CD PROJEKT RED has announced today that a new installment in The Witcher video game series is in the works. Instead of their their proprietary REDengine, this time the developers are opting for Unreal Engine 5 as the game engine as part of a new multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games.

Not much was revealed for the announcement other than the teaser image featured above along with the tag line "A New Saga Begins".

This partnership raised some eyebrows regarding whether the title will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Responding to such a query on Twitter, the official The Witcher game account clarified that they are "not planning on making the game exclusive to one storefront".

We are not planning on making the game exclusive to one storefront.

— The Witcher (@witchergame) March 21, 2022

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[Noctosphere]

Are they going to focus graphics developpement on horses testicles again?

 

[xtrem3x]

Using UE5 means it's less likely to be a buggy mess and development time should be decreased

 

[The Catboy]

TBH, both WItcher 2-3 were perfect when they got released.
CDprojekt HAS FAILED ONLY ONCE, shall they be condemned for life?

I recall Witcher 3 having a fair share of bugs that

 

[Noctosphere]

Dont preorder.. Wait for the release if it is useable and not a bugfest. Then buy if u like it.

Never ever do that
First, download the game with the crack
Secondly, if you like it, then buy it... If you want

 

[Subtle Demise]

Can’t wait for it to be launched as a broken mess and then take a year to fix

And all that after hyping everyone up for a decade

 

[ZeroFX]

Sellouts, lost the bit of respect i still had for them. I can see very cleary that this game is only being developed because epic dropped a money bag on them and said, i need a big open world AAA game for UE5 launch, do a new witcher or whatever.

 

[64bitmodels]

Using UE5 means it's less likely to be a buggy mess and development time should be decreased

it also means it's more likely to look ugly and have god rays and path tracing splashed everywhere with no real thought or artistic intent behind the visuals.

 

[leon315]

I recall Witcher 3 having a fair share of bugs that

guess those youtubers did unthinkable actions to break the game, btw these bugs are not as devastant or gamebreaking like those in Cyperpunk.
I enjoyed the video tho, even i never experienced any of those during walkthough in Wither 3.

 

[The Catboy]

guess those youtubers did unthinkable actions to break the game, btw these bugs are not as devastant or gamebreaking like those in Cyperpunk.
I enjoyed the video tho, even i never experienced any of those during walkthough in Wither 3.

I am glad your experience wasn't as bad as many others but a quick Google search seems to pull up quite a few people complaining about glitches and even lists like these
https://gamerant.com/game-breaking-glitches-witcher-3/
I have very little experience with this game but I did run into a few random texture glitches when I did play it on my Switch. Maybe that's just due to it being on the Switch or maybe because I didn't quite acquire the game as intended but I did run into them.

 

[such]

TBH, both WItcher 2-3 were perfect when they got released.
CDprojekt HAS FAILED ONLY ONCE, shall they be condemned for life?

They weren't, though - Witcher 3 in particular had bugs and performance issues. It's just that the hype wasn't as ginormous, the issues quite so pronounced, and the hair DLC was so nice and so free. I'd say a somewhat bumpy launch is tradition for CDPR at this point.

I have a bad feeling regarding another Witcher game, but it's a result of their "followers, not leaders" approach to design that already almost crippled 3 - if we factor in the C2077 debacle (I'm not convinced CDPR is a learning animal, unless it comes to shaking down innocent grandmas for Witcher 2 cash)... Well, I'll be looking at W4 around when they abandon it, and probably no sooner.

 

[ZeroFX]

TBH, both WItcher 2-3 were perfect when they got released.
CDprojekt HAS FAILED ONLY ONCE, shall they be condemned for life?

If all companies were "condemned for life" when doing humongous shit like CP77 we wouldn't have EA's, 2K's, Ubisoft's, SE's, etc. Instead "we" (not me) keep praising and preordering while saying "huh!? but X game wasn't perfect at launch and look they were awesome games!!1! huh heh", like that's an argument...

 

[64bitmodels]

If all companies were "condemned for life" when doing humongous shit like CP77 we wouldn't have EA's, 2K's, Ubisoft's, SE's, etc. Instead "we" (not me) keep praising and preordering while saying "huh!? but X game wasn't perfect at launch and look they were awesome games!!1! huh heh", like that's an argument...

if all companies were condemned for life every time they made a fuckup as big as CP2077 the gaming industry would be in a far far far better place. Preordering is quite possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to entertainment, especially the gaming industry. Buying a thing before you know if it's gonna be good is one of the most idiot brained, low iq, slack jawed, retarded, things a human being can do. You're basically opening up your asshole and saying "DO WHAT YOU PLEASE!"

 

[MaxiBash]

All CDPR has to do is not promise shit that isn't in the game and give an experience that is playable to the naked eye at launch.

 

[Foxi4]

guess those youtubers did unthinkable actions to break the game, btw these bugs are not as devastant or gamebreaking like those in Cyperpunk.
I enjoyed the video tho, even i never experienced any of those during walkthough in Wither 3.

I remember playing The Witcher 3 and having to bin my entire save file due to a corrupted quest which prevented me from proceeding in the storyline regardless of what I did - the only option was to start over. Not that it mattered that much, really - I started over and finished the game regardless, but it was a pain in the ass. Conversely, I had no such trouble with CP2077 which still remains one of my favourite games from 2020, regardless of the constant crashes. To be brutally honest, I haven’t encountered one game-breaking bug in that game, and I’ve completed it twice (you can get multiple endings on one save file if you spread your saves out at critical junctures). Still have to get back into it to test the next gen patch and try out the other endings.

 

[ImSoHandsome]

Can’t wait for it to be launched as a broken mess and then take a year to fix

Cyberpunk is still a mess.

 

[1c4rus]

Sellouts, lost the bit of respect i still had for them. I can see very cleary that this game is only being developed because epic dropped a money bag on them and said, i need a big open world AAA game for UE5 launch, do a new witcher or whatever.

FYI, UE5 is launching this year. Using an external ready to use engine, in that case UE5 will shorten the development process for sure. They could hire experienced devs more easily since UE is commonly used industry standard engine. So instead of wasting time on engine development they could spend more time on optimising game or improving content and etc.

They spent a lot of time on Red Engine development and upgrade in each game development that includes CP2077. Hiring right people to get to work and adapt on such obscure engine is a challenge alone.

When all these considered, I'm glad they took such path and it was most reasonable and realistic decision after CP2077 disaster. It's a good fresh step forward for both, Witcher franchise and the studio. There is nothing bad foreseeable outcome from this news.

 

[LightBeam]

From what I read they still made something like 250 million in profit so they will not learn anything

This is what happens when people preorder games they know nothing about

Imagine if you could preorder cars or homes - the world would be falling apart

Idk if we can say that they didn't learned anything, it was a huge mess and their PR took such a huge hit. In Poland it's the biggest company of the country if I'm not mistaken ? And it was a huge mess there too.

TBH, both WItcher 2-3 were perfect when they got released.
CDprojekt HAS FAILED ONLY ONCE, shall they be condemned for life?

TW3 perfect at launch ? Damn you have short term memory because it was buggy af. The thing with Cyberpunk is that it was more than just bugged af, they just lied whenever they could about the game and it will never be the game they told us it would be.
But TW3 was indeed a great game and afaik it didn't lied about it being more than what it actually was (but it did got downgraded, they said it wasn't but it was, not as bad as a Ubisoft game tho).
So it's not only about failing once, it's about taking advantage of the PR they've built to fk up so bad.

So maybe they shouldn't be condemned for life, but you absolutely should be wary. The simple fact people there thought it would be a good idea to have such a mess with the game just shows that you absolutely need to be careful. They built their whole PR about how cool they are, they aren't like others, they finish their games and launch them when it's ready and they showed that this isn't true, they aren't any better. Let them take years to rebuilt what they've destroyed.

 

[mrcroket]

I'm tired of people complain about the egs, i don't understand that obssesion with steam.

 

[Dr_Faustus]

Because building hype always equals more profit..

You mean a game series that is considered a critical darling, has 3 excellent installments, put the game studio on the map, and has gotten so popular and loved it got its own quality Netflix series needs more hype for its next future installment that is not even built out enough yet to provide a trailer? No, that's not how any of that works.

You have to take into account that not only does this announcement indicate that they have started work on this game, and at any degree of pace that CDPR will take on it to finish it this also means resources/focus is being taken away from CP2077 which could indicate they are either done with the game in fixing/adding things to it or that they are spreading their resources thin which was a problem with the development of CP2077 in the first place. The other big issue is that they are abandoning their own engine tech to jump on UE5, which may sound great but these people may not have the best or most fluent experience with UE at all, which means either this is going to take twice as long to build as a learning curve is needed, or even worse they might outright abandon the engine and go back to REDengine at the end of the two year partnership, effectively restarting development on the game again because they just could not deliver the product they wanted with the engine they thought they could do good with.

This whole thing just reeks of announcing something so early that we might not see or hear anything about it for another 2-4 years from now, and that is probably because of one of the reasons I listed above. Its just too early to announce and they are acting way too confident in it, in the same way they were with their last game.

 

[micp]

I'll wait this time. I'm hoping after the Cyberpunk issues they smash it out of the park with this.