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Baby Yoda who? Netflix’s The Witcher is even bigger than The Mandalorian

Gabe Gurwin
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THE WITCHER | FINAL TRAILER | NETFLIX

The popularity of  the character Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian certainly helped make the case for subscribing to Disney+ for may people, but Netflix shouldn’t be worrying about losing subscribers just yet. New data suggests its new series The Witcher is currently the biggest television series in the world.

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Television data firm Parrot Analytics has revealed that based on viewer demand, The Witcher is the biggest show worldwide at the moment. Most impressively, it has beaten out The Mandalorian, which has been hugely popular not only because of its Star Wars connection, but also due to the meme-ready character known as “The Child,” who the internet has collectively dubbed Baby Yoda. Due to his popularity, many pieces of official merchandise, including plush toys, were released shortly after the show premiered.

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But even that adorable green creature didn’t make The Mandalorian as in-demand as The Witcher. According to Parrot Analytics, it logged almost 127 million “demand expressions” for The Witcher from December 22 to December 28. The show was also the second-most-streamed series on Netflix for 2019, with only the long-running Stranger Things coming out ahead.

The Netflix series was released all at once in December — as is the model for most Netflix shows — meaning those who chose to binge it will have to wait quite a bit before the second season is available. They could also watch the original Polish series The Hexer, but it was met with fairly scathing reviews from critics and fans alike when it released nearly two decades ago.

Henry Cavill Reads The Witcher | Netflix

In the meantime, many fans appear to be playing the 2015 game The Witcher 3. Set after the events of the books that the Netflix series is based on, the game is widely considered to be among the best role-playing games of all time, and it’s available on everything from Xbox One to Nintendo Switch. Star Henry Cavill is among those playing the game — he’s already on his third playthrough.

On Steam, the game has hit its highest concurrent player count ever, which even tops the total for the game when it first launched. Rather than develop a sequel right away, studio CD Projekt Red moved forward with Cyberpunk 2077, which is set to release in 2020.

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Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
The Witcher 3’s current-gen port has been delayed yet again
Geralt looks at a tower in the distance in The Witcher 3.

CD Projekt Red has announced that its current-gen port of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt will not be releasing any time soon. In a post on the game's Twitter account, the developer said that the game's port, which was supposed to come out during the second fiscal quarter of this year, has been postponed "until further notice." The game had earlier been delayed to this year.

https://twitter.com/witchergame/status/1514285274553008135

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Everything we know about The Witcher 4
A talisman depicting a dog with glowing red eyes lays in the snow.

The Witcher series may have begun as a series of novels, but there's little argument that it wasn't the games that took this niche Polish fantasy world to mainstream success. The first game was a rough but ambitious debut for developer CD Projekt Red, but it was with the sequels that they -- and the games -- became very impressive. The Witcher 3 in particular was a massive success, both in terms of sales and critical reception. The open-world game brought millions of players into the world of monsters, magic, politics, and a deep RPG story that many consider to be the top of the genre.

After the game's success, leading to multiple spinoff properties including a live-action Netflix show and the stand-alone Gwent card game, few doubted that the series would end there. While the team's first attempt at a new IP left much to be desired, CD Projekt Red looks to recapture the goodwill and success that put them on the map with another entry which, for now at least, is being considered The Witcher 4. There are just a few details to dig into at the moment, with not much more than an announcement that the project is being worked on, but here's everything we know so far about The Witcher 4.

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The Witcher reveal repeats Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest mistake
A player points a gun at a cyborg in Cyberpunk 2077's reveal trailer.

On March 21, CD Projekt Red confirmed a new The Witcher game while revealing a new Unreal Engine 5 partnership with Epic Games. Shortly after that announcement, CD Projekt Red's Global PR Director Radek Grabowski had to clarify some crucial details about this new game and the Epic Games partnership in a tweet:
https://twitter.com/gamebowski/status/1506022957591797760
While this tweet clarifies the biggest misconceptions about CD Projekt Red's The Witcher announcement, it also highlights that the developer announced this game way too early and vaguely. CD Projekt Red is already losing control of some of the discourse around the game and risks repeating one of the biggest mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077's development and marketing: Overpromising.
Cyberpunk 2077's big mistake
CD Projekt Red announced Cyberpunk 2077 in May 2012 at a press conference. At the time, the developer promised features like a "gripping non-linear story filled with life and detail" and a variety of character classes, weapons, upgrades, implants, and more to choose from. It said the game would "set [a] new standard in the futuristic RPG genre with an exceptional gaming experience."
Cyberpunk 2077 would not release until December 2020, over eight years later. But in the meantime, CD Projekt Red continued to tease the title with trailers and interviews, highlighting the game's ambitious scope and vision. CD Projekt Red developers hyped up how the main story and sidequests intertwined, how the game would feature multiplayer, how cops would be very reactive, and more. Although the game looked and sounded very impressive prior to its release, many of these features and promises were either missing or half-baked in their implementation into Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk 2077 Teaser Trailer
For eight years, an RPG that was supposed to change the genre forever was promised, but in the end, all we got was a fairly standard open-world RPG with a bevy of technical problems at release. The massive backlash happened because people were so excited for Cyberpunk 2077, partly because CD Projekt Red hyped up all of these ambitious features over eight years.
The reality is that game development is an arduous journey that doesn't always go according to plan. Designs change, features are cut, and sometimes the finished product just doesn't come together. CD Projekt Red probably never meant to lie to its fans, but priorities and development timelines shifted and what the developer ultimately delivered with Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't up to snuff.
As CD Projekt Red made the mistake of announcing Cyberpunk 2077 too early and overpromising, I thought the studio would what to share more details on its next game until it was close to release. That was not the case. 
Initial Confirmation
CD Projekt Red was not willing to share a development time frame or release window as part of The Witcher announcement, so it's likely that this game is still several years away. Although the developer didn't reveal many details at this time, announcing the next The Witcher game so early gives s the Polish studio plenty of time to do so. For example, the game's director is already promising that there will be no crunch during the development of this game, something people may hold him accountable for as stories about the game's development emerge. CD Projekt Red must be cautious about what it shares about this new game before launch if it doesn't want another PR disaster, and it already seems to be getting a bit out of hand.  
Grabowski's tweet indicates that there are already some misconceptions about the game. That will likely exponentially worsen as CD Projekt Red continues to tease this title in job listings, interviews, and trailers. It's a dangerous approach, so why did the developer make this "initial confirmation" happen so early? There are several reasons why this could be the case. First off, most of this announcement was focused on CD Projekt Red's partnership with Epic Games and the use of Unreal Engine 5, and the developer wanted to confirm the first game that will be part of this partnership to make it more exciting for fans. 

Meanwhile, CD Projekt Red is still recovering from the backlash toward Cyberpunk 2077's rocky launch. Announcing a follow-up title to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt now not only restores a little bit of goodwill with fans and investors but will also attract some Unreal Engine-experienced developers who might be nervous to come to CD Projekt Red following Cyberpunk 2077. 2022 has been a year of anticlimatic and purposefully vague game announcements. CD Projekt Red's The Witcher announcement is simply the latest one to be part of this trend, but it's also one of the most worrying because this developer has made this mistake before.  
While CD Projekt Red felt pressured to confirm this game early, they need to be very careful if they don't want to repeat the mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077. The best course of action for CD Projekt Red to take now is to stay completely silent until it has a clear idea of what the finished game will entail. If that isn't the case, this could all be building to disappointment in the year 2030. 

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