Following CD Projekt Red's first real reveal of The Witcher 4 and its cinematic trailer at The Game Awards 2024, developers went on to dub the upcoming RPG their "most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date" - and it seems they've got more than enough experience to make it so.
Speaking in a recent 12DOVE interview, CD Projekt Red admits that after banger RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, the studio hopes to "raise the bar" once more with the coming Witcher entry. "If you're asking me whether we want to raise the bar again, the answer is yes," laughs executive producer Małgorzata Mitręga. "We definitely want to raise the bar with every video game that we create."
Director Sebastian Kalemba chimes in, looking back at CD Projekt Red's past releases. "This is what we did with Cyberpunk 2077 after The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," says the lead, "and we want to apply all of the lessons learned from both of these experiences and incorporate them into The Witcher 4." As for what the game will look like, Kalemba confirms the new RPG might really look as good as it does in the cinematic trailer.
"You can look at the aesthetics of the trailer as a symbol of what we want to achieve," states the director. "It's pre-rendered footage on our custom Unreal Engine 5 build, and these are already the visuals that we are aspiring to have. This ambition is absolutely spread across all the departments at CDPR - our ambition is high, crazily high." As a longtime Witcher fan myself, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't all the more excited now.
The new game sounds massive, and there's more to come than just The Witcher 4, too - there are other upcoming CD Projekt Red games like the mysterious codenamed Project Sirius, another Witcher title that developers say will "differ from past productions." A new story from The Witcher books' author Andrzej Sapkowski is also out now, arriving over a decade after the series' last title, so there's plenty in store for us.
CD Projekt Red says Ciri is "faster, more agile" in The Witcher 4, but she won't be OP like she is at the end of The Witcher 3: "Something totally happened in between"
After revolutionizing the open-world RPG twice in 10 years, CDPR is dreaming even bigger with The Witcher 4: "We definitely want to raise the bar with every game that we create"
