After a very long wait for fans, Netflix’s The Witcher will return for its second season next week. Advance reviews indicate it’s been worth the delay, with the consensus that the show is more confident, has a stronger sense of purpose, and that it’s a grand and serious story — which all sounds awesome.
Along the way, all the characters have undergone some visual tweaks. One of the most impressive is Henry Cavill’s Geralt, who we will see putting together a new set of Witcher armor. A lot of thought went into this look, with Cavill working with costume designer Lucinda Wright to make sure it’s both visually appealing and easy to act in.
In a new interview with Netflix, Cavill explained the new costume will give him a better range of motion and result in more dynamic action:
“It’s a new look, and the redesign has made it a lot easier for me to move and fight. I helped to design [it] with our wonderful costume designer, Lucinda Wright, and we put a lot of work into it in quite a short space of time.”
Cavill also revealed that we’ll see the origin of the new armor on screen, with it being formed out of pieces Geralt finds in the abandoned basements of Kaer Morhen:
“Geralt had to find new armor, but he hadn’t had the opportunity to stop anywhere to buy armor or make it, so he delved into the dungeons of Kaer Morhen and found something very old and from a different era, but still serviceable.”
We recently learned that Cavill has some experience in designing and creating armor, as on a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, he waxed lyrical about his passion for Warhammer and in a refreshingly open display of geekdom said he loves painting the figurines and taking them into battle. So, if Cavill is involved in this design it should be something special.
All eight episodes of The Witcher‘s second season hit Netflix on Dec. 17, so set aside time next weekend to get back into this grimy, brutal, but fascinating fantasy world.