Geralt and other Witcher characters will arrive in Lost Ark next year

Massively multiplayer fashion-brawler Lost Ark began a Witcher crossover on its Korean servers in November, but only now has Amazon Games confirmed when Geralt and pals will be arriving on western servers: January, 2023.

Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Triss, and Dandelion will all be coming to Lost Ark, with "voiceover work from the game's original actors" according to a press release from Amazon Games. It also explains their arrival will be part of an event that's only available for a limited time, which will also add an island called White Wolf's Haven. 

The island is apparently "a setting for merriment and festivals until a mysterious vortex suddenly appears, pausing the celebrations. As players investigate the source of the unexplained phenomenon, they encounter a visitor from a different time and place – Geralt of Rivia, the famed Witcher. This starts a chain of events in which the player will face the mystery of this interdimensional vortex, meeting even more visitors from another dimension along the way. In this collision between worlds, players of Lost Ark will team up with characters from The Witcher to solve a puzzle that spans time and space."

As well as the quests that players will get to take part in alongside PC Gamer's favorite gravelly videogame father figure, the event will of course add some additional fashion options to Lost Ark. "New Witcher themed cosmetics will be available in the store, and new character customization scars, Cards, Stronghold structures, Emojis (and more) await adventurers who participate in the event", Amazon says.

While the versions of the characters who will appear as NPCs in Lost Ark look pretty much like they do in The Witcher 3, the wearable Geralt and Ciri skins for PCs to buy are a little disconcerting. As you can see in one of the Korean trailers, while there are slight differences between the versions for each class, all the Geralts look quite young, clean-shaven, and handsome in an anime prettyboy kind of way. Meanwhile, the Ciri skins for nonhuman classes have pointed elvish ears for the mage or are tiny and childlike for the artist (a class currently only available in the Korean version who uses a magic paintbrush to work ink-based magic, and is basically a hobbit).

I will probably end up buying some of the weapon skins and the Kaer Morhen background art for the character screen, but I don't expect too much from the story in a promotional event. Meanwhile, Lost Ark's also getting the summoner class and endgame Brelshaza legion raid as part of a December update along with the Caliligos guardian raid, T3 hardmode cube and boss rush, a new accessory type for bracelets, and new chaos dungeons.

The Witcher has previously crossed over with over videogames, including Monster Hunter World, Soulcalibur 6, and mobile game AFK Arena. Geralt's also been spotted in a leaked trailer for Fortnite Chapter 4. He sure does get around.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.