My man Geralt looked like he was in dire need of a nap during the entire run of Witcher 3. Let him rest, people.
Any person who unironically uses “woke” is a complete douche canoe and can go get fucked. Change my mind.
Wrong way round. The unironic woke is the BLM socially aware activist.
It’s since around 2020 woke is mostly used as an insult by douche canoes.
Woke is now a synonym for Social Justice warrior.
A person or movement prioritizing moralizing outrage about minor grievances over actual effective societal change.
As my half Nigerian cousin likes to say on issues like white people wearing dreadlocks: “That’s something only white privileged women care about.”
Yes I agree with your interpretation of what woke currently means. I’m saying that this is actually using woke ironically an insult. An unironic usage has no negative connotations.
Right. The right wingers are arguing (usually without knowing it because they don’t understand words) for people to stay asleep and not think or question
The best new use of woke is the woke right.
The author James Lindsay has defined it in similar terms, as “a victimhood-based identity politics” whose “victim groups are whites, Christians, men, and straight people”. He argues that the movement is “roughly intersectional” insofar as it is obsessed with identity politics and a grievance relating to anti-white racism. “Like their counterparts on the Woke Left,” Lindsay writes, “the Woke Right have accepted as fact that there’s a conspiracy against people like them and that their only real hope is to lean into the identity grouping and advocate for collective power under that heading”. In these terms, the “woke right” is a kind of ideological doppelgänger, whose members exhibit the same precisionist and absolutist tendencies of their leftist counterparts.
Pierce Morgan uses it more and more often against right wingers to great effect.
Woke means being aware that an interaction with a cop is a life or death situation. Cops aren’t your friends, they’re not here to protect you. They’re a threat, motivated by cruelty and love of power. When dealing with a cop, you have to speak gently, keep your hands visible at all times, and declare your intentions for every action. Or you could die. You could still die even if you do all that.
I won’t. Nobody is able to define what “wokeness” really means to them because it’s mostly code for “subset of people I don’t want to exist around me”.
Surprisingly, that doesn’t sound very good when said out loud.
“Woke” has had a consistent meaning since its introduction into the English language almost a hundred years ago. It means “Aware of systemic racism.”
When blues legend Lead Belly ended a show in 1938 by saying, “Stay woke,” he meant: “Stay aware of systemic racism.”
When some chud on YouTube in 2025 says “‘Woke’ is ruining gaming,” he means that awareness of systemic racism is ruining gaming. For him.
And when an American politician calls himself “anti-woke”, he’s saying that he opposes the awareness of systemic racism. Not that he denies the existence of it, but that he’d prefer no one talk about it, so that it can continue.
When some chud on YouTube in 2025 says “‘Woke’ is ruining gaming,” he means that awareness of systemic racism is ruining gaming. For him.
I don’t think it even goes that far tbh. Especially for less political, more gamer-type “conservatives”, it just means “the other side”, forcing so many girls (1) into their game. Maybe it’s just to deflect having to admit to being a misogynist.
And when an American politician calls himself “anti-woke”, he’s saying that he opposes the awareness of systemic racism. Not that he denies the existence of it, but that he’d prefer no one talk about it, so that it can continue.
Yes, exactly. No sane person would call themselves “anti-woke”. Unless they’re successful in subverting its meaning to be “those we’ll put in concentration camps”. Oh wait, that still wouldn’t make you sane.
Don’t let the alt-right dictate what “woke” means
Let Doechii do it for you 😛
I would love to not let the nazis dictate how the swastika is used, but their perversion of the original meaning has permanently altered how it’s seen by the rest of the world. Claiming the moral high ground by trying to force something to mean what it no longer does is a pointless exercise.
It’s not about claiming the moral high ground, it’s just that you can’t have a word that can be used to mean its opposite, even if “sarcastically”. The word woke is just the past tense of wake, nothing else. It can be used to represent someone “waking up” from the hide-your-head-in-the-sand routine, or becomes able to see things from a new perspective. For the right, it doesn’t really mean anything, but they are pretty much using it as the new “sheeple”. Which doesn’t make any sense.
But the important thing is this: if someone is ridiculing people for wanting to be informed, involved in society, or generally just themselves, the only thing they’re actually insulting is their own intelligence and heart. If we let them have their use of woke as a generic mean insult, we lose sight of that.
More than swastikas, I think this case is closer to saying “you can use literally to mean figuratively because it’s common use” to which I also say no, fuck that.
But yes, swastikas forever symbolise Nazism. That doesn’t negate their original, positive meaning previously found in history, religion and culture. This is not an “achtually it’s ok to draw swastikas because they are actually good”. I’m just saying that context, and intent, matters. If you tattoo one on yourself as a westerner, you’re a Nazi - and it’s ok that everyone treats you like one. But should those original uses be stopped because it’s now “forever bad”?
I think that ship has sailed. That word is at the moment a clear sign the person using it is an asshole. It can be reclaimed, but right now I don’t see that happening.
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If you need consume X media to be able to enjoy Y media, we have a problem there, pal :/
I don’t like that we’ve all allowed “Woke” to become a bad thing. I want “woke” media. I want diversity of talent and experiences. I want awareness of social issues.
I can’t play games anymore because of nonsense like this. I changed hobbies to writing Chinese poetry and watching ballet. The last Ballet I saw was Swan Lake in China. Absolutely beautiful.
I’ve said for years that one or more of the main characters should be prominent, but you play most of the game as a custom character and you get to choose your witcher school. So I’m sort of hoping that she’s the protagonist and main character in a similar way to how she is TW3.
Eh, idk. The Witcher universe has a framework for an RPG, but the books have always been about Geralt and Co. You could do something different in that universe, but I think the story and the games have some very strong structure that comes from the player being Geralt and living his story.
Witchers are a rare dying breed. Trying to shove another new generic Witcher in would force you into writing a whole new series of stories, and backgrounds, just for that one character, which would make it get lost in the mix imho.
Good to know the VA isn’t a dickhead chud here. I’m not aware of him beyond this, but that’s at least a small win in my book.
i love woke, keep it coming
What does reading the books have to do with the game. The books take place before the game series. Or am I mistaken.
Not gonna lie, I was hoping they’d use some Law of Surprise stuff to give Geralt a new ward and let you create your own Witcher. But, if instead I get to do teleport strike bullshit with Ciri’s powers, I’ll be content.
How in the heck would Ciri not be the main character after the events of Witcher 3? Did anyone actually think she wouldn’t be?
Well, unless you fucked up the choices near the end. Really not fond of CDPR’s habit of that.
Yeah, there were a couple of tiny decisions, any of which failed you out if you got them wrong, and several of them had deceptive descriptions during the QTE.
Came here to say this. Anyone that’s played Witcher 3 should have already known that Ciri was going to be the protagonist in the next game. I can’t wait. Ciri is badass.
Someone who can tame unicorns and jump through time and space is much more interesting than a berserker monster slayer.
She is the main character toward the end. The story was great and I need to replay it
She’s not just the main character towards the end, she is the main character of the story. We play Geralt, who is a side character in Ciri’s story.
I never really thought about it like that. Is that how the book series goes? I probably should read those as well
kind of, it’s more like it starts a geralt’s story, but becomes ciri’s story. the first two books are all geralt. after that it’s about geralt and ciri’s relationship. then by the last book we barely even see geralt.
then after the series was finished he started writing more little stories from earlier in geralt’s life.
as i said in another comment. it’s downright bizarre that ciri doesn’t get mentioned until the third game. she almost makes more sense as the protag anyway.
anyone who has read the books was likely surprised that ciri wasn’t the main character of any of the games when they first started coming out :::especially since geralt dies at the end of the books :::
ciri was more the mc than geralt for most of the books. she’s the child of destiny. she’s the young character that grows up as we follow their journey. she’s the one that finds herself and shows major character development throughout the books. the only character development geralt goes through is accepting his bond with ciri.
the first two games never mentioning ciri was outright bizarre tbh. only even remotely possibly because geralt lost his memory. like, with where geralt as at by the end of the books the only thing you could possibly expect him to do on regaining his memory is frantically search for signs of his adopted daughter
to a longtime book reader my reaction to ciri being the protag of the next game was “FINALLY”
my only curiosity at this point is how much she’ll be like book ciri. does she know magic? in the books ciri goes to sorceress school and then gets trained in primal magic by unicorns and immortal space elves. can you fuck a horse? that was one of the more… questionable scenes in the book.
tangent: sapkowski’s politics occasionally bleed through in weird ways in the books. like three’s a scene where a woman finds out she’s pregnant mid way through a literal war that our band wades through on their journey to save the world. the party basically needs the woman to proceed. she does not want the child. i believe it was the product of rape. yet for some reason geralt and a literal fucking vampire convince her that abortion is wrong and she should keep it instead of drinking a potion about it. it was so randomly out of character for everyone involved. but hey, that’s catholics for you i guess… /tangent
i think they generally said that ciri lost her elder blood powers after the king of the hunt was killed right? otherwise I’m gonna be really curious how handle that as well. she should be sort of the world’s greatest sorceress otherwise. ooh, i wonder if she’ll make quips about cyberpunk and/or other worlds she’s traveled to. like, she spent Decent bit of time in Arthurian legend. she shows up briefly in Victorian London.
also, what will the world at large look like? they can’t do it like the last time where your previous save could alter the new game based on your decisions. you were simply able to do too much. they’d need to make like 3 entirely separate stories at the very least. like, who rules the north? are you the empress of nilfguard? is the church burning all the nonhumans at record pace? you can basically decide the entire fate of the northern realms and all of its people in multiple ways… unless it just takes place elsewhere. maybe we’ll be in zerrikania this time or some shit. there are many distant lands that the games never take us. it would be much more doable that way. then you’d just have to change dialogue and maybe swap out a few characters.
aaaanyway… yeah, anyone mad about her being the mc is a dumbass that doesn’t know shit about the story.
can you fuck a horse? that was one of the more… questionable scenes in the book.
Uhhh which book is that? If it’s the section I’m thinking of with Kelpie the horse, she’s entranced by its beauty and it’s rider/owner tries to use that to get into her pants (and ultimately died before he was successful) but I don’t believe she ever expressed sexual attraction at all to it by my memory from reading the books a couple of months ago.
the party basically needs the woman to proceed. she does not want the child. i believe it was the product of rape. yet for some reason geralt and a literal fucking vampire convince her that abortion is wrong and she should keep it instead of drinking a potion about it
The party is trying to find Ciri after her disappearance. Geralt and Cahir are having visions indicating that she’s presently in great danger and suffering (and at that she was!). Finding out while practically at the front lines of the great war that their incredible archer, Milva is pregnant completely derails their entire journey because she can’t ride, shouldn’t travel, and will need to rest in a safe area for a while (which they are at this point constantly far from anywhere safe), plus they can’t exactly bring a baby onto the battlefield they’re actively crossing. It’s one moral quandry wrapped in another. Ultimately Geralt and Cahir leave it to Milva’s decision, as does Regis the barber-surgeon/vampire who created the abortion potion.
Also it wasn’t rape. While guiding a group of elves to safety, they hid in a thicket for a night with Nilfgaurdians surrounding them and searching for them. The elves decided that since they were likely to die a horrible death at any moment that they should take the time they have to find what enjoyment they can, and Milva decided to join in. It just so happened they did not die that night and now Milva is carring a halfling for whom she does not know the fathers name (for safety no names were shared with the elves she guided)
i think they generally said that ciri lost her elder blood powers after the king of the hunt was killed right? otherwise I’m gonna be really curious how handle that as well. she should be sort of the world’s greatest sorceress otherwise.
She gave up her magic after trying to use fire as a source of power out of desperation while navigating out of the “Frying Pan” desert. She wanted to save Little Horse the unicorn after an unfortunate battle with a monster she hadn’t yet learned of, but no other sources were available. My understanding is fire as a magical source is all consuming so it is forbidden to pull from for safety reasons, but that was largely left up to interpretation.
Upon pulling from fire, she saw the imense power that presented her, the ability to rule the entire world, but also how that would hurt those she cared so deeply about, so she instead gave up her sourceress’ powers.
If you want anything to complain about in the books it should be Milva’s winging about being an illiterate farm girl that honestly was out of character and just seemed written in so she wouldn’t outshine the others
Edit: Cahir’s attraction to Ciri is also creepy as hell the way it’s written, but that might be intentional, since that’s at a point where she’s coming to realize that everyone wants something from her, everyone will tell her why she should want to give them what they want from her but nobody ever seems to care or ask what she actually wants.
hold up… ciri fucked a horse?
By [email protected]’s description I know what scene they’re talking about. It’s not great but it’s not as bad as they make out. Basically she ends up traveling for a bit with this really smarmy dude. Think incel used car salesman. He’s described as having greasy hair, he’s clearly not trustworthy and acts only in his own best interest, and is constantly trying to get into Ciri’s pants. But, he’s riding this incredible horse the likes of which Ciri has never seen before (and it turns out to in fact be a magical horse) and Ciri is just entranced by this incredible and majestic horse, and smarmy dude can tell, so he makes sure to use the horse to get Ciri to interact with him even though they both know she wants nothing to do with him and only gives him the light of day to see his horse.
Anyways smarmy dude and Ciri end up running from some bandits, smarmy dude is injured but plays down how badly, and basically uses this plus gifting her the horse she’s so entranced by to manipulate and guilt her into agreeing to sleep with him (from her perspective it’s been made clear how curious but nervous she is about sex, so she’s not entirely opposed, but it’s also implied up to this point that she’s far more into women than men) and then just as she’s starting to potentially enjoy the pity sex with the asshole but before either of them can actually get their pants off, he fucking dies!
no, but she kind of wanted to… but it’s also way more fucked than that. please don’t make me type it out here. I’ll just say it involves violent rape while she’s still under age. it could be construed as a trauma response, but it’s debatable… I’m not convinced that sapkowski would have known what a trauma response was when he wrote that scene in the… 90s?
can’t actuality remember which book that happened in.
I was under the impression that it wasn’t Victorian London, but The Plague Year. IIRC she, canonically, brings a blanket infested with plague lice from here to there, and ends up dropping it next to the ship Catriona, which is how the Catriona plague actually gets started. It was one of those “oh shit, yes, that explains everything” moments for me when I first read the books.
She does also extremely briefly travel to Edwardian or Victorian London (I forget exactly what year it was). It’s mostly depicted through a newspaper clipping from The Sun and a rebuttle from another newspaper calling out their quoted witness for trespassing and strongly implying he was inebriated at the time and being an unreliable source. It’s quite comically written really
oh yeah, it’s been a while. details at foggy.
If anything, Ciri’s the character whose story is wrapped up by the end of Witcher 3, she saved the world and fulfilled her destiny. Unlike Geralt or the sorceresses, she does get old too.
It’s definitely understandable that a lot of players would feel betrayed at having Ciri becoming the MC after 3 games of Geralt. People would riot if you made someone else than Lara Croft the MC of tomb raider. A better solution would probably be a character creator for a new generation of witchers. Ciri is too powerful to be the MC.
Isn’t the good ending geralt giving her a Witcher blade and calling her an official witcher? That to me sets up part 4. End of the day im glad geralt gets a rest. Besides they’re remaking 1 and 2 so the geralt fix will come
There’s plenty of different endings, but yeah that’s probably the one they’ll make canon.
The thing is Geralt is The Witcher, making Ciri the protagonist is a bastardization of the saga. Imagine that J.K rowling came up with a new book, titled it Harry Potter 8, and made the protagonist Hermione. To me this shows a real lack of understanding of their audience, people play The Witcher for the fantasy of being Geralt, of being a monster killer, of hooking up with every sorceress. But obviously IP sells, and they aren’t gonna change the title of the saga to something like “child of the elder blood”.
I wish them the best of luck, maybe they’ll pull off a fallout 3 and reinvent themselves. But I personally will be passing on this spinoff.
I mean, I prayed to the nether gods that we’d get a Letho game. He’s the perfect protagonist if they wanted to move away from the books and more firmly into their own OC. Always had huge main character energy, and would be perfectly suited for exploring the morally grey areas of the Witcher world.
Americans telling Polish how to write their books and make their games, lol. Fuck off!
ROFL I guess these dudes want to live a power fantasy through Geralt instead of accepting the natural next step; since they are following the Witcher Books for the most part, Ciri was bound to be the lead character. I feel the Witcher 4 will be an excellent game, there’s interesting ground to cover with Ciri. The only bad thing will be if there is no first person mode, as I tend to avoid games with women as leads…I like to look at men from behind, not ladies. I hope the art team chose a design that doesn’t try to make her into a thirst trap (as that low-key makes me not want to play games with female leads).
I like to look at men from behind, not ladies.
I’m the exact opposite, but nothing wrong with your preference.
Hope you didn’t skip tomb raider
I 100% did, as the weird torture porn-esque deaths bothered me. I could’ve played if that questionable design choice wasn’t made…
The death cutscenes were absolutely gratitudous in the first entry, but honestly, if you can get past that the whole series is quite good and it’s really great storytelling and acting watching Laura arc from terrified recent college graduate put into unthinkable situations that she must find a way to survive all the way to cocky know-it-all who must literally nearly end the entire world and accidentally kill many countless innocent people to finally find hubris and actually start being a decent human being
I did watch someone else play it (they cut out a lot of the death scenes). I liked the evolution of the character, as she grew despite being put in situations that were wilder than what any normal college graduate would face in the real world. Learning from her decisions, and not being broken by them, is something that I admire about the character building of Laura. I hope any future games won’t have those gratuitous as fuck death scenes or that lead dev dude who wanted players to feel ‘protective’ over Laura (dude was a weirdo).
lead dev dude who wanted players to feel ‘protective’ over Laura (dude was a weirdo).
Oh yuck!
The good news is past the first game the death cutscenes are far less gratuitous, and honestly as long as you’ve got decent enough reactions you don’t see very many of them. The third game in particular puts a ton of effort into being respectful, including for example, actually having NPCs speak in local languages with English subtitles rather than a crowd in Mexico City all speaking English for example
That’s another detail that I loved, natural spoken language felt like an immersive choice, which served to make me feel like I was part of the game (even though I was watching someone else play). It sucks that more games don’t do this, especially if they are set in foreign places.
Got ‘The last revelation’ as a gift, those puzzle solving frustrations are etched deep down. Still far from the worsts.
I guess these dudes want to live a power fantasy through Geralt instead of accepting the natural next step;
I thought this was going to say something about looking inward or something. Like being inspired to be the best self you can.
That’s on me.
I have a friend that’s the same. She refuses ro play witcher 3 because you cant pick a female character.
I think it’s ridiculous.
This is understandable if someone has a strong gender identity. Most people don’t have much of a gender so it’s less important to them.
Could also be about your conception of what you’re doing in a game - are you being the character, or controlling them
That’s why drag personally believes all RPGs with character customisation should have gender selection unless there’s a very good reason why not. The one good exception drag has seen is Pentiment - in that game you’re a mediaeval writer who hangs out with the monks at the Abbey. That story can’t be authentic with a woman player character. But that’s a very rare situation. Even games with named main characters can have gender select. Look at Prey and Mass Effect. It’s an accessibility feature.
Been meaning to try pentiment, is it any good?
Yes.
In first person, there is no issue playing a female lead for me. I just have an issue with the common thirst trap design which has been a default design choice in games. As a gay dude, I find that sort of objectification is gross (the same is true for lead men in games. Except in the games that’s the point).
Especially when the camera does that pan to that lady lead’s ass in third person…Its not the vibe I seek when playing a game. 🙃
Any game with a leading lady that is serving cunt without the objectification I can easily play. Bayonetta is an example of one such game, she’s a force of nature, it feels as if she has a strong sense of agency. She’s not been made just for the male gaze.
i promise you’ll be able to trace her ass crack through her jeans
Thong customization.
If I can’t have stripes or polka dots this game is not worth it.
hurls a little in my mouth ROFL I hope not.
Wait, so are you the one who did this?
Maybe I spend too much time here because I knew what that was before I clicked it
ROFL Never, good looking male butts are so rare in video games… I could never do that to Astarion, as I don’t find it particularly overwhelming. I see so many guys that have occasionally well-defined cheeks in pants, it’s a feature, not a bug. This was a Kinsey Scale 2 guy who was way too uncomfortable with how often his eyes drifted to Asatrion’s rear, as that digital man has a whole bakery.
As long as they remake the original Witcher(and maybe the 2nd one too) so i can experience it in a similarly cinematic way to The Witcher 3… I will be happy and excited to see what a Ciri-based game or even trilogy would look like.
Will definitely miss the masculine indulgences of TW3 in the Ciri game though…
Ciri has a relationship with a woman in the books, so I’m not sure you will miss what I assume you’re referring to as “the masculine indulgences” as much as you think you will.
On the other hand, CDPR retconned a shedload of that book so we shall see.
They are remaking the first game, but I don’t know if there are enough details about it yet to know how extensive the overhaul will be. The second game doesn’t need one.
The second one might benefit from a remaster by the time 4 comes out, as some of the models are a bit too XBox360 era, with the strangely wide shoulders and oversized arm muscles of the time
That’s fair. I was thinking more about the overall aesthetic, as it’s a bit more stylised rather than leaning towards realism like in 1 and 3.
If you’re avoiding the first two Witcher games because they’re somehow not cinematic, you’re sorely mistaken.
Both of those games are incredibly atmospheric to the point of mastery. (tbf you have to be able to forgive the character models in the first game and that can be admittedly difficult because HOLY HELL ZOLTAN ARE YOU OKAY)
also wtf do you mean “masculine indulgences?”
Definitely not OP, but I wouldn’t mind remasters of the first game to address the wonky controls. Witcher 2 was fine, but trying to go from Witcher 3 back to Witcher 1 for the first time was not a great experience for me.
Yeah. The controls, the fighting. Even with all the patches and community stuff laid on top, it was a bit too uncomfortable to actually play through for me.
The second one was brilliant. And to this day, despite me having almost 200 hours in Witcher 3, the only Witcher game I’ve actually finished. I think second’s format was perfect. 3 is just too open and beautiful, I get lost in wandering around too easily.
