The Witcher 4 announced – but CD Projekt is changing one major thing

The next entry in The Witcher video game series has officially been announced by developer CD Projekt, however, the studio is making a big change to the next title.

As confirmed in a blog post from CD Projekt itself, the next Witcher game will move from its own REDengine game engine to Unreal Engine 5 by Fortnite maker Epic Games. 

"We're happy to announce that the next installment in The Witcher series of video games is currently in development, kicking off a new saga for the franchise," wrote CD Projekt. "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 continued: "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."

Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney added: "Epic has been building Unreal Engine 5 to enable teams to create dynamic open worlds at an unprecedented scale and level of fidelity. We are deeply honored by the opportunity to partner with CD Projekt Red to push the limits of interactive storytelling and gameplay together, and this effort will benefit the developer community for years to come."

It was subsequently revealed that Jason Slama, who previously lead the development of Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, will act as game director on the new Witcher project, as confirmed by the man himself (via Twitter).

No further details regarding the game or a release date were shared but considering there was a five-year gap between The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, I wouldn't expect to see this game on shelves until 2025 at the earliest.  The Witcher 4 has also been confirmed to not be exclusive to the Epic Games Store when it comes to PC.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was wildly (see what I did there) successful and accumulated more than 30 million sales globally. It also helped gain the attention of Netflix, which then made its own series from the books with Superman actor Henry Cavill taking up the role of Geralt of Rivia. 

Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December 2020, however, the game suffered from major issues at launch. The developer then released a next-gen version only a few months back that looks to have addressed numerous bugs.