It has been revealed by CD Projekt Red that a new Witcher game is presently in production and that it would make use of the Unreal Engine 5.
The release did clarify that this new game will “begin a new tale for the series and a new technology relationship with Epic Games,” despite the fact that little else has been announced about the next game.
Neither a production timeline nor a release date were provided, but CD Projekt Red did post a teaser image that shows a medallion and the text “a new saga begins,” which you can see below.
There was also no news on whether or not Geralt of Rivia will play a role in this new “saga,” however the medallion appears to be in a similar style to Geralt’s wolf medallion, which was one of the rewards offered to witcher candidates when they passed the Trial of the Grasses.
In addition, the switch to Unreal Engine 5 is remarkable because CD Projekt Red had been developing games with their own proprietary REDending technology ever since The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings released.
Use of Unreal Engine 5 :
One of the core components of our internal RED 2.0 Transformation is a far greater emphasis on technology, and our collaboration with Epic Games is founded on this idea, according to Pawe Zawodny, CD Projekt Red’s chief technology officer. “From the beginning, we did not regard this as a standard licence arrangement; instead, we and Epic see it as a long-term, mutually beneficial technology collaboration.
“For CD PROJEKT RED, it is critical to determine the technical direction of our next game as early in the development process as possible because, in the past, we have invested a significant amount of time and resources into evolving and adapting the REDengine with each new game release. This collaboration is particularly exciting since it will improve the predictability and efficiency of development while also providing us with access to cutting-edge game development tools. We are going to make some amazing games with Unreal Engine 5, and I can’t wait to see what we come up with!”
In order to enable teams to develop dynamic open landscapes at an unparalleled size and level of fidelity, Epic has been working on Unreal Engine 5 since 2014 “Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games, added his voice to the conversation. “‘We are sincerely honoured to have the opportunity to collaborate with CD PROJEKT RED in order to push the boundaries of interactive storytelling and gameplay together, and we believe that this collaboration will benefit the developer community for many years to come.’
CD Projekt Red has stated that REDengine is still being used for the production of the next Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, despite the fact that this new Witcher game will use Unreal Engine 5.
“A total of 250 Game of the Year awards” were given out for The Witcher 3 when it was launched in 2015, including one from IGN. In 2020, CD Projekt Red released Cyberpunk 2077, which had a rocky launch, to say the least, especially on last-generation systems like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
As a result, Sony removed the game from the PSN store, resulting in widespread criticism. Since then, CD Projekt Red has committed to putting the ship back on course, and the game’s next-generation updates for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S have just been launched.
CD Projekt also revealed that it has learned a “major lesson,” which should ideally convert into less problems for the launch of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt when it launches later this year.
Earlier in 2020, CD Projekt revealed that the company would return to the universe of The Witcher after the release of Cyberpunk 2077, but that it would not be The Witcher 4, which would have been a continuation of Geralt’s storyline. This new press release does not confirm or deny that Geralt’s storey has reached its conclusion, as the developers previously stated.
Despite the fact that the wait for this new addition will be lengthy, CD Projekt is still hoping to release the next-generation upgrade for The Witcher 3 sometime later this year.
