News recently broke about CD Projekt Red’s plans for The Witcher 4‘s release window. Specifically, an earnings call from the developer revealed that the highly anticipated Wild Hunt sequel wouldn’t launch until at least 2027, and while CDPR hasn’t ruled out a launch window of 2028 or later, 2027 seems like a fair guess, at least for now. After all, the company revealed the game last year, and it no doubt wishes to avoid another lengthy gap between reveal and release in the wake of Cyberpunk 2077.
This could make The Witcher 4 coincide with yet another hotly anticipated fantasy RPG: The Elder Scrolls 6. Bethesda’s long-awaited Skyrim sequel was revealed all the way back in 2018, in a move that is being increasingly viewed as frustrating and bizarre as time goes on; audiences have not seen hair nor hide of TES 6 in nearly seven years. Now that Starfield is out of the way, many assume that Bethesda will be cruising at full speed toward an Elder Scrolls 6 release, and 2027 seems like a reasonable guess: 2028 will mark ten years since the game’s flaccid E3 reveal, so it’s probable that Bethesda will want to beat that anniversary.
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2027 Could Be a Major Throwback Year for Fantasy RPGs
The impact that The Witcher 3 and Skyrim had on the gaming landscape during the 2010s can’t be overstated. In 2011, few had experienced a world as vast and multilayered as Skyrim‘s, and even those familiar with previous Elder Scrolls games were floored by its stellar quest design, organic exploration, and, quite frankly, impeccable vibe: Skyrim‘s soundtrack is still as iconic as ever. Four years later, The Witcher 3 arrived, offering a very different sort of fantasy experience, but one that was no less revolutionary. Despite their differences and four-year gap, The Witcher 3 was initially viewed as a Skyrim competitor, so ubiquitous was the latter’s chokehold on the fantasy RPG genre.
Even if The Witcher 4 and The Elder Scrolls 6 don’t release in the same year, it’s looking increasingly likely that they will both arrive sometime in the late 2020s, mirroring this older rivalry. Of course, one can expect these games to be distinct from their predecessors in meaningful ways, informed by the games each developer has released in the interim, perhaps even by other popular fantasy RPGs of the past few years as well. But the dynamic of competition will likely still exist, which will be interesting to behold.
Context Matters for The Elder Scrolls 6 and The Witcher 4’s Presumed Competition
For better or worse, these games will be compared to one another, just like how The Witcher 3 was relentlessly compared to Skyrim at the time of its release. But things are fundamentally different now: The Witcher 3 was something of a newcomer to the mainstream gaming space, challenging the Goliath that was The Elder Scrolls at that time. But with the larger-than-life legacy of The Witcher 3, not to mention the now-redeemed Cyberpunk 2077, The Elder Scrolls 6 may be the one challenging The Witcher 4.
At the risk of being reductive, one could say that the positions of CD Projekt Red and Bethesda Game Studios have been swapped. Audiences are less enthused about BGS games in the wake of Starfield‘s mixed reception, not to mention the fiasco that was Fallout 76, especially at launch. But CD Projekt Red has become a AAA powerhouse in the last decade, behind at least one of the most seminal RPGs of all time. It will certainly be fun to see these two weathered studios go toe-to-toe again, either in 2027 or after.