The Witcher Fleshes Out The Rats’ Story With Surprise Netflix Movie

The Witcher season 4 has arrived, which means that everyone is going to get a chance to finally weigh in on the franchise’s (bold? foolhardy?) choice to swap out its lead actor halfway through its run and whether Liam Hemsworth is capable of filling Henry Cavill’s boots. (Spoiler alert: He’s…mostly fine?)

But it turns out that season 4 isn’t the only Witcher-related property that fans have the option to stream today. Netflix also surprised everyone with the release of a new standalone film that aims to flesh out a key group of characters from the new season. The Rats: A Witcher Tale tells the story of a group of misfit young thieves who become Ciri’s (Freya Allan) surrogate family while she’s hiding out from her destiny on the fringes of Nilfgaard.

Reportedly, the project was originally conceptualized as a limited series, a la The Witcher: Blood Origin. But Netflix shut down production in 2023 before it was completed, choosing instead to stitch the existing footage together into a one-off special episode. Your mileage may vary when it comes to what you think this release strategy indicates about the final result’s likely overall quality, but the impetus to do something with these characters makes sense. Given everything else that’s going on in The Witcher season 4, Ciri’s new gang of friends are largely underdeveloped as individual characters on the flagship series, leaving the sort of narrative gap that spinoffs and prequels are naturally primed to explore. 

Set just before the group crosses paths with Ciri at the end of season 3, The Rats details the formation of their ragtag collective and their first encounter with the vicious bounty hunter Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Copley), who plays a pivotal role in their fate in the latest season of The Witcher. (The fact that they’ve met Bonhart before is referenced but not explained during season 4.) The plot revolves around a dangerous heist at a brutal fighting arena and introduces none other than Dolph Lundgren (!!!) as Brehen, a witcher from the infamous School of the Cat, whom they recruit to help them pull off their robbery. 

According to showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, The Rats is designed to tell “a story about what’s happening to the younger generation in this world, who are just trying to survive as the Continent rages with war.” And the story certainly adds some depth to these characters—who have, as is standard for this franchise, certainly seen some shit—and further context to the tragic events that befall the group in The Witcher. In fact, you should definitely not watch this film until you’ve finished season 4 because it will spoil some major plot twists from its finale.

Both The Witcher season 4 and The Rats: A Witcher Tale are now streaming on Netflix.