After a long four-year redemption arc, CD Projekt doesn't want to jeopardize its success streak and is significantly emphasizing Q&A with The Witcher 4.
CD Projekt is doing everything it can to ensure that The Witcher IV doesn't become another Cyberpunk 2077 situation. The sci-fi FPS launched onto last-gen consoles in 2020 with disastrous performance and caused significant reputational harm to the Polish game dev. The studio bounced back with multiple free Cyberpunk 2077 updates and the game's lauded Phantom Liberty expansion.
Now all eyes are on the studio for the latest entry in the beloved Witcher franchise, which was recently announced at The Game Awards 2024. The Witcher IV stars Ciri as the main protagonist, pitting players against fearsome monstrosities in an epic fantasy storyline that chronicles Zireael's brutal journey to become a professional monster hunter.
- Read more: The Witcher 4 being stress tested on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC to avoid another Cyberpunk 2077 launch fiasco
- Read more: Witcher 3 will get a new paid expansion that leads up to events of Witcher 4, analyst predicts
- Read more: The Witcher 3 DLC 'Songs of the Past' debuts a haunting trailer at Gamescom, base game gets a free remaster
The Witcher 4, previously known as codename Polaris, entered principle development weeks ago and is now CD Projekt's top project. More than 400 developers are working on the project, and a lot of them are consistently trying out the game as it's being built in an effort to avoid any kinds of issues on Gen 9 consoles.
"We iterate often, play the game a lot. That was one of our things - even at the very beginning, [to] make sure it's working on the console, and we play it. We take it really seriously," Witcher 4 executive producer Małgorzata Mitręga told Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.
This falls in line with previous comments from CD Projekt RED about their new-and-improved agile pipeline system within Unreal Engine 5.
While there was no discussions on what kinds of expanded mechanics that the Witcher 4 could bring, the studio has also said that all of its future games would have online multiplayer elements of some kind. These online features would only serve to enhance singleplayer, CD Projekt said.
