In the world of entertainment there are stories that are real sliding doors, like the one that would have led us not to have Doug Cockle as the voice of Geralt in The Witcher, from a certain point onwards.\r\nThe historic voice actor of Geralt of Rivia recently talked about how, during the development of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, CD Projekt Red had initially considered replacing him in the role (via Redanian Intelligence).\r\nCockle says he discovered it thanks to a colleague of his. While the voice actor was working as an acting teacher, he apparently called him on the phone to tell him that he had auditioned for the role of Geralt.\r\nThis emerged with some astonishment even from Cockle’s colleague himself: «I just auditioned for Geralt of Rivia, but aren’t you his voice?” he asked during the phone call in question. Immediately afterwards, Cockle contacted CD Projekt Red to understand what was happening and asked to be considered again for the role. CD Projekt Red’s response arrived shortly after: «They said that the vocal director had listened to my work again from The Witcher 1 and they wanted me to come back.»\r\nWhy, however, was there this initial rethinking on the part of CD Projekt Red? The answer always comes from Cockle, and it is very interesting.\r\nApparently the development team was rethinking the project for the second chapter of the The Witcher video game saga from scratch (you can find it on Amazon), including the tone and interpretation of Geralt.\r\n”It’s easy to internalize certain news and think you’ve done something wrong, when maybe that’s not the case,” confesses Cockle thinking back to the event.\r\nWe’ll see if Cockle will also return in The Witcher 4, given that Geralt’s character is confirmed even if we don’t know exactly how.\r\nThis story also makes us reflect with a certain anxiety regarding the use of artificial intelligence in the world of dubbing. Will the voices of the most iconic characters be sampled one day? Will there still be a need for voice actors? Cockle himself had expressed his opinion on this matter some time ago: here you can find his statements.