The Witcher 3 Voice Actor Says Geralt Was Meant to Have No Emotion, and He Disagreed

Doug Cockle says he had to push back when CD Projekt Red kept urging him to make Geralt sound less emotional in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. In an interview with Tom's Guide, the actor said the request came up repeatedly, even though he never accepted the idea that Geralt had no feelings at all.

Cockle said that when he first voiced Geralt, he had not read The Witcher books or seen the Polish TV adaptation, so he was relying entirely on what the developers told him. According to him, those instructions painted Geralt as someone stripped of emotion by the mutations that turned him into a witcher.

The actor argued that a character with no emotions would be difficult for players to connect with. He also pointed to Geralt's choices around Ciri as proof that the character could not be completely empty inside: if Geralt had no emotions, Cockle said, he would not make those decisions.

Cockle added that he believes CD Projekt Red later grew more confident in portraying Geralt as emotional, but restrained. In his view, the writers eventually settled on a version of the character who feels things deeply, even if he rarely lets them show.

So Geralt could have sounded very different at the start of the series, but Cockle's pushback helped shape the voice fans know today. Do you prefer a colder Geralt, or the more restrained emotional version Cockle describes?