Eh, I'm of two minds with the Ciri stuff.
On one hand, she was trained by Geralt, whose entire demeanor is big badass with a soft voice and several big sticks. She's going to carry that arrogance (especially as a continuation of the same story) and it's likely she would act in a similar manner, but with her own quirks as evidenced by previous games. Hence, you get overly confident and "oh shit, I fucked up" kind of reactions from her to things she takes for granted, which is a lot because she was trained by Geralt, who fucked up a lot while still being a badass.
I get it.
On the other hand, without the entire "witchers are basically drug enhanced humans" angle behind it, her being a witcher is laughable at absolute best. It's a common problem with video game artists in the modern era. They try to make 120lb broads the equivalent of 240lb jacked dudes in most situations, and it rings (correctly) absolutely false for the majority of the playerbase. Not that I want a super butch lady as a protagonist, but she should be huge lesbian levels of jacked if she has been constantly swinging swords around for years. Her being built like a barista at a local coffee shop just comes off as... retarded. Who cares about her face; she's literally not physically descriptive for the role she is playing. Or for the backstory. Or for what she is being shoehorned into doing.
She's just not believable, even in a fantasy world.
For medieval fantasy Ciri wouldn't need to be changed all that much to get her more believable (make her taller). The biggest problem I have with it is the lore they have set up does not jive with a women being a Witcher. Retcons are always jarring and will take some getting used to, if you are a lorefag of an IP.
From a historical perspective, long swords with lengths like the ones Geralt wields are around 3 pounds, balanced to put the center of weight on the top hand. I don't remember what they did for the third game, but in the first two games they brought in HEMA (Historical European Martial Artists) sword experts to model Geralt's fighting. Now real HEMA is very short and brutal, so it would be boring for a game that is not built around it (like Ghost of Toshima), but they can still make it look more believable by using it as a base. Wielding the longsword sword, according to the HEMA guy I just watched (linked below), is more about skill, leverage, and the conditions where the fight take place, over strength.
The vast majority of historical knights would have been below 6ft tall and probably 170 to 180 pounds. Even today, a majority of our best warriors (special forces operators) are not hulking beasts, but normal looking dudes that are just in optimal shape for their size (probably 200lbs or less, not steroid body builders). So if they made her 6'2 or 6'3 they could bring her up to 150lbs+, which would make it more historical plausible (if that's your thing, increasing immersion).
Best examples I can think of are going to be, of course, Game of Thrones Bronn being a little taller than an average size of a knight and Brienne being the size of a more believable Ciri. I have seen plenty of more attractive woman than Gwendoline Christie around her height, so it's not like they would need to make Ciri the exact same build, just tall enough to give her more muscle weight. Both Geralt and Ciri use leather armor in the lore (afaik), so it's not like she needs the extra strength for plate.
That said, if it was real life, I would still bet that a man would have at least a 90% win rate over a woman, if both were highly trained, even with the setup above. Luckily this is a fantasy land with magic and that goes a long way in keeping up my suspension of disbelief. Which circles around to the lore. Making what the writing team comes up with crucial, for how immersive the Witcher 4 is.
Here is a HEMA guy talking about HEMA and going through some common misconceptions. I think the video is a bit mistitled as it's just him talking, so don't expect any sparring/demonstrations (like I did):
www.gamesradar.com
www.eurogamer.net
