As confirmed just a few hours ago, with Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty now firmly in the rearview, the bulk of CD Projekt RED’s staff has moved to work on The Witcher 4. You can see that clearly in the slide shared yesterday during the Q3 2023 earnings report.
As if on cue, the Italian website Lega Nerd has published an interview with The Witcher 4 Game Director Sebastian Kalemba. Kalemba attended Milan Games Week 2023 between November 24 and 26, where the chat took place. The former Animation Director of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine and Cyberpunk 2077 shared a few interesting details (translated by Wccftech) on the overarching vision the studio has for this new project.
We want to continue on the same path we’ve taken, but we don’t want to make the same game. I think that’s a given. We’ve got some lore elements that must be kept. After all, it is still the same universe, and we can’t go beyond certain limits.
Therefore, we must follow a very specific path and innovate on that. At the same time, it’s clear that we have to try to appease a new public. The Witcher 4 won’t be out for some years, and it’ll be a long time since the previous one, so we cannot just target the audience already fond of the saga. We must also build a new community. On that note, I believe I can say it’ll be an excellent entry point for many players, without forgetting the long-time fans who still wish to follow Geralt’s adventures.
Our priority is always trying to break boundaries. We want to go beyond them. We want to try and do something new compared to what’s currently in roleplaying games, especially since we work within that genre and target RPG fans. I can’t say too much, as you can guess, but the idea is to build something that surpasses The Witcher 3, telling a more intense story and crafting a more intense gameplay as well.
Kalemba also said the plan is to have lots of player freedom, especially in preparing their character’s build, but The Witcher 4 will still follow a specific narrative path. No surprise here, though, as that’s to be expected given that this is an adaptation featuring predefined characters rather than an original IP with player-created characters.
The new chapter in the gaming saga was formally announced in March 2022. The Polish studio has elected to switch from the in-house RED Engine to Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 for this game and all future titles. We recently spoke with Global Art Director Jakub Knapik, who assured fans that CD Projekt RED will still pursue cutting-edge technological advancements in the future.
