The Next Witcher Has Been Announced

CD Projekt Red have today confirmed that the next entry into The Witcher series of open-world RPGs is in development. There’s only a smattering of details at this point, as the team are very early in development but the Polish developers have shared a few interesting pieces of information.

Interestingly, the first thing to note is that this isn’t called The Witcher 4. CD Projekt have dubbed this the beginning of a new saga, and have given no further information on what it’s about and when we can expect it. On the face of it may seem like a reboot but we think this has more to do with the direction the team are taking the game.

This is because CD Projekt Red also announced that they’ve struck a deal with Epic Games and will be moving to Unreal Engine 5. This is huge news because the REDengine has been the go-to system for the team since The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, which was released in 2011. This new relationship with Epic also includes a say in technical development of Unreal Engine 5, as well as potential future versions of Unreal Engine (time dependant).

A move between game engines might not seem like a big deal, however the REDengine was creaking at the seams when The Witcher 3 released back in 2015, and we all know about the documented problems with Cyberpunk 2077, so a move to a flexible, ever evolving system will make things easier when it comes to developing the scale of open-world games the Polish team is known for.

Going back to the question at hand, this new game probably won’t be a reboot of The Witcher series and will end up being The Witcher 4, Geralt’s story so far has shifted 50 million copies so it would be a mad move to reboot the franchise at this point. Today’s announcement is more a showing that the team at CD Projekt are listening to gamers and moving on from past mistakes. It might be a long wait for more information but with a new engine powering their next game, it’s a safe bet we won’t have a buggy mess of a release like we’ve seen before.