The Witcher 4 Release Date Still Miles Away

When CD Projekt published the FY 2023 earnings report on March 2024, everyone's eyes were on its pipeline projects, which featured numerous Witcher, new Cyberpunk games, and a new IP in various phases of development or concept. Polaris, the first entry in the new Witcher series, is about to enter full production as the company gets ready to launch. This means most CD Projekt RED's developers are now dedicated to The Witcher 4. CD Projekt RED also confirmed that the full production of the Witcher games has started.

In August 2024, CD Projekt RED confirmed they were at the final stretch of pre-production for The Witcher game Polaris. During the first half of 2024, they continued to work on future releases while participating in events that could boost sales of their older games. Boston Studio is ramping up production of the latest Cyberpunk universe title, Project Orion. Now that Polaris is heading towards its launch, all eyes will be on The Witcher 4 since it is CD Projekt RED's next major release.

The first installment of a new trilogy is now under development with the Unreal Engine 5 instead of REDengine. In January, Joint CEO Adam Badowski stated they wanted over 400 individuals working on the game. CD Projekt RED engaged 410 individuals in developing Polaris, slightly less than 65% of their workforce. They've achieved that objective with Polaris, and a new trilogy will continue the Witcher saga, and the story of Geralt of Rivia will somehow continue.

While it's clear that Geralt of Rivia is not anticipated to play a major role in the upcoming Witcher game or trilogy, nevertheless, he is thought to play a role in the plot, either as a mentor figure or a legendary character who occasionally appears and may even be involved in the main mission. As the central storyline of The Witcher 4 revolves around a Witcher from the Link school, many speculate that Ciri will be The Witcher 4 protagonist or another character from the game may create a new school there.

During an interview, Paweł Sasko, an associate game director at CD Projekt RED, discussed the project. He mentioned that among the games developed by CDPR, The Witcher 4 has the most advanced technology and will be way bigger than Cyberpunk 2077. However, Paweł made clear that all of the games in development at the moment are not even close to release.

It would be unwise to anticipate any updates on them for the foreseeable future, as we observed numerous of them in the FY 2023 earnings report during their conceptual phases. The Witcher 4 is CD Projekt RED's most complex game to date. This is expected, given that most of the studio's developers are occupied with the future Witcher games.

Now that we know that The Witcher 4 will commence full development in Q4 2024—the same time we are now in—CD Projekt RED has announced that this game will be their next release. Not only that, but we know that within six years after Witcher 4's release, CD Projekt RED intends to produce the second and third games in this new trilogy.

That surely will not happen within the next six years since making these games is an enormous undertaking. CDPR still has a mountain of story details to set up, even for side quests and the decisions players make inside them that impact how the game ends.

We know The Molasses Flood underwent an overhaul last year and is rumored to be working on a Witcher game. The Witcher 1 Remake is supposedly an open-world title, and the CDPR content team is working on a three-game story arc for the new trilogy.

However, I must stress that this will be no easy feat. As we can see from the pipeline, several Witcher games are in the works, including The Witcher 4, The Witcher 5, and The Witcher 6. This explains why CD Projekt RED has switched to Unreal Engine 5 to make the new Witcher games. The development works using UE5 are expected to significantly change the process compared to the REDengine.

The Witcher 4 was originally intended to be a multiplayer open-world action game. However, CDPR must have cut down the development budget, given that The Molasses Flood is supposedly still in charge of the project. Even though Drake Hollow and The Flame in the Flood were amazing games, none featured multiplayer.

So it's unlikely that The Witcher 4 will be a multiplayer game. Still, no matter what happens, it will be incredibly inventive, unlike any other Witcher game. Despite its cosmic setting, it will include a more approachable gameplay style, allowing CDPR to connect with a larger audience. Even though it will have a single-player platform, the multiplayer aspect will exhilarate Witcher fans.

Over the years, we'll surely see that The Witcher series will have multiplayer features, even though the only CDPR game that supports multiplayer is Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. However, the multiplayer feature for The Witcher games is purportedly being developed. If not The Witcher 4, CDPR will test the multiplayer feature on The Witcher 3 before throwing it into future games.

They tested several new features in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition, including enhancing the graphics and gameplay. It won't be surprising if they try something similar to Red Dead Online but set in the Witcher world. It will probably be in a separate iteration inside the Witcher universe, and it will be a while before we see it.

The appeal becomes even greater when you consider the possibility of playing as a custom Witcher, with the ability to choose a Witcher class based on a different Witcher school and other schools associated with distinct skills. Remember The Battle of Kaer Morhen chapter from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt when Geralt teams up with Lambert from the School of the Wolf, Letho from the School of the Viper, and a few others to defend Kaer Morhen? Image teaming up with other real-life players and doing the same thing in The Witcher 4. It's insane just to think about it.

The idea that five Witcher games—The Witcher 4, 5, and 6, this game from The Molasses Flood, and an open-world Witcher 1 Remake —are currently in development is absolutely insane. Beyond that, there are still two more Witcher seasons to go on Netflix, and the streaming service is working on an animated film starring the original Doug Cockle as Geralt of Rivia. So, the next few months will be very exciting, and I bet we'll hear plenty from CDPR about The Witcher 4 from the beginning of 2025.