With the release of the latest book in The Witcher series, fans have finally found out how old Geralt is, and it turns out he should be spending less time slaying wraiths and rotfiends and more time thinking about his pension.
For most of The Witchers’ history, it hasn’t actually ever been specified how old Geralt is. Sure, he has the silver locks of an older gentleman, but his monster-slaying abilities don’t exactly scream sexagenarian. But in Rozdroże kruków (“Crossroads of Ravens in English), the newly released ninth book in the series, we learn that Geralt was born in 1173, making him a respectable 61 years old by the time of The Witcher 3.
In a Reddit post from u/joa_08, many fans remarked on how differently they had estimated Geralt’s age. Some, like u/iwenyani, imagined Geralt to be “in his mid-50s”, while others viewed him as closer to 100 thanks to a piece of dialogue from Vesemir in The Witcher 3. For others, the biggest surprise was not Geralt’s age, but the fact that this revelation means Yennefer is nearly 40 years older than him.
With the book’s release almost coinciding with the reveal that Ciri will be taking over as the protagonist of The Witcher 4, it’s perhaps not surprising that Geralt is stepping down from main character duties, with any major time skip from the events of The Witcher 3 potentially putting him in his seventies.
That being said, developer CD Projekt Red has already confirmed that it was the plan all along for Ciri to become the series protagonist, with story director Tomasz Marchewka explaining that “from the very beginning we knew it had to be Ciri – she’s a very complex character, and there is so much to be told about here.”
If you’re excited for the next adventure in the series, be sure to check out everything we know about The Witcher 4.
