'The Witcher' Season 2 Premiere Announced by Netflix

Netflix has announced that The Witcher Season 2 will premiere in the fourth quarter of 2021. That means that sometime between September 1 and New Year's Eve, the new installment will drop — although industry insiders generally agree that a Q4 drop means the fall. This comes just after Netflix hyped the end of filming the new season on social media.

The Witcher Season 2 has been plagued by delays as the coronavirus pandemic swept through its choice of filming locations over the last year and a half. The show has shut down twice due to positive cases of COVID-19 on set, but all that waiting is nearly over. Co-CEO and Chief Content Officer of Netflix Ted Sarandos revealed the news at an investor meeting, according to a report by Deadline, along with a few other long-awaited premieres.

"What happened in the first part of this year was that a lot of the projects that we'd hoped to come out earlier did get pushed because of the post-production delays and Covid delays and we think we'll get back to a much steadier state in the back half of the year, certainly in Q4 where we have the returning seasons of some of our most popular shows like The Witcher and You and Cobra Kai as well as some big tentpole movies that came to market a little slower than we'd hoped like Red Notice and Escape From Spiderhead," he explained.

Fans have seen a few images, as well as behind-the-scenes teasers from the set of The Witcher, though no trailer or key art has been published yet. However, Netflix did release this Season 2 synopsis: "Convinced Yennefer's life was lost at the Battle of Sodden, Geralt of Rivia brings Princess Cirilla to the safest place he knows, his childhood home of Kaer Morhen. While the Continent's kings, elves, humans and demons strive for supremacy outside its walls, he must protect the girl from something far more dangerous: the mysterious power she possesses inside."

Like the first season, this installment seems to be drawing on disparate content from the original novels by Andrzej Sapkowski. The story described above roughly follows the events of the book Blood of Elves, however, Kristofer Hivju will be playing the character Nivellen, who only appeared in the book The Last Wish. Meanwhile, in one behind-the-scenes featurette, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich teased that Season 2 will "dig into the Blood of Elves and beyond."

The Witcher Season 2 is now in post-production, and no specific release date has been announced yet. Still, fans can begin to get excited and plan their re-watches for the fall of 2021.