The Last Wish first
Short stories before novels; save the later standalones until the saga is complete.
Enter the Witcher universe
Follow Geralt
Keep every world distinct.
Map 46 published, released or officially announced works across Sapkowski’s books, CD Projekt Red’s licensed continuation, Netflix, Polish screen and the original Polish comics.
Last editorial check
Universe orientation
Five official continuities. No single canon that can contain them.
The quick answer
Read The Last Wish first, then Sword of Destiny and the five-book saga. Treat the games as a licensed sequel, Netflix as its own adaptation and the Polish screen and comic works as separate official continuities.
You land on the full chronology. Switch to release order—or turn on Starter Mode only when you need a shorter run.Universe explored
The Witcher universe, story by story
There is no honest single Witcher canon. The full map therefore keeps five licensed continuities visible, including the game sequence that continues a book ending its author deliberately leaves ambiguous.
Story chronology · Full mapped list
The records run as one numbered chronology. Each licensed telling keeps its continuity label, book-era dates remain approximate, and recommended reading order is not always the same as in-world chronology.
Showing 42 of 42 released stories.
- Short storyCanon unclearStanding unclear
"The Road with No Return"
Sapkowski's proto-Witcher story. Features Visenna — later established as Geralt's mother — but Geralt does not appear. Sapkowski's own view of its canonicity has varied.
- NovelCanon
Crossroads of Ravens
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonGeralt at eighteen, freshly out of Kaer Morhen and bad at everything. The newest Witcher book and chronologically the earliest.
- Short story collection (7 stories)Canon
The Last Wish
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonThe entry point. Frame narrative at the Temple of Melitele. Contains "The Witcher," "A Grain of Truth," "The Lesser Evil," "A Question of Price," "The Edge of the World," "The Last Wish." Introduces Yennefer, Dandelion/Jaskier, Nivellen, Renfri.
- NovelCanon
Season of Storms
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonStandalone, set between stories inside The Last Wish — specifically before the story "The Last Wish" itself. Read it after finishing the whole saga, not chronologically; it assumes you know these characters.
- Short story collection (6 stories)Canon
Sword of Destiny
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanon"The Bounds of Reason," "A Shard of Ice," "Eternal Flame," "A Little Sacrifice," "Sword of Destiny," "Something More." Geralt meets Ciri. The direct set-up for the entire saga; skipping it breaks Blood of Elves.
- Novel (Saga 1)Canon
Blood of Elves
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonThe five-book saga begins. Ciri at Kaer Morhen.
- Novel (Saga 2)Canon
Time of Contempt
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonThanedd. The Continent breaks.
- Novel (Saga 3)Canon
Baptism of Fire
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonGeralt assembles the company — Milva, Regis, Cahir, Angoulême. The best-liked book in the saga.
- Novel (Saga 4)Canon
The Tower of the Swallow
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonCiri and the Rats. Structurally the most experimental.
- Novel (Saga 5)Canon
The Lady of the Lake
ReadBook / comic↗Search Open Library — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonListenAudiobook / audio↗Search Audible — edition not verified · Opens search resultsCanonThe saga's conclusion. Arthurian frame; deliberately ambiguous ending — the ambiguity is what allows the games to exist.
- Short storyAlternate continuity
"Something Ends, Something Begins"
Explicitly apocryphal. Sapkowski wrote it as a gift for friends' wedding: Geralt and Yennefer marry and live. He has repeatedly stated it is not canon. A rare author-declared alternate ending.
- Reference / lore bookCanon
The World of the Witcher
Dark Horse. Game-continuity, not book-continuity — a common misfiling. Excellent, but it documents CD Projekt Red's Continent.
- AR mobileCanonUnavailable / delisted
The Witcher: Monster Slayer
Prequel setting. Servers shut down 2023 — unrecoverable.
- Narrative RPG / card battlerCanon
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales
Queen Meve of Lyria during Nilfgaard's second invasion. Runs parallel to the novels, not after them — the only game that does. Genuinely excellent and almost universally skipped.
- Action RPGCanon
The Witcher
Geralt returns with no memory. Dated, awkward, tonally distinctive; a remake is in development. The Salamandra plot matters less than the political groundwork it lays.
- Action RPGCanon
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
Direct sequel. Branching so severe that Act II is effectively two different games. The most politically dense entry.
- Comic (Dark Horse, 5 issues)Canon
The Witcher: House of Glass
Paul Tobin. First Dark Horse series.
- Comic (Dark Horse, 5 issues)Canon
The Witcher: Fox Children
Adapts a Witcher 3 side quest into a standalone story.
- Open-world RPGCanon
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Geralt searching for Ciri. The most acclaimed game of its generation and the reason 90% of the audience knows this franchise at all. ~50 hours base.
- ExpansionCanon
The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone
Olgierd von Everec and Gaunter O'Dimm. ~10 hours. Frequently called the best writing in the series, books included.
- ExpansionCanon
The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
Toussaint. ~30 hours; a full game in scope. The actual ending of Geralt's story — the base game's ending is not the finale.
- Comic (Dark Horse, 5 issues)Canon
The Witcher: Curse of Crows
Geralt and Ciri after Wild Hunt.
- Comic (Dark Horse, 4 issues)Canon
The Witcher: Of Flesh and Flame
Geralt in Ofir.
- Digital card gameCanon
Gwent: The Witcher Card Game
Standalone spin-off of the Witcher 3 minigame. Includes narrative campaigns. Still running.
- Comic (Dark Horse)Canon
The Witcher: Corvo Bianco
Geralt's Toussaint retirement.
- Manga-style graphic novelAlternate continuity
The Witcher: Ronin
Rafał Jaki. Edo-period Japan reimagining. Deliberately non-canon — an alternate-setting retelling, not a continuity entry.
- Comic (Dark Horse, 4 issues)Canon
The Witcher: Fading Memories
Geralt faces a world where monster work is disappearing and a contract that turns memory, grief and survival against one another.
- Comic (Dark Horse, 4 issues)Canon
The Witcher: Witch's Lament
A witch hunt pulls Geralt into an accusation shaped by fear, persecution and one of his own unresolved failures.
- Comic (Dark Horse)Canon
The Witcher: Wild Animals
An attack leaves Geralt in unfamiliar territory, where the line between dangerous animals and dangerous people becomes difficult to defend.
- Board gameCanon
The Witcher: Old World
CD Projekt-licensed tabletop. Set generations before Geralt, when witcher schools were numerous. Genuine original lore.
- Tabletop RPGCanon
The Witcher TRPG
R. Talsorian Games.
- Live-action miniseries (4 eps)Adaptation continuity
The Witcher: Blood Origin
The Conjunction of the Spheres and the first witcher. Netflix-original lore with no book source. Poorly received; nevertheless canonical within this lane.
- Animated film (83 min)Adaptation continuity
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
Vesemir's youth and the sacking of Kaer Morhen. Studio Mir. The best-regarded thing Netflix has made in this universe, and largely original.
- Live-action series (8 eps)Adaptation continuity
The Witcher Season 1
Adapts The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny. The non-linear structure — Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri in three different decades — is unsignposted and the single most common source of viewer confusion.
- Animated film (91 min)Adaptation continuity
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep
Adapts the short story "A Little Sacrifice." Doug Cockle — Geralt's voice in all three games — voices Geralt here, in the Netflix continuity, while Anya Chalotra and Joey Batey reprise from live action. A deliberate cross-lane casting choice that confuses continuity discussions constantly.
- Live-action series (8 eps)Adaptation continuity
The Witcher Season 2
Loosely adapts Blood of Elves. Divergence from the books becomes substantial here.
- Live-action series (8 eps)Adaptation continuity
The Witcher Season 3
Time of Contempt; Thanedd. Henry Cavill's final season, released in two volumes.
- Live-action series (8 eps)Adaptation continuity
The Witcher Season 4
Liam Hemsworth replaces Henry Cavill as Geralt, with no in-fiction explanation. Adapts Baptism of Fire territory.
- Live-action special (80 min)Adaptation continuity
The Rats: A Witcher Tale
Origin of the Rats gang from The Tower of the Swallow. Originally commissioned as a miniseries, cancelled, then condensed into a special and released with no announcement alongside Season 4. Netflix's own guidance is to watch it after all eight S4 episodes.
- Feature filmAdaptation continuity
Wiedźmin
Michał Żebrowski as Geralt. Critically savaged in Poland; Sapkowski has been scathing about it.
- TV series (13 eps)Adaptation continuity
The Hexer (Wiedźmin)
The same production, expanded. The film was effectively a truncated recut of this material. Adapts the short stories with heavy changes. Almost impossible to watch legally outside Poland.
- ComicsAdaptation continuity
Wiedźmin comic series (6 volumes)
Maciej Parowski (script) and Bogusław Polch (art), with Sapkowski's involvement. Volumes: Droga bez powrotu, Geralt, Mniejsze zło, Ostatnie życzenie, Granica możliwości, Zdrada. The first Witcher adaptation of any kind. Contains original material not in the books, including a substantially different Geralt origin. Untranslated, out of print.
Not part of the checklist
Announced and unreleased
These records are tracked for context but are excluded from chronology numbers, filters and progress until release.
- The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past29 Sept 2026Upcoming — 29 Sept 2026
- The Witcher 1 Remake ("Canis Majoris")TBAUpcoming — date TBA
- The Witcher 4TBAUpcoming — date TBA
- The Witcher Season 5TBAUpcoming — date TBA
Useful ways through
Chronology is a map. This is where to begin.
The full list is for reference. These shorter routes preserve the reveals and relationships that make the universe work.
Wild Hunt works as an entry
The earlier games add context, while the books add much more.
Keep Netflix separate
Its seasons and animated films share their own adaptation continuity.
One title, all its doors
Pick the version that fits your evening.
When a story has researched editions or adaptations, those routes stay together. Some universes currently have richer version coverage than others; each page’s coverage note states the boundary.
See how stories are organised →Receipts, not vibes
Where this map gets its bearings.
Official franchise, creator and publisher sources anchor the chronology. When those sources disagree—or stay suspiciously quiet—we say so instead of inventing certainty.
Spot a missing branch?
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