Neither the children’s animation spinoff nor the Rats, which started filming, are available anymore.
Just a few days ago, Netflix officially announced that The Witcher would be ending after Season 5, with Season 4 just starting production. The two final seasons will be filmed back-to-back, which was already known before. One of Netflix’s endeavors with The Witcher franchise was to expand it with spinoffs. First was the very well-received The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf anime about Vesemir. Then we had The Witcher: Blood Origin live-action miniseries, which was not so well received, to put it mildly, despite putting in a pretty good shift when it comes to viewership numbers.
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep, featuring Doug Cockle as Geralt—a role he returns to from the CD Projekt Red games—will release later this year.
However, there were two more spinoffs: the kid’s Witcher series with no title and The Rats. Sources have informed us that both have been permanently shelved and are no longer relevant to Netflix.
A prequel series called The Rats focused on the Rats, the show’s titular protagonists. These are some teenagers who became involved in crime as a result of the conflict. In the last episode of Season 3, The Witcher gave them an introduction. We saw them all together that season. The prequel would go into how they got together and their pre-meeting activities with Ciri.
The cast of The Rats included Ben Radcliffe (Giselher), Christelle Elwin (Mistle), Fabian McCallum (Kayleigh), Aggy K. Adams (Iskra), Juliette Alexandra (Reef), Connor Crawford (Asse) as well as Dolph Lundgren (Brehen), Deoudone van der Merwe (Juniper), Morgan Santo (Dulcie), Stevel Marc (Lord Ridot) and more. Although Netflix never acknowledged the existence of The Rats prequel, its filming already happened in 2023. They filmed for two months with The Sandman and Shadow & Bone director Mairzee Almas in South Africa and went into post-production right after.
However, things aren’t well with The Rats.
This week, Redanian Intelligence revealed that they had only shot a portion of the whole limited series that was initially planned. After watching the trailer, Netflix made the decision not to renew The Rats for a full season or turn it into a film.
The rumour that Netflix plans to use some of the Rats footage for flashbacks in The Witcher Season 4 makes things much more intriguing. It remains to be seen if they actually accomplish it
Also gone is the children’s animated Witcher spin-off.
According to RI, the last Witcher spinoff available on Netflix is the anime Sirens of the Deep. This implies that the kids’ unnamed show that was announced in 2021 is also no more. Whether it was intended to be a typical Witcher, bloodless and subdued, or a Witcher-themed Cocomelon, we’ll probably never know. We’ll never be aware of it.
The expansive fantasy world that was envisioned only a few years ago is not the Witcher on Netflix; it is ending in the near future.
There is at least something to look forward to in spite of these cancellations. The Witcher Season 4 is now filming, and Season 5 is being scripted to start filming as soon as Season 4 is over.
Earlier this week, we attempted to contact two Netflix representatives associated with The Witcher, but they did not reply to our messages seeking comments.
As production begins, stay tuned for more news about The Witcher in the upcoming weeks!