The Witcher 4: everything we know about CD Projekt's next open-world RPG

Ciri is the main character

How difficult it was not to think of any character other than Ciri to play the role of the main character of the next The Witcher video games! Something obvious that we never really wanted to risk as confirmation didn't come. But it's now a thing: it's Ciri who should be playable in The Witcher 4. It's the trailer shown during the Game Awards that tells us this, with many other things for those who have the 'eye.

The one who can be considered the adopted daughter of Geralt and Yennefer will occupy the role of witcher, or monster hunter. So this follows one of the endings of The Witcher 3. It's as a member of the Lynx School (school formalized by the studio) that she will officiate, in a world still prey to monstrous creatures. A school whose origins are, however, unknown. In the trailer released by CD Projekt, the witcher has a more than varied arsenal. We see her ingest potions that dilate her pupils, use signs like Quen but also seems to use magic.

It's difficult to be sure, but the trailer also suggests that a certain number of years have passed between the events of The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4. Ciri seems aged, mature. Beyond that, it is also his skills and his training that make us say that time has passed since his escape from the Wild Hunt.

Will there be Geralt in The Witcher 4?

Before this long trailer was released, one thing was already set in stone: Geralt's saga ended with the conclusion of his story during the Blood & Wine DLC and there are no plans to bring me out of retirement. This doesn't mean you have to put it in the closet right away. Or maybe yes?

Obviously, with Ciri as the main character, we expect to see the White Wolf lurking somewhere. If we are to believe some of the words of Doug Cockle, the main voice actor of the character, we should see him again in future games. A statement that he denied a few months later, explaining that CD Projekt had slapped him on the wrist for revealing confidential information. Back to square one.

History and regions: where The Witcher 4 is located

Despite a six-minute trailer illustrating the universe of The Witcher well, it is stingy with details concerning the scenario and its plot. If we can deduce that the events take place after those of The Witcher 3, it is difficult to know concretely what Ciri returned to do in the world after having pushed Eredyn away. We don't even know in which realm of the Globe (the makeshift name given to the world of The Witcher) the witcher will explore.. We can only then refer to the words of Philipp Weber, responsible for the main plot, held at GamesRadar in 2022 :

I've always wanted to go back to Temeria and Vizima, and see what it looks like today. That's why I'm very happy that we're doing The Witcher 1 remake.

However, Temeria and Vizima are respectively the region and the city which serve as the setting for the first three games. If Weber specifies that he is very happy that “l’on fasse le remake de The Witcher 1”, this is probably because his work involved a different setting. As for which one, the question arises as there are so many options.

A new trilogy?

When he presents this new game for the first time “The Witcher”, CD Projekt makes a fist of honor to clarify things. This new game marks the start of a new era, without Geralt as a playable character since his saga is well and truly over. As an extension of this philosophy, this is even why he decides not to call this title The Witcher 4 at the time : to mark the split. If plans have obviously changed at home, this “new” name indirectly recalls the words of Adam Kicinski on a call with shareholders in September 2022.

The first saga was made up of three games, now we are thinking of more than one game.

Selon PC Gamerthere are even three games planned (including the 4th) with each release spaced three years apart.

The Witcher 4: CD Projekt's biggest project to date

So we don't really know where it will be, but it promises to be big and big. Shortly before the presentation of this trailer at the Game Awards, Charles Tremblay spoke. The President of Technology at CD Projekt Red stated the following:

The only thing I can say is that changing engines for us doesn't change the fact that we will always be ambitious. And the next game we make won't be smaller, and it won't be worse. It will therefore be better, bigger, bigger than The Witcher 3, it will be better than Cyberpunk – because for us, it is unacceptable to launch in this way (in reference to that of Cyberpunk 2077, editor's note). We don't want to go back.

If The Witcher 3 displays enormous qualities, the CD Projekt studio explains in an interview that it was inspired by what it did in Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty for the gameplay. Enough to promise more varied approaches for Ciri as a witcher, who will create her own ways of killing monsters as he explains in an interview granted to IGN

Development under Unreal Engine 5

A face different from that worn by Siri in The Witcher 3 which can therefore be explained by the passage of time but also by the use of a different engine. It should be remembered that the trailer presented during the Game Awards 2024 was a cinematic trailer: the result should be very different in the game. For comparison, we can highlight the differences between the Geralt of the third opus and that of the game's launch trailer, also cinematic. The two guys don't look alike.

However, we should not expect a Ciri identical to that of the 2015 game since The Witcher 4 was developed with Unreal Engine 5. A first for the CD Projekt studio, which had until then worked with the REDEngine, an in-house engine. A change in technique made official from the first announcement of the title. This partnership with Epic Games allows them, among other things, to have a larger accessible workforce as well as having long-term visions on their projects.

The Witcher 4: The studio has been going full tilt since March 2024

Announced in March 2022, The Witcher 4 was not CD Projekt's main source of concern at the time. The studio still had to take care of and correct Cyberpunk 2077: despite the release of a version 1.6 optimized for the new generation of consoles, there is still work to be done for the title which does not yet know its redemption arc. A majority of the teams are therefore working on it while the rest are dispatched to other projects. However, around a hundred employees are already on what is called Polaristhis new episode in the universe of The Witcher. In September 2023, things accelerate since Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, as well as its Phantom Liberty expansion, are released at that time. They were very well received by the press and the public, encouraging the studio to mobilize the majority of its forces on its next project.

We must wait until March 29, 2024 to have full confirmation: CD Projekt put 400 developers on The Witcher 4. And it was only at the end of November that the studio confirmed that the title had entered full production.

Is there a release date for The Witcher 4?

Among the things we know, there are things we do not know, as Socrates said so well. One of them concerns, obviously, the release date. This trailer shown at the Game Awards doesn't even give fans of the license a possible year to wait for the game. We can then indulge in speculation, considering that the first trailer for The Witcher 3 was released in 2013, before the game was released in 2015. But all that is without taking into account the change of engine (and probably ambitions) wanted by CD Projekt.

On which consoles and media will The Witcher 4 be playable?

Like a release date, it's the consoles that are conspicuous by their absence. If, as the years go by, the idea of ​​seeing The Witcher 4 land on the old console generation recedes, we can still expect the absence of exclusivity. A rumor that came to the fore during the announcement of the game and the partnership with Epic Game Stores. But this will not be the case according to Michał Nowakowski, one of the CEOs of the studio. Last February, he announced:

CDPR games are and will continue to be platform agnostic. We love that you play the games we make. It's up to you to choose your playing field.