With two swords on her back, the empress-who-never-was, Cirilla, will be spearheading the next chapter of The Witcher RPGs, which promise to be blockbuster games built on the foundations laid by one of the greatest games of all time. The Witcher 4 will take the series further than ever before, as CD Projekt Red has designed its semi-canon story around the fate of Ciri, leaving Geralt’s protagonist days behind.
But it’s not just the story that will make The Witcher 4 so great, as the developers are also building the game on one of the best engines yet. After switching from Red Engines – something that the CDPR boss says was ‘impossible’ for The Witcher 4 – to Epic Games’ Unreal software, the fourth game in the series is set to be more advanced than anything else ever made on it. That’s the hype train delivered this week, as the CEO reveals that they have opened the ‘black box’ of Unreal Engine, and Pandora’s paradise inside will make The Witcher 4 and its future follow-ups so much more special.
CD Projekt Red Given Peek Into Unreal Engine ‘Black Box’
The Witcher fans are set for an assault on the senses with a new DLC arriving to the 10-year-old game, just months before its successor arrives with its brand-new upgrades. Speaking this weekend, CDPR co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has claimed that the title will be a leading title on “the biggest techs out there”.
“Epic [allowed] us to go into the black box of Unreal Engine,” Nowakowski said on a panel at Edge In Person. “I think we’re the only company right now that actually does that outside of Epic themselves – and fiddle with [it], so [we] would actually be co-building one of the biggest techs out there.
“The rationale was we wanted to be able to tell more stories without worrying about the foundation of the engine itself. Epic [gave] us that backbone, and we can still build around that and differentiate ourselves.”
Unreal Engine 6 and The Witcher 4’s Timeline
All of this comes in the wake of Unreal Engine 6, which got a huge update last month, as Rocket League will lead the way with the new tech wave in ‘2027-ish’. Given the timeline, The Witcher 4 might come too soon for Unreal Engine 6, but that’s not to say the two follow-ups in Ciri’s trilogy won’t make that port – as could the original The Witcher remake that is currently in development, alongside future CDPR games.
The franchise is already pencilled in for at least four games in the next few years, and CD Projekt Red is hoping to go big to reestablish its relationship with fans following the launch of Cyberpunk 2077.
“I’m not 100 per cent convinced we went through the full redemption arc,” he continued. “I’m convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that’s a fair thing. But I do hope we will be able to make it back – if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next.”
The Engine Switch Explained
Nowakowski also explained the rationale behind abandoning REDengine, noting that despite having numbered versions, each new game required building the engine almost from scratch. “In practice, since all these games were very different from each other, for each of those games we had to create a new engine almost from scratch, which took a very long time,” he explained.
The decision to switch to Unreal Engine was made after Epic showed CDPR the Matrix demo. “Epic allowed us to look inside the ‘black box’ of Unreal Engine,” Nowakowski said. “I think we are currently the only company besides Epic itself that can do this – and they also gave us the opportunity to ‘dig’ into it, so we are actually co-developing one of the biggest technologies on the market.
“The idea was that we wanted to tell more stories without worrying about the foundation of the engine itself. Epic provided us with this ‘framework,’ and we can still develop it and maintain our uniqueness.”
What This Means for The Witcher 4
The deep collaboration with Epic Games means CD Projekt Red is not just using Unreal Engine but actively shaping its development. This access allows the studio to optimize the engine specifically for its narrative-driven open-world games, potentially leading to shorter development times between The Witcher 4, 5, and 6.
“Our dream is to be making more games, although we never want to turn into the studio that’s going to be launching a big game every year,” Nowakowski said. “It may happen, but this is not the goal. We have a rough ten-year rolling plan, but the goal is not to flood the games market with CDPR games. We just want to make really cool games, and we don’t want to have a ton of IPs either.”
Also, Read
- The Witcher 3 Hits Another Big Milestone Ahead of 2027 DLC – 65 Million Sold
- The Witcher 4 DLC Hopes Dealt Bitter Blow, But It’s Actually Great News
- The Witcher 3 DLC Confirms Three Returning Characters After 11 Years Of Waiting
The AI Question
Nowakowski also addressed the role of AI in game development, noting that while games built purely with generative AI are coming, he has “doubts” about whether this is the right path. This comes as Epic Games has revealed plans to integrate support for AI models like Claude and Gemini into Unreal Engine 6. Given CD Projekt Red’s close relationship with Epic, they may have input on what this AI integration looks like.
The Witcher 4 is expected to release no earlier than 2027. The franchise looks to be in steady hands, and we can’t wait to see how Ciri tackles life on the path.