Step aside, Jon Snow. Geralt has arrived.
Netflix has dropped the first trailer for The Witcher, the streaming service’s long-awaited adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novels. The short video, which debuted at the 2019 edition of Comic-Con International, offers fans their first look at Henry Cavill as the title character, Geralt of Rivia, and quickly establishes the rules of The Witcher‘s monster-filled world.
As the trailer describes, elves and humans used to live in harmony in The Witcher‘s fantasy realm, known as The Continent, until the elves decided to teach humanity how to use magic — a favor that men repaid by killing the elves off. Now, monsters roam the land, and monster hunters called Witchers must take them down to keep the people safe.
In addition to Cavill’s Geralt, the trailer also features Anya Chalotra as Yennifer, a powerful sorceress and Geralt’s longtime girlfriend, and Freya Allan as Princess Ciri. From the look of things, The Witcher‘s first season will hew pretty closely to the plot summary leaked in casting notices, which claimed that the three characters will be “bound together by destiny, often against their will,” as Geralt and Yennifer realize that Ciri “might just destroy the world.”
Netflix’s series will probably draw less on the novels’ video game spinoffs, which helped transform The Witcher from a niche European fantasy series into a worldwide phenomenon. While The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt claimed many Game of the Year awards following its 2015 release, the books, which take place earlier, are the series’ primary source material.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, The Witcher producer Lauren Hissrich downplayed the show’s similarities to Game of Thrones, although she acknowledged that HBO’s megahit helped pave the way for the new series. “Game of Thrones … showed the world that fantasy wasn’t just for a niche audience and fantasy could be acceptable for everyone,” Hissrich said.
Still, it’s hard not to see some similarities between the two. Like Game of Thrones, The Witcher takes place in a dark, grimy land where humans are just as dangerous as supernatural creatures, and where prophecies and spells collide with politics and social upheaval. Still, there’s one big difference: Game of Thrones only had White Walkers, a few giants, and a trio of dragons, while The Witcher is chock-full of monsters. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.