Key Takeaways
- The Witcher 4 will be “better, bigger, greater” than The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a senior CDPR official said.
- CDPR has a new development oversight process in place for The Witcher 4, which aims to ensure the game has a much smoother launch than Cyberpunk 2077.
- CDPR moved to Unreal Engine 5 because doing so makes it easier to share technology and expertise across teams, which is key to its recent transformation from a single-project studio to one juggling multiple projects.
The Witcher 4 will be “better, bigger, greater” than its predecessor, a senior CD Projekt Red official has said. This remark was offered as part of a wider overview of the company’s approach to the upcoming game’s development, which also elaborated on CDPR’s decision to use Unreal Engine 5 for the next The Witcher game.
Project Polaris, unofficially dubbed The Witcher 4, was first confirmed to be in pre-production in March 2022. CDPR later revealed that the fourth mainline The Witcher game entered full-scale production as of November 2024.
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Although precious little has been revealed about Project Polaris so far, CDPR VP of Technology Charles Tremblay has recently shared a few new tidbits about the upcoming title. Speaking to Eurogamer, the industry veteran said that Project Polaris will be “better, bigger, greater” than both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. This statement was meant to illustrate that CDPR is still as ambitious as ever when it comes to pushing the boundaries of big-budget RPGs, even though that pursuit proved to be expensive the last time around, contributing to the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077 that cost the studio over $125 million to fix.
CDPR Is Using a New Oversight Process for The Witcher 4
One of the ways in which CDPR is trying to ensure that The Witcher 4 launch goes a lot smoother is by using a revised oversight process with more checks and guardrails. Tremblay is the central figure in the new setup, which involves him communicating with game directors across CDPR’s different teams during pre-production, reviewing their progress, and ultimately making recommendations to the company’s leadership about whether any given studio is ready to proceed to full-scale production. If the team is deemed not ready, its project gets delayed, which can result in longer pre-production phases than what CDPR historically practiced.
The Witcher 4 Uses Unreal Engine 5 Because CDPR Is No Longer a 1-Project Studio
Elsewhere during the interview, Tremblay touched upon the studio’s decision to move from its proprietary RED Engine to Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4. According to him, this was a purely practical move, rooted in a desire to transform CDPR from a single-project developer to one capable of making multiple games at once. Moving to Unreal Engine 5, which will also be utilized for the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, aligns with this ambition, as Epic’s engine makes it easier to share technology and expertise between projects, Tremblay explained.
The second entry in the Cyberpunk series, code-named Project Orion, is still in pre-production as of late 2024. The game is hence planned to hit the market after The Witcher 4, which itself is still without an official release window.
The Witcher
The Witcher is a 3D action RPG series developed by CD Projekt Red featuring the exploits of Geralt of Rivia. Steeped in fantasy, The Witcher series is based on the books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.