Many people were surprised to learn that the third season of The Witcher, which only just dropped on Netflix, consists of five episodes as opposed to the usual eight. But before bringing out the pitchforks, you should know that the streaming mogul hasn’t suddenly decided to make fewer episodes of their extremely popular fantasy series.
The new batch of episodes has only been out for a day, but some diehard fans have already burned through them and are expecting more, especially since that last hour leaves us on a bit of a cliffhanger. Well, fear not, because the remainder of season 3 is still on the horizon. It might just take a few weeks to get here.
Does The Witcher season 3 only consist of 5 episodes?
It seems that showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich and her team have decided to split The Witcher season 3 into two parts, much like the producers of Stranger Things did before them. Officially dubbed Volume 1, this first part includes the first five episodes, starting with “Shaerrawedd” and ending with “The Art of Illusion.”
Volume 2 will pick up the story a month from now on July 27 with the remaining three episodes presumably bringing the events of the fourth book, Time of Contempt, to an end.
The reason Stranger Things split season 4 into two parts was due to its absurdly lengthy runtime and some leftover post-production work, but according to producers Steve Gaub and Tomek Baginski, The Witcher following suit had more to do with the experience of fan reception Netflix received last year and how well it would tie to their plans for season 3.
Sure, we all would’ve loved to see how this chapter of the story ends, but since this will be Henry Cavill’s last season as Geralt of Rivia, perhaps a little delay will help the fandom cope with this sudden and, as of yet, unexplained departure.