The Witcher 4 is taking CD Projekt RED into unfamiliar technical territory.
After years of building major games using its proprietary REDengine, the Polish developer has moved to Unreal Engine 5 for the next Witcher saga. That change naturally raised a major question among fans: could the switch make The Witcher 4 look and feel like countless other Unreal Engine games?
According to CD Projekt RED co-CEO Michał Nowakowski, fans shouldn’t expect that to happen.
The studio says it is working directly with Epic Games to adapt Unreal Engine 5 to its own requirements rather than simply using the engine as it comes. The goal is to ensure that The Witcher 4 retains the visual identity associated with CD Projekt RED.
And that could be one of the most important decisions behind the development of the next Witcher trilogy.
The Witcher 4 Is CDPR’s First Major Unreal Engine 5 Game
For years, CD Projekt RED relied on REDengine for its major releases.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077 were both built using the company’s proprietary technology. REDengine became closely associated with CDPR’s approach to large-scale role-playing games, allowing the studio to build its own tools and systems around the needs of its projects.
The Witcher 4 changes that.
CD Projekt RED has moved to Unreal Engine 5, making the upcoming RPG the studio’s first major game built on Epic Games’ technology.
That switch makes sense from a development perspective. Maintaining a proprietary engine requires considerable resources, while Unreal Engine provides an established technology stack that can potentially allow developers to spend more time creating the actual game.
But switching engines also creates an obvious risk.
If a studio relies too heavily on an off-the-shelf engine, its games can potentially lose some of the distinctive technical characteristics that separated them from other titles.
That’s exactly the concern CDPR wants to avoid.
CDPR Doesn’t Want The Witcher 4 to Look Like “Another Unreal Game”
According to Nowakowski, CD Projekt RED was aware of the criticism almost immediately after announcing its engine transition.
The concern was straightforward: if The Witcher 4 uses Unreal Engine 5, will players simply see another game that looks like an Unreal Engine production?
CDPR’s answer is essentially no.
The company says it is collaborating directly with Epic Games to adapt the engine to its requirements. Rather than accepting the technology’s default limitations, CDPR wants to modify and customize the technology so it can achieve the visual results it wants.
Nowakowski emphasized that players should still recognize the game as a CD Projekt RED production.
From a player’s perspective, he argued, the underlying engine should matter far less than the final result.
That’s an important distinction.
Unreal Engine 5 is not supposed to become the identity of The Witcher 4.
It is supposed to be the technology underneath CDPR’s own artistic and technical decisions.
Why the Engine Change Matters
For players, the choice of engine might seem like a technical detail.
It isn’t.
The engine influences practically every part of a modern game, including rendering, animation, physics, lighting, world streaming, asset management and development tools.
That doesn’t mean an engine automatically determines how a game looks.
Two studios can use the same engine and produce dramatically different results.
That’s precisely what CDPR appears to be emphasizing.
The Witcher 4 isn’t supposed to become visually interchangeable with other Unreal Engine 5 games simply because it uses the same underlying technology.
Instead, CDPR wants to combine Unreal Engine 5’s capabilities with the studio’s own art direction, technology and development processes.
If that works, players may barely think about the engine at all.
And that’s probably the ideal outcome.
Unreal Engine 5 Could Help CDPR Develop Faster
The engine switch isn’t only about graphics.
CD Projekt RED also expects Unreal Engine 5 to help accelerate development.
That is particularly important because the studio has ambitious plans for the new Witcher saga.
CDPR has previously outlined plans to release three main games in the new Witcher saga within six years. The move to Unreal Engine 5 is expected to help make that schedule more achievable.
That doesn’t mean three enormous RPGs will suddenly become easy to produce.
The Witcher 4 itself is still a massive project, and CDPR is targeting a 2028 release rather than trying to rush the game onto the market.
But a shared technology foundation could make subsequent projects more efficient.
Instead of repeatedly developing and maintaining an entirely separate technology ecosystem, CDPR can build on Unreal Engine and its own modifications.
That could become increasingly valuable as development moves beyond The Witcher 4 and toward the rest of the trilogy.
The Witcher 4 Is Being Built With a Long-Term Strategy
The engine decision makes more sense when viewed as part of CDPR’s broader plans.
The studio isn’t developing The Witcher 4 as an isolated sequel.
It is establishing the technological foundation for an entirely new Witcher saga.
That means the tools and systems created for the game could potentially benefit future entries.
CDPR’s six-year ambition for three main Witcher games is extremely aggressive compared with the development timelines associated with modern AAA RPGs.
The studio therefore needs technology that can scale across multiple projects.
Unreal Engine 5 provides that foundation.
But CDPR’s decision to customize the engine suggests that the studio doesn’t want efficiency to come at the expense of identity.
That’s the difficult balance.
CDPR Has Already Shown What Unreal Engine 5 Can Do
The Witcher 4 has already provided a glimpse of what CDPR is attempting through its Unreal Engine 5 work.
The studio previously demonstrated a major Unreal Engine 5 technology presentation showcasing the kind of open-world technology it is developing for the next Witcher game.
Those demonstrations have focused heavily on environmental detail and the ability to build large, dense worlds.
That’s particularly important for The Witcher.
The series is known not just for its characters and quests but also for its environments.
From medieval settlements to forests, mountains and dangerous wilderness, the world needs to feel believable enough to support exploration.
An engine capable of handling large amounts of environmental detail is therefore extremely valuable.
But the technology still needs to serve the game’s art direction.
That’s where CDPR’s customization strategy becomes important.
The Witcher 4 Needs Its Own Visual Identity
There is a reason fans can usually identify a Witcher game almost immediately.
The series has a distinctive atmosphere.
The world is often bleak, weathered and grounded in a dark fantasy aesthetic. Even when the environments are beautiful, there is usually a sense of danger and decay underneath the surface.
The Witcher 4 needs to maintain that identity.
Simply making the game technically impressive isn’t enough.
Modern Unreal Engine 5 can produce spectacular lighting, dense environments and highly detailed characters, but technical quality alone doesn’t create a recognizable game.
CDPR therefore has to combine those tools with its own artistic direction.
That’s exactly what Nowakowski’s comments suggest the studio is trying to accomplish.
The Switch Could Also Help Avoid Another Engine Problem
There’s another reason the move away from REDengine makes sense.
CD Projekt RED’s previous proprietary technology became increasingly difficult to manage as the studio’s ambitions grew.
Cyberpunk 2077 pushed the engine into areas that were dramatically different from The Witcher 3.
A proprietary engine can give a studio tremendous control, but that control also comes with a significant maintenance burden.
Moving to Unreal Engine 5 allows CDPR to work from a technology foundation that is being developed continuously by Epic Games.
That doesn’t eliminate technical challenges.
It simply changes where the studio spends its engineering resources.
Instead of building everything from the ground up, CDPR can focus more of its internal technology work on the areas that matter specifically to The Witcher.
The 2028 Release Date Gives CDPR Time
The Witcher 4 isn’t coming anytime soon.
CD Projekt RED has confirmed that the game is planned for 2028, giving the studio substantial time to develop, test and polish the RPG.
For impatient fans, that is obviously frustrating.
But considering CDPR’s history with Cyberpunk 2077, taking additional time is probably the smarter decision.
Cyberpunk 2077’s original launch demonstrated the risks of releasing a technically ambitious game before it is ready.
CDPR has since spent years rebuilding trust through updates and expansions.
The Witcher 4 therefore carries more than the normal burden of expectations.
The studio needs to prove that it learned from those mistakes.
A longer development cycle, a new engine and a more controlled production strategy could help.
The Real Test Will Be the Finished Game
CDPR’s comments sound reassuring, but there is still a lot we don’t know about The Witcher 4.
The game remains years away from launch.
We don’t know how its final open world will compare with The Witcher 3, how its systems will evolve or exactly how CDPR will use Unreal Engine 5 across the complete game.
Most importantly, an engine change doesn’t guarantee a great game.
Unreal Engine 5 can provide impressive technology, but CDPR still has to build the quests, characters, combat, world and narrative around it.
That’s where the studio’s real challenge lies.
The engine is simply the foundation.
What This Means for The Witcher 4
For now, CDPR’s approach looks sensible.
The studio is getting access to Unreal Engine 5’s technology while attempting to maintain control over the elements that make its games recognizable.
If successful, The Witcher 4 could demonstrate that switching engines doesn’t necessarily mean losing a studio’s identity.
It could also give CDPR a technology foundation that supports not just one game but an entire trilogy.
That’s potentially the bigger story.
The Witcher 4 isn’t merely the first game in a new Witcher era.
It is also the beginning of a new technological era for CD Projekt RED.
Final Thoughts
The move to Unreal Engine 5 understandably made some Witcher fans nervous.
After years of REDengine powering The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, changing technology could have resulted in a game that felt less distinctly like a CD Projekt RED production.
CDPR doesn’t appear willing to let that happen.
The studio is working directly with Epic Games to adapt Unreal Engine 5 to its own needs, while trying to preserve the visual identity and creative characteristics that players associate with The Witcher. At the same time, CDPR believes the technology transition can help accelerate development and support its plan to deliver three main Witcher games within six years.
The Witcher 4 is still targeting 2028, so fans will have to wait before finding out whether those promises translate into the finished game.
For now, however, the message from CDPR is clear:
The Witcher 4 may run on Unreal Engine 5, but CD Projekt RED doesn’t want it to look like every other Unreal Engine 5 game.
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