CD Projekt RED gives news of The Witcher 4. The Polish developers admit that the switch to Unreal Engine 5 is not going exactly as planned.
It is one of the most anticipated games of the next few years. The Witcher 4 should not arrive before 2025, but CD Projekt RED had been particularly confident. The move to Unreal Engine 5 should allow them to create an ever grander open world, but perhaps the studio was a little overconfident. The president of CDPR speaks on the development of the first episode of the new trilogy.
A transition to Unreal Engine 5 more complicated than expected
We were almost hoping for an appearance at the last Epic conference on the Unreal Engine 5, but in the end nothing happened. As announced last year, The Witcher 4 will mark the great debut of CD Projekt RED on the new generation engine. The Polish studio was particularly enthusiastic about this transition, which should allow them to push the open world of its next productions to a higher level and to gain agility in development. The publisher was full of praise for the UE5 and was particularly optimistic. Almost a year later, reality caught up with him. In the latest investor conference, Adam Kiciński, president of CDPR, remains confident but more cautious.
The transition is ultimately more difficult than expected and the development of The Witcher 4 moving slower than expected. For the moment, the switch to Unreal Engine 5 has not helped to speed up the process, at least not yet. The developers are still fumbling with the engine and the teams are still in the formation phase. The focus is currently on creating the first development tools with the UE5. ” We are preparing things on the pipeline and tools side. Some developers are still learning Unreal Engine 5 technology. At the same time, there are teams working with Epic on all aspects that are necessary for our open worlds and story RPGs. », Explains the manager of CD Projekt RED.
A delay to be expected for The Witcher 4?
Should we be worried about The Witcher 4 ? No. The aptly named Project Polaris is indeed their very first production on this still fresh engine. After the beginnings, the development should therefore resume a normal rhythm and that of future projects should gain in fluidity. ” Certainly for our first project, it may not slow down the teams, but there will be no speeding up of the development processes. On the other hand, for the following projects, we believe that this transition should facilitate production. It was one of the reasons we said we wanted to release three great The Witcher games in six years. Starting with the release of Polaris, which is The Witcher 4 “, did he declare.
We will therefore still have to take our troubles patiently. For the moment, few details are known about The Witcher 4. We know that it will initiate a new trilogy with a new story, characters and school of Witchers. The project will be overseen by Sebastian Kalemba, a veteran of the Polish studio. Whoever worked in key roles on The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 will therefore have the difficult task of taking the series in hand.
