The Witcher Game Series: Every Game, and How to Play the Books

22 October 2026

The Witcher game series has three main RPGs, played in order: The Witcher, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Around them sit a story spin-off (Thronebreaker), a free card game (GWENT), a run of board games, and two announced projects, The Witcher 4 and a new Witcher 3 expansion. CD Projekt RED’s own site says the games are “set in the universe created by Andrzej Sapkowski in his series of books”, and the three main RPGs pick up after his saga ends. So if you came here from the books, the games are a sequel rather than a retelling. At the end of this guide is a way to play inside the novels’ own story instead.

The facts about each game below were read from CD Projekt RED’s and Go On Board’s own pages in October 2026.

The Witcher games in order

If you play only one, play The Witcher 3. It stands on its own, and it is the one CD Projekt RED is still updating. If you want the whole saga, start at the first game and go in order, because the choices and characters carry forward.

The Witcher (the first game)

The first game puts you in Geralt’s boots in the city of Vizima. CD Projekt RED’s classics page describes the plot as Geralt tracking “the shadowy organization Salamandra”, only to find “just as much darkness in the allegedly upstanding Order of the Flaming Rose.” Between the main quests there are monster contracts and dice poker in taverns.

It is the oldest of the three, and it plays like it. Its value today is the story setup: it introduces this version of Dandelion, Triss Merigold and others, and the second game assumes you know them. As of October 2026 the classics page lists it for PC and Mac.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

The second game opens with Geralt as bodyguard to King Foltest of Temeria, then accused of killing him. The page names the places the story moves through: Flotsam, the dwarven city of Vergen, and Loc Muinne.

Its signature is the branch. In CD Projekt RED’s words, you “encounter two vastly different stories depending on the choices you make”, and the whole second act changes with one decision. It is the best game in the series for players who want their choices to visibly split the story. The classics page lists it for PC, Mac and Xbox.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and the Remastered update

This is the one most people mean by “the Witcher game”. Geralt searches for Ciri, his adopted daughter, before the Wild Hunt reaches her, across an open world of contracts, side stories and politics.

On 29 September 2026 CD Projekt RED released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered. Its announcement calls it a free upgrade “that brings countless improvements to visuals, performance, gameplay, and more”, and says it includes the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions for everyone who owns the game. The same post lists GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store, Battle.net, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2.

Pick it if you want the most complete Witcher experience, at your own pace, with a world big enough to get lost in for weeks.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

Thronebreaker is a smaller, story-first spin-off. You lead Meve, Queen of Lyria and Rivia, as the Nilfgaardian Empire threatens the Northern Realms. Its page describes managing a battle camp and fighting “story battles using an army built from characters you meet.” The battles are played with cards, in GWENT’s style.

It is the game for readers who liked the politics of the novels more than the monster hunting. Geralt is not the lead here, and the war is.

GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

GWENT began as the card game inside The Witcher 3 and became its own game. As of October 2026 its official site offers it to play free on PC, iOS and Android, and notes that the game “offers in-game purchases”. There is no campaign to follow: it is head-to-head card play with Witcher characters and factions.

Pick it if you want a few minutes of the world on your phone, and you enjoy deck building for its own sake.

The Witcher board games

Go On Board makes the licensed board games, and two are worth knowing.

• The Witcher: Old World. Set years before Geralt, when monsters were more common. Its page says you become a witcher from one of five schools, take quests, fight monsters and “sometimes brawl with other witchers”, for 1 to 5 players, with a solo mode.
• The Witcher: Path of Destiny. The one closest to the books. Its page says it takes famous Geralt stories “such as The Lesser Evil or The Edge of the World” and lets players experience them interactively, as Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri, Dandelion or Vesemir, for 1 to 5 players.

Go On Board’s site also lists a new project, The Witcher: Legacy, running on Gamefound in October 2026.

What is coming next

Two games are announced on CD Projekt RED’s site as of October 2026, and neither is out yet.

• The Witcher 4. Its page says “A new saga begins” and shows a trailer and a tech demo. It gives no release date.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Songs of the Past. A new chapter for the third game, with its page reading “Coming in 2027”.

Treat anything beyond that as rumour until those pages change.

Where the books fit

Sapkowski’s saga came first: two story collections, The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, then the five novels that follow Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri, and later standalones such as Season of Storms. The three main games pick up after the saga ends. Path of Destiny is the only one on this list built around the stories in the books themselves, and it is a competitive board game with fixed scenarios.

So none of the games lets you do the thing many readers actually want after the last page: walk into the Continent as the books describe it, as someone of your own making, and see what happens.

Playing inside the Witcher books

That is what LLM RPG does. You upload a copy of a book you own, as a .txt or .epub file, and the narrator reads it before you start: the places, the people, how they talk, what they know and what they hide. You are shown what the reading costs before anything is spent. Then you make your own character and type what you do. There are no menus of choices.

You could be a village alderman who has to hire a witcher and cannot afford one, an apprentice at Aretuza, or a Nilfgaardian deserter hiding in Temeria. The narrator keeps the world consistent with what Sapkowski wrote, because it is working from his text rather than from a preset.

Pick it if you have just finished Lady of the Lake and want to stay in that world as yourself tonight.

It is weaker for anyone who wants combat, graphics or a controller. It is a written story, read and typed. It also needs the book file, so you use your own copy.

You can try it before uploading anything: a ready-made world plays for five turns with no account. The current plans are on the pricing page.

Which Witcher game should you play?

When a video game is the better choice

Be honest about the evening you want. If you want to swing a silver sword, ride Roach and see Toussaint in full colour, The Witcher 3 is the answer, and the Remastered update makes now a good time to start it. A written game cannot give you that.

A written game fits a different moment: you have read the saga, the games have told you what happened next, and you still want to be in that world on your own terms. For more in the same spirit, see our guides to the Wheel of Time game, Game of Thrones RPG and solo role playing games.

Step inside a book free →