Update from 22 March 2022:
Anyone who feared after yesterday’s announcement that the new Witcher saga will appear exclusively in the Epic Games Store thanks to a partnership between CD Projekt Red and Epic Games can rest easy.
The developers said via Twitter that there are no plans to offer the new project exclusively on any platform. After all, CD Projekt RED has its own platforms with GOG and Galaxy, and The Witcher 3 was a huge sales success on consoles as well.
Original report as of March 21, 2022:
Already last year we reported that CD Projekt Red was participating in a AAA game in the Witcher universe is in the works, Nothing has been officially announced yet, but a job posting revealed that a sequel to the RPG hit The Witcher 3 will be on the agenda in the coming years.
Announcement of the Witcher – The New Saga
But since official announcements are also good, we can now inform you that the people responsible for CD Projekt Red with a press release Just knocked one out. First things first: With a new Witcher part, an entirely new saga for the franchise is about to officially begin. In other words, we may not necessarily be dealing with “The Witcher 4”. The title “The Witcher” is underlined with “A New Saga Begins”.
And then came an exciting second announcement: the red engine used previously would be retired. Instead, they have forged a multi-year partnership with experts at Epic Games to better bring to life the games that will come in Unreal Engine 5 in the future. The in-house RED engine should only be used in the upcoming expansion of Cyberpunk 2077, as the main game also uses the same engine.
Quotes from CDPR and Epic Games
When two such big names come together, you can be happy to be a really responsible person. Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney commented on the partnership: “We are deeply honored by the opportunity to partner with CD Projekt RED – together we aim to push the boundaries of interactive story and gameplay – and this effort will benefit the developer community for years to come. “
CD Projekt RED’s CTO Paweł Zawodny also spoke and is particularly looking forward to the engine change: “One of the main aspects of our Inner Raid 2.0 transformation is a stronger focus on technology – and our collaboration with Epic Games is based on exactly that principle. It is important for CD Projekt Raid to define the technical direction of our next game.” We have historically spent a lot of resources and energy developing and optimizing the REDengine with each subsequent game release.”