The Witcher IV

The Witcher IV is an action role-playing game set in the open world of The Witcher's Continent.^[1][2] The player controls Ciri, a monster hunter, exploring the world on foot and may summon her horse, Kelpie, at will.^[3][4] The game introduces new playable regions,^[5] including the Kovir region, which was only mentioned in previous Witcher games and explored in the books.^[6]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

In March 2022, CD Projekt Red (CDPR) announced development on a new installment in The Witcher video game series.^[7] That October, the studio revealed that the entry, internally codenamed "Project Polaris", would initiate a new trilogy.^[8] Following the release of Cyberpunk 2077 (2020), CDPR restructured its production process to refine development phases and foster cohesive designs for future projects.^[9] The game remained in pre-production from May 2022 until November 2024, when full production began.^[10][11] In March 2025, CD Projekt temporarily assigned a small team from Fool's Theory, the developers of The Witcher (2007) remake, to assist CDPR due to shared assets and technology.^[12] As of May 2026, 513 employees were working on the project.^[13] Lucie Hennet joined the project earlier that year as a cinematic animator after previously working on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025), refining motion capture footage into final animations.^[14]

The developers aim to maintain established canon, ensuring player choices from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) do not create contradictions. Recognizing potential unfamiliarity among new players, CDPR intends the game to serve as both an accessible entry point and a continuation for series veterans.^[9] The studio has long considered a game featuring Ciri as the main protagonist, describing her as a "very organic, logical choice". As the adoptive daughter of original trilogy protagonist Geralt of Rivia, she previously appeared as a supporting and occasionally playable character in Wild Hunt.^[15][16] Franchise and lore designer Cian Maher stated that "The Witcher as a title refers to both Geralt and Ciri and always has", noting that Ciri was central to the overarching plot. Unlike Geralt, a seasoned monster hunter throughout the series, Ciri is depicted in The Witcher IV as an aspiring hunter who is "about to form her own codex on her own terms".^[9] Ciara Berkeley was cast as Ciri, replacing Jo Wyatt, who voiced the character in Wild Hunt.^[17] The studio sought a younger actress for the intended trilogy who possessed agility for motion capture recording; the casting process took over a year and involved hundreds of actresses.^[18] Doug Cockle will reprise his role as Geralt.^[19]

Game director Sebastian Kalemba stated that the developers intend to expand player agency by offering more narrative choices. Drawing on their experience with Cyberpunk 2077, the studio also seeks to enhance gameplay flexibility, including character builds and encounters, and create greater coherence between main story missions, side quests, and open world activities.^[9] CDPR is developing the game with a "console-first" approach, a departure from their traditional strategy of targeting PC hardware before scaling down to consoles. This shift was intended to avoid the optimization issues that affected Cyberpunk 2077 at launch on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. CDPR vice president Jakub Knapik explained that "it's easier to scale up than down" once a visual and technical foundation has been established on weaker console hardware.^[20]

The game is being developed using Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), which CDPR adopted after transitioning away from their proprietary REDengine—the technology previously used for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011) and Wild Hunt.^[7] The decision to migrate to UE5 was driven by the studio's desire to manage multiple titles in simultaneous production; REDengine was less flexible because it had to be modified for each new title. Additionally, REDengine was designed exclusively for single-player games and could not support future multiplayer development without extensive updates.^[21] CDPR partnered with Epic Games to collaborate on Unreal Engine technology, including open world capabilities and performance optimization.^[22] Instead of software-based Lumen, the game will utilize UE5's hardware-accelerated ray tracing engine.^[21] It will also incorporate Nvidia's RTX Mega Geometry system to accelerate the construction of bounding volume hierarchies during ray tracing in high-geometry scenes.^[23] Animation features include a new horse physics system that simulates muscular movement beneath the skin, similar to the technology used in Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018),^[24] alongside Unreal Engine's multi-character Motion Matching to synchronize movement when Ciri mounts her horse, Kelpie.^[25]

The Witcher IV was announced with a cinematic trailer at the Game Awards in December 2024.^[26] The trailer was created in collaboration with Platige Image, an animation studio responsible for producing the intro cinematics for the previous Witcher games.^[27] It was pre-rendered in-engine on a then-unannounced GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, rather than displaying real-time rendered scenes.^[28][29] During the State of Unreal presentation in June 2025, a tech demo for The Witcher IV was showcased, running on PlayStation 5.^[30]

According to Piotr Nielubowicz, CD Projekt's chief financial officer, The Witcher IV will not be released before 2027.^[31] The game is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.^[32][33] CD Projekt's joint CEO Michał Nowakowski stated that the studio will "most likely not release expansions" for the planned trilogy as it did for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, explaining that doing so would be difficult due to their goal of releasing the titles within a six-year timeframe, focusing instead on core game releases.^[34][35]