The Witcher 4 is official. We all knew it was coming, but now it's really coming. CD Projekt Red has announced that the new saga is underway, and it's making a big leap for the series, dropping the REDengine for Unreal 5.
"This is an exciting moment as we're moving from REDengine to Unreal Engine 5, beginning a multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games," CD Projekt Red wrote on its blog post. "It covers not only licensing but technical development of Unreal Engine 5, as well as potential future versions of Unreal Engine, where relevant. We'll closely collaborate with Epic Games' developers with the primary goal being to help tailor the engine for open-world experiences."
Not only is The Witcher 4 changing engines, but it's also signifying the start of a closer relationship between CD Projekt Red and Epic Games. This is a two-way partnership that will help to build the engine around a whole new sub-sect of games. But this new deal doesn't mean that The Witcher 4 will be exclusive to one storefront as clarified by its official Twitter account.
Interestingly, the teaser has what looks to be a new witcher school's medallion. We've seen the emblem of the lynx, owl, griffin, wolf, siren, bear, viper, manticore, tiger, cat, and rat, and the closest resemblance to any of those right now is the lynx. It could be that, or it could be something else entirely. What the new emblem means for the story and the new saga that CD Projekt Red mentions isn't clear, but perhaps we'll step away from the characters of the book. Or perhaps it'll continue Ciri's story.
We also know that the story will start right after The Witcher 3 and feature recurring characters from that game. It isn't a completely fresh start for the world of monster slayers.
"At this point, no further details regarding the game - such as development time frame or release date - are available," CD Projekt Red continued. "REDengine, the technology which powers Cyberpunk 2077, is still being used for the development of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion."
We're also still waiting on The Witcher 3's current-gen port which is set to arrive sometime this year. The wait for The Witcher 4 might be a while, but at least we have the beloved 2015 RPG to tie us over.