CD Projekt Red have today announced a new Witcher game is in development. With the current teaser, The Witcher: A New Saga Begins, the game marks a move from CDPRâs own REDengine, to Unreal 5.
At this point, details are primarily focused on this deal with Epic, rather than what players might expect from a new Witcher. Calling this an âexciting moment,â CDPR explains this marks the âbeginning of a multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games,â adding that it âcovers not only licensing, but technical development of Unreal Engine 5.â The reason for this, they say, is to help the next version of Epicâs ubiquitous engine to be tailored âfor open-world experiences.â
Itâs already been an extraordinary seven years since the release of the last full Witcher game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, despite the gameâs regular updates and perennial appeal making it feel as though itâs hardly been away. Todayâs announcement offers no hints as to when this new saga might start, explaining that there are âno further details regarding the game â such as a development time frame or release date.â
We knew CDPR were working on a new single-player game as long ago as 2020, but at that point it hadnât been confirmed it if might be more Witcher, Cyberpunk, or even a whole new franchise. Itâs safe to assume CEO Adam KiciĹski was then talking about this new Witcher, since the developer has historically never split its large team between more than two mega-projects at a time.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was of course developed under some pretty tough conditions, which CDPR made some vague apologies about. But itâs worth noting it also promised it wouldnât be repeated for Cyberpunk, and that didnât go so well. Hopefully, as the studio focuses on the next big project, they can mean it this time.
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I look forward to waiting at least a year after launch to buy and play a mostly bug free version of this!
Will have to wait and see how developers go once we see a few games released on Unreal5. Could go either way really, its still untested for a release.
*whooooosh*
That’s the point of switching to UE5 flying way over your head.
UE5 isn’t going to make them any less shit at debugging their games before launch.
Yeah maybe not, but hopefully having a solid foundation with prebuilt tools means they can spend more time on the gameplay bugs; rather than working on engine ones.
Either way, we’ll find out!
I’ve got my popcorn waiting, success or failure. Failure means laughing at the news coverage of it and success means playing the game. Either way, I’m eagerly awaiting their next major release.
Great, lets tie another franchise into epics money farming client, and likely they will be DLC farming again.
Unreal needs more competition
What’s wrong with DLC? I get more of a game I enjoy or even love? F*** yeah! Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea, Dishonored Knife of Dunwall, various Borderlands story DLC’s, The Last of Us Left Behind, Outer Worlds Murder on Eridanos, Mass Effects series had multiple great DLC’s, Bloodborne The Old Hunters, probably the most famously fantastic DLC Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine, the list goes on… I could never possibly understand being mad about getting more of what you want, it’s illogical. Also Unreal Engine is as popular as it is for many reasons, almost nothing else can compare, you can’t be mad at them for developing an incredible engine that people want to use.
CD project RED board: “Geeze, Elden Ring is smashing the sales charts. Where the hell is the next Witcher game?”
CD project RED production team: “Um, all we have is a logo. We’re still working on fixing Cyberpunk”
Board: “Cancel Cyberpunk development, Witcher 4 should’ve released months ago.”
Production team: “But or game engine isn’t ready to start Dev”
Board: “Scarp that shotty engine, let’s use Unreal engine 5. Release a logo. I want Witcher 4 launched this time next year.”
Production team: “We quit!”
That may have been funny Buuuuuuuuuuut they’ve already announced that the work is continuing on the Cyberpunk DLC in RedEngine, its only W4 thats affected by this announcement.
Cyberpunk would be considered a commercial failure to the board, due to projected revenue failings, investor litigation, and serve consumer backlash. I bet they can’t wait to move the entire company onto W4 and be done with Cyberjunk.
Oh I hope the protagonist is a girl? that would be so cool!!