CD Projekt Red announces a new series of The Witcher games, which will use the new Unreal Engine 5.
2015 was the last Witcher game released. It’s the most popular game of the series. The Witcher 3 alone has sold 30 million copies. As of this writing, it’s placed at 19th place of the best selling games of all time. It tied its place with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Diablo III and Human: Fall Flat.
You can’t deny that it’s also the main reason why we even have The Witcher having its own TV series now. The Witcher 3 has won 18 awards. The game has put the Witcher as a household name. Henry Cavill himself based his action and speech on Geralt of Rivia in the game. The Witcher 3 is also announced to have a current gen update sometime soon.
New Witcher Games From CD Projekt Red
Image: CD Projekt Red
CD Projekt Red just announced that they are now working on a new series of games for The Witcher. They’ll also be working closely with Epic Games using the Unreal Engine 5 for the new project:
We’re happy to announce that the next installment in The Witcher series of video games is currently in development, kicking off a new saga for the franchise.
This is an exciting moment as we’re moving from REDengine to Unreal Engine 5, beginning a multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games. It covers not only licensing, but technical development of Unreal Engine 5, as well as potential future versions of Unreal Engine, where relevant. We’ll closely collaborate with Epic Games’ developers with the primary goal being to help tailor the engine for open-world experiences.
At this point, no further details regarding the game — such as a development time frame or release date — are available.
Right now, no other details are provided. No screenshots, no details on gameplay mechanics, no pre-rendered video, no concept art… nothing. The only thing they said, is that they’ll be using Unreal Engine 5 and a snow covered medallion.
CD Projekt Red has ditched their own proprietary game engine called the REDengine. The REDengine was used in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011), The Witcher 3 (2015) and Cyberpunk 2077 (2020).
With Epic Games now being a partner with the game engine, this could reduce the game development dramatically, as compared to developing their engine in house. It’s known that Cyberpunk 2077 took a long time to develop, and was released with a high number of issues. The original console systems (Xbox One, PS4) that they targeted had so many issues that Sony even stopped selling the game from their digital stores until most of the issues were resolved.
New Witcher Games From CD Projekt Red
Image: CD Projekt Red
Epic’s Unreal Engine has proven itself with incredible looking game demos like the Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience (specifically for the current generation consoles Xbox Series X/S and the PlayStation 5). Anyone can also download the game engine for free on their PC. They can also try making their own games using it.
Regardless of what you think of CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, the game itself is pretty good. Although, it is a buggy mess. Maybe it’s time for them to move to a new game engine and just focus on improving the game instead.
I’m excited to get back to the world of the Witcher. But the question is… when?
