Dandelion is coming back. The beloved bard — full name Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, better known in Polish as Jaskier — has been informally confirmed for The Witcher 4 by his longtime Polish voice actor Jacek Kopczyński, who revealed during a fan event that he has already recorded lines for CD Projekt Red’s upcoming RPG. The confirmation puts the running tally of returning Witcher characters at three, with Ciri as protagonist, Geralt confirmed to appear, and now Dandelion as the latest familiar face.
What Kopczyński Actually Said
Kopczyński made the revelation during a guest appearance at PSX Extreme Party 2026 in Warsaw on September 5, 2026. Speaking with Polish gaming journalist Dawid Muszyński at the fan event, the actor confirmed he had already recorded some Dandelion lines for The Witcher 4 — but was quick to add that it wasn’t much. The Wiedźminlandia fan site published a recap of the interview that broke the story to the wider Witcher community.
The informal nature of the panel — a fan event rather than an official CDPR press appearance — suggests Kopczyński may have shared this detail without the studio’s explicit blessing. CD Projekt Red has made no official statement on Dandelion’s involvement in The Witcher 4, and the actor’s disclosure fits the pattern of voice actors occasionally letting details slip at fan conventions before their employer’s official announcements.
Kopczyński also shared something more personal about his own uncertainty regarding the role. His own guess is that Dandelion might turn out to be a secondary character or serve a narrator function — a reasonable speculation given that in Andrzej Sapkowski’s original books, Jaskier is the chronicler of Geralt’s adventures, the bard whose songs and writings spread the witcher’s legend across the continent. That narrative framing was used to memorable effect in The Witcher 3, which uses Dandelion’s perspective to frame much of its storytelling. A similar approach with Ciri’s story isn’t hard to imagine.
As an actor, Kopczyński expressed a specific wish: he’d rather “play” Dandelion for real than have the bard hover in the background of someone else’s story. That’s a candid admission that he doesn’t yet know how significant his role will be, and that he hopes it’s more than a cameo.
What “Not Much” Actually Means
The key caveat in everything Kopczyński shared is that his description of the recorded amount as “not much” is ambiguous in both directions. It could mean Dandelion’s involvement in The Witcher 4 is limited to a brief appearance or a small handful of scenes. But it could also simply mean that Kopczyński’s recording sessions are incomplete — that he’s done an early pass on some lines while the bulk of his work is still ahead of him.
The Wiedźminlandia recap notably does not confirm whether Kopczyński expects to return to the recording booth for additional Witcher 4 sessions. What it does clarify is that his limited Witcher 4 recording was not done as part of any Songs of the Past work — Kopczyński separately mentioned he has not yet recorded his part for The Witcher 3’s upcoming Songs of the Past expansion and is still waiting to be invited to the studio for that project. These are two separate recording situations.
There’s also a heartfelt moment from the event worth noting. When an audience member asked whether he’d like to record a song for Dandelion comparable to “Wolven Storm” — the iconic performance from The Witcher 3 — Kopczyński said he loves singing and would gladly do it, but wasn’t sure anyone would want to hear it. Given how beloved that scene remains in the Witcher community, that answer is going to generate its own fan response.
Who Is Dandelion and Why Does He Matter?
For anyone who came to the Witcher series through the games rather than Sapkowski’s original novels, Dandelion can feel like comic relief — the cheerful, womanizing bard who gets Geralt into trouble and narrates his way out of it. In the books, he’s considerably more than that: one of Geralt’s oldest and most genuine friendships, a character with his own arc and emotional weight that spans the entire saga.
In CD Projekt Red’s games, Dandelion has appeared in all three mainline entries. His relationship with Geralt is one of the warmest things in a franchise that doesn’t always do warmth easily. The Witcher 3 in particular uses him as a narrative device with great effect — the bard’s tavern, the Hearts of Stone expansion’s framing, his own Blood and Wine subplot — and his voice and personality have become deeply tied to how players experience that world.
Kopczyński has voiced the character in Polish since the original 2007 game — a continuous run of nearly two decades across three full games and now a fourth in development. That kind of consistency in voice casting is rare in gaming, and it gives the character a continuity of identity in his home language that few game characters manage.
It’s also worth noting for Netflix Witcher fans: Joey Batey, who portrays Jaskier in the live-action series, is a separate performance from Kopczyński’s game portrayal. The game and show versions of the character are voiced and performed by different people for different audiences, and it’s the game lineage — Kopczyński’s version — that is being carried into The Witcher 4.
The Witcher 4’s Confirmed Returning Cast So Far
With Kopczyński’s informal confirmation, the known returning character list for The Witcher 4 now stands at three:
- Ciri — Confirmed protagonist, taking the lead role from Geralt for the first time in a mainline Witcher game
- Geralt of Rivia — Confirmed to appear, though not as the primary player character; his exact role and the extent of his involvement remain unspecified
- Dandelion / Jaskier — Now informally confirmed via Kopczyński’s panel comments, with lines already recorded but scope unknown
The transition to Ciri as protagonist creates interesting narrative territory for all three of these characters. Dandelion’s ties have historically been to Geralt — they’re among the oldest and most consistent friendships in the entire franchise. His relationship with Ciri is present but considerably less central in the existing material. How CDPR builds Dandelion’s connection to Ciri’s story, and how much of his role involves reflecting on or connecting to Geralt’s legacy, will be one of the more interesting creative decisions the studio navigates.
The Songs of the Past Expansion Context
The timing of this revelation carries an additional layer. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s upcoming Songs of the Past expansion — a new DLC for the remastered version of the game — is built around Dandelion as its central character. Kopczyński confirmed at PSX Extreme Party that he hasn’t yet recorded his part for that expansion either and is waiting to be invited to the studio.
This means Kopczyński is facing an unusual period for Dandelion: he’s already done some preliminary work for The Witcher 4, a game targeting 2028, while simultaneously waiting to record the expansion for a game from 2015. Songs of the Past is expected sometime in 2027, putting it well ahead of The Witcher 4’s release window.
That the Songs of the Past expansion centers specifically on Dandelion — an expansion for a decade-old game given new life through the remaster — suggests CDPR has a conscious strategy of keeping the character prominent in players’ minds leading into The Witcher 4’s eventual release. Getting players emotionally reengaged with Dandelion through a new story expansion in 2027, and then bringing him back in some capacity in the fourth game in 2028, is a reasonable way to bridge the two eras of the franchise.
What This Tells Us About The Witcher 4’s Development Stage
The fact that voice recording has already started — even if only a small amount — tells us something meaningful about where The Witcher 4 sits in development. Studios typically don’t start recording character dialogue until the game’s script is far enough along to know what those characters will say. Early mocap and voice passes often happen well before a game’s final release, sometimes years ahead of launch for major productions.
CDPR is targeting a 2028 release for The Witcher 4. With recording beginning in at least a preliminary capacity in 2026, that’s roughly a two-year lead on final delivery — consistent with the kind of production timeline you’d expect for a project of this scale. It’s also consistent with how CD Projekt Red approached The Witcher 3, which had extensive mocap and voice work completed well before its 2015 launch.
None of this changes what Kopczyński said about not knowing much about his own role or the extent of his involvement. But it does confirm that The Witcher 4 is far enough along in its production pipeline that at least some character recording is happening — which is its own kind of progress signal for a game that won’t be out for another two years. The broader RPG space is having quite a year already: Blood of Dawnwalker’s one million copy milestone from ex-Witcher devs at Rebel Wolves shows just how much appetite exists for this genre right now, making Dandelion’s Witcher 4 return even more hotly anticipated by the community.
