Ciri, the second playable character in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt incredible Sign magic is nowhere to be seen. But Ciri isn't just an apprentice of Geralt of Rivia -- she's an extraordinary heroine with mysterious ghostly abilities, and a side-story with distinct quests to call her own. We've played her first few missions, and her linear, action-centric missions are a refreshing, regular change of pace from the expansive open world . Check out the debut gameplay for Ciri above, and learn more about her role from developer CDProjekt Red below.

The Witcher 3: Ciri Screenshots 2 IMAGES

"Basically, Ciri is a totally different character than Geralt," Lead Quest Designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz told IGN. "She’s inherited this very powerful magic force that she can use when she needs to. She can travel between worlds, she also [has] some more hidden powers that she can use."Tomaszkiewicz continued, "We didn’t want her to be too overpowered, so we wanted to put limitations on her. Because of that, we have decided that we will do completely different abilities for her so she doesn’t use any of Geralt’s abilities; she has her own unique combat style."CDProjekt Red is deliberately trying to defy player expectation that Ciri is a "Mary Sue" sort of character. It isn't as though "everybody likes her, that she’s good at everything and all that," Tomaszkiewicz said. "I think we will have some things that will be surprising, and she has weaknesses as well that, aside from having all these superpowers that were described in the book, she’s also a normal human being [who] feels and has needs."Throughout Wild Hunt, Geralt is trying to find long-lost people he cares about, and Ciri is one of them. Tomaszkiewicz explained, "You follow Ciri’s trail and try to discover what happened to her, what she did, and look for her. And once you discover something important and you learn a chunk of what had happened to her, you get to play this retrospection as Ciri, so that you only listen to…or instead of listening to someone telling you 'She did this and that,' you can actually relive the experience.Her quests start simple, but grow into something substantial, and seeing the consequences of Ciri's actions in an area, and then playing them out in a flashback, really gives The Witcher 3 its own storytelling identity distinct from its predecessors.For more, check out Everything You Need to Know About The Witcher 3

Mitch Dyer is an Editor at IGN. He hosts IGN Arena , a podcast about MOBAs. Talk to Mitch about Dota 2, movies, books, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch