New Witcher trilogy still planned to launch in six year period, UE5 to shorten release times

CD Projekt still expects to launch Ciri's full new Witcher trilogy saga in a six-year time frame and says that the team has been using UE5 for four years.

New Witcher trilogy still planned to launch in six year period, UE5 to shorten release times
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Senior Gaming Editor
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TL;DR: CD Projekt confirms The Witcher trilogy, centered on Ciri, will release within six years starting from the first game's launch, with The Witcher 4 in full production using Unreal Engine 5. The engine's advanced capabilities aim to shorten development time, though the trilogy will complete after 2032.

The new Witcher trilogy is still planned to release in a six-year period starting with the first game's launch, CD Projekt has reiterated.

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CD Projekt's Q3 results give a quick update on the business and what's next for the group. Cyberpunk 2 is accelerating development alongside The Witcher 4, the latter of which is currently in full production phases. In the transcript, company co-CEO Michal Nowakowski says that the plans to launch Ciri's full Witcher trilogy in a six-year span have not changed, and that the switch to Unreal Engine 5 is the key to making this happen.

There's been no confirmation of a release date or release window, however CD Projekt does say that The Witcher 4 won't be out in 2026, so that means the full Witcher trilogy will be complete and released after 2032. Nowakowski also mentions that the teams have been using UE5 for roughly four years and are quite impressed with the engine's capabilities.

Question 10 -Any update you can make on the use of Unreal Engine 5 for the full production process of The Witcher 4? Do you expect next games in The Witcher trilogy can be delivered on a shorter and more predictable cadence?

Michal Nowakowski (co-CEO) - We've been using UE5 for The Witcher 4 for four years now, and we're very happy with what we've achieved.

I think you could have seen some of that with your own eyes with our tech demo reveal at Unreal Fest a couple of months ago, and we're very happy with the results of that as well - we've already said that, but I'm always happy to say it again- and we're happy with how the engine is evolving through the Epic team's experts, and how we are learning how to make it work within a huge open-world game, as TW4 is meant to be.

In a way, yes, I do believe that further games should be delivered in a shorter period of time - as we had stated before, our plan still is to launch the whole trilogy within a six-year period, so yes, that would mean we would plan to have a shorter development time between TW4 and TW5, between TW5 and TW6 and so on.