New Witcher Game In Development, Will Come With Unreal Engine 5

CD Projekt Red has revealed huge news today, a new game in The Witcher series is in development. The development will move from REDengine to Unreal Engine 5 this time as part of a multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games. CDPR says that it’ll collaborate with Epic Games’ developers to help customize the engine for open-world experiences.

Not many details on The Witcher–such as a development time frame or release date–are currently unavailable. We also don’t yet know if the game will be called The Witcher 4 or some other name.

One bit of trivia that can be learned from the teaser image, which GamesRadar’s Leon Hurley spotted, is that it indicates at Witcher protagonist Geralt’s former protege Ciri being the star of this new upcoming game:

To quote the wiki: "Ciri claimed a Cat School medallion from the corpse of Leo Bonhart who had reportedly slain at least one of its members." https://t.co/RlEANr4MLe

— Leon Hurley (@LeonHurley) March 21, 2022

While CDPR isn’t ready to reveal any details on the next Witcher game just yet, the company’s chief technology officer Paweł Zawodny did briefly touch on the company moving to Unreal Engine 5. “It is vital for CD Projekt Red to have the technical direction of our next game decided from the earliest possible phase–as in the past–we spent a lot of resources and energy to evolve and adapt REDengine with every subsequent game release,” Zawodny said in a press statement. “This cooperation is so exciting because it will elevate development predictability and efficiency, while simultaneously granting us access to cutting-edge game development tools.”

According to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, the collaboration with CDPR will “push the limits of interactive storytelling and gameplay together” while also benefitting the developer community for years to come. CDPR did note that The Witcher won’t be an Epic Games Store exclusive, indicating that it’ll be available on other PC storefronts as well when it is eventually released.