CD Projekt Red Explains Big Change for The Witcher 4

By Tyler Fischer

Back on March 21, CD Projekt Red announced a new Witcher game, tentatively dubbed The Witcher 4 by the Internet, despite CDPR insisting this isn't a formal title for the game. Right now, there's no word of platforms, a release date, or when it will be revealed. All we know about the game is that it's going to be running on Unreal Engine 5, which is a major change for the series, as previous games, including The Witcher 3, have run on CD Projekt Red's internal engine. An engine change may not seem like a major change, but it is. The game will fundamentally play and look different in a different engine. The question is, will this change be for the better? Well, CD Projekt Red seems to think so.

According to CD Projekt Red, Unreal Engine 5 represents a shift to open-world support from Epic Games, which is why it caught the attention of the developer as it primarily makes vast open-world games. Adding to this, it sounds like the stability that the engine offers was a big appeal following the Cyberpunk 2077 launch disaster. CD Projekt Red has alluded to as much in the past -- and we've heard it ourselves through the grapevine -- but the biggest problem Cyberpunk 2077 had during development is that changing or fixing one thing was regularly breaking other aspects of the game, creating a very tedious, and almost never-ending process. 

CD Projekt Red also touches upon the fact that the engine is super agile and friendly to use because of the endless testing and feedback Unreal Engine gets from the pure fact that so many teams use it. 

It's not specified in the video, but it's also worth noting that using Unreal Engine 5 will greatly reduce the time needed for new employee onboarding. One of the problems with having your own internal engine, which CD Projekt Red had up until this point, is that nobody but those already in the studio knows how to use it, which is a major problem in an industry with constant turnover. 

Again, it remains to be seen what benefits Unreal Engine 5 will bring to CD Projekt Red games, but it's hard to see a negative from the consumer side of things. From a business perspective, licensing an engine is very expensive, but this isn't a concern for consumers. 

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