"If I did know, I wouldn't tell you!" Doug Cockle talks Geralt's return in The Witcher 4

In November 2025, the Radio Times Gaming team popped along to Target3D’s motion-capture studio in East London for an in-depth tour of how actors bring characters to life in games, with industry heavyweights Jennifer English, Samantha Béart, Luisa Guerreira and Doug Cockle to show us the ropes.

We already have an overview of the event and a group interview in full to watch on the Radio Times Gaming YouTube channel, so be sure to check those out too!

Not only that, but we got to sit down for a one-on-one chat with each of them, too, with Doug Cockle, voice of Geralt in The Witcher games, being the first to come out. Check out the full video above or on YouTube.

With such a storied career, we were curious to know where and how it all began, and it turns out, it was almost by complete accident.

"When I was growing up, video games didn't have voices in them," Cockle tells us, reminiscing that it was just "Donkey Kong and Pac-Man and things like that".

He adds that the thought that a game could be "so narratively focused that they have fully fledged, three-dimensional characters was just not something I ever thought about when I was training as an actor". But in short order, Cockle tells us the "whole video game world just opened up in front of me".

Every actor has to get their start somewhere, and for Cockle, it was Cal, the lead in Infogrames' 2001 Space game, Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos.

"When I was starting out, they didn't have performance capture classes or motion capture workshops or things like that," Cockle recalls, adding that everything he learned was "on the job".

"Nowadays, you can take workshops and, you know, do a weekend and learn how to do a T-pose or an A-pose or whatever," Cockle explains, for any would-be actors getting into the biz.

Cockle has a career outside of games too, having been involved in film, television and theatre projects, but when it comes to performance capture, Cockle reveals that "what I find wonderful about it is it's like being in a play", adding that "when you're on screen, in front of a camera, it feels different because, at least to a certain extent, you have to limit how much you move. You have specific marks you need to hit for the focus pullers and for the narrative and for everything else."

Whilst some of these same rules apply to performance capture, Cockle reckons that "it feels different, it feels more like theatre", explaining that "there's a bit more freedom because the cameras are everywhere and they're all watching. You don’t have to worry about where your eyeline is... you can just get on with the job of doing what you're doing."

Though Cockle learned performance-capture on set, he didn’t go in completely blind, as his background in theatre afforded him the skills necessary. "I've done movement and voice and all those things, classical acting, all of that, which is actually really, really good preparation for doing this kind of work, for doing motion capture and performance capture. It's all the same kind of skills."

Still, there are some things that Cockle’s training didn’t prepare him for. When asked what the weirdest thing he’s ever done was, Cockle tells us that he had a 3D scan of his mouth and teeth done for Nightingale in Alan Wake 2.

"I went to this dentist's office somewhere near Liverpool Street, and went in, and they sat me in this chair, and they had these things they put in my mouth, and they did a full three-dimensional digital scan of my teeth and my mouth, my lips and my everything," Cockle regales us.

As for why?

"No idea."

On the topic of Remedy Entertainment’s 2023 survival horror game, Cockle explains that he hasn’t played it yet, but that he is "meaning to get around to it", adding that "part of the issue for me is time" – the unstoppable force that plagues gamers worldwide.

Still, Cockle squeezes in what he can. "I've been playing Little Kitty Big City on my Steam Deck, and I could only ever manage to gather about half an hour of time."

Doug assures us that he’s "played The Witcher 3 all the way through", but concedes that he is "still working on the DLCs", as he tells us that "it took me six months to get through it all, for all the reasons we talked about... So I abandoned my children for Saturday afternoons for six months so that I can play The Witcher 3.

"I've put in about 180 hours, but I'm a really careful player. I look in every nook and cranny for every little bit of treasure. I go through things really carefully. I worry about dying. I'm not one of those players who just crashes through everything and, you know, manages to survive somehow," Cockle explains.

But, how is it to listen to yourself in a game for hundreds of hours?

"It's cool. It's really cool. And I often get asked the question, you know, is it weird to hear your voice coming out of the character on screen? And it is, at first, quite often, but then you get used to it," Cockle explains, adding that the ‘weirdest thing, especially with Witcher 3… is that sometimes you're playing the game… you forget that it's your voice, because you're interested in the character and what they're doing."

"But occasionally," Cockle says, "I remember Geralt would say something, and just a little piece of me would go, 'Oh, I could have done that better. That didn't sound quite right,' but that's me judging my own work."

And whilst it is cool for Cockle, one could be forgiven for thinking that it may be an odd experience for friends and family, but not so, as Cockle explains: "My dad, bless him. My dad, every once in a while... wanders into a Gamestop, picks up a copy of The Witcher 3 and takes it up to the desk.

"He says, “Hey, would you like to meet Geralt's father?' And they're like, 'Oh, who Vesemir?' He goes, 'No, Geralt's real father...' And he says, 'Yeah, my son is Geralt of Rivia.'"

Cockle reckons his dad does it when he wants a "little extra attention".

The Witcher has grown beyond the original books and games, however, with four seasons from Netflix now added to the roster. Cockle too is a fan, telling us: "What I love about the TV series is that I've met so many people who came to the games through the TV series."

But, as for what the future holds for Geralt in The Witcher 4, Cockle is steadfast, saying "You know, the honest answer is, I don't know. And if I did know, I wouldn't tell you."

Cockle can read between the lines though, saying that "we do know [that] Geralt is coming back in The Witcher 4, but we don't know in what capacity," but notes that if protagonist Ciri is older, then so too is Geralt, adding that "I can only make pure guesses, and I'm not going to do that".

With The Witcher having played such a large part of his life, Cockle finds that when it comes to being Geralt, he says he "just falls into it, so much so that I actually walk around the house, and I sometimes find myself saying things like, 'Damn, I gotta do those dishes. Where are those socks? I swear I had those socks a minute ago.'"

All said, Doug Cockle feels as if "Geralt is just kind of a part of me now".

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