While there was little doubt CD Projekt Red would be returning to Geralt of Rivia eventually, today they officially announced the next game in The Witcher series. While details on the game are in short supply at the moment, CDPR has provided a teaser image, which appears to show the emblem for the School of the Cat (as opposed to Geralt’s School of the Wolf). What the significance of that might be remains a question mark. What we do know is the new game will be developed using Unreal Engine 5 as part of a “multi-year partnership” with Epic Games. In turn, the Polish developers will help tailor the engine for open world games. Chief technology officer Paweł Zawodny had this to say about the surprising jump to UE5…
Meanwhile, Epic boss Tim Sweeney had the following to say about the new partnership…
Oh, and for those concerned about such things, while CDPR is using Epic’s Unreal Engine tech, they have confirmed the next Witcher won’t be exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
We are not planning on making the game exclusive to one storefront.
— The Witcher (@witchergame) March 21, 2022
The unspoken element in all of this is the technical disaster that was the REDengine-developed Cyberpunk 2077. Hopefully, the move to Unreal Engine means CDPR can focus on the world-building and storytelling they do so well, without a lot of the technical concerns that have plagued them in recent years. CDPR has confirmed Cyberpunk 2077 will remain on REDengine.
Platforms or a release window have yet to be confirmed for CDPR’s new Witcher game. What do you think? Excited for the next game in the series? Is the move to UE5 the right one?
