dropped, firing off a flurry of questions at Netflix, Hissrich and de Barra about what this new series entails. Hissrich enthusiastically confirmed that the author of The Witcher novels and stories, Andrzej Sapkowski, is involved in the spinoff in some capacity. Naturally, she was less forthcoming on plot details, leaving the mystery for the big premiere.

There are plenty of mysteries to consider here, even for die-hard fans of the source material. While it is rich with detail and fully fleshed out, Sapkowski's fictional world — referred to only as The Continent — does not have the kind of clearly described history that many other fantasy authors include. In fact, Sapkowski's books have never even included an official map.

What fans do know about the history of The Continent is cobbled together from the books, short stories, video games, comic books and other adaptations, and it is as much in-world myth as it is reliable exposition. At some time in the distant past, a magical event called The Conjunction of the Spheres allowed monsters to escape into this world. Sometime after that, magic users created the Witchers through a process of genetic mutation.

The Witcher: Blood Origin will likely clarify these events, as well as the time between them and some of the other bleak questions raised. As for the timeline relating to the main series, it is hard to say how far back this prequel will go, since we do not know for sure how old Geralt of Rivia is at the beginning of the series.

This show is the second spinoff of The Witcher that Netflix has announced, and fans are clearly still eager for all they can get. Back in January, the streaming service announced The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, an animated feature film also created by Hissrich. There is no release date for it yet, but since animated productions have been able to continue work through the coronavirus pandemic, Nightmare of The Wolf might be the next glimpse of The Witcher fans will get.

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