CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michal Nowakowski says the studio's move from REDengine to Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4 was not a response to Cyberpunk 2077's rocky launch. Speaking on the Deconstructor of Fun podcast, he was asked whether the launch issues were the main reason for the switch. His answer was "yes and no," but he called the idea "a bit of a false assumption" because apparently the issue with Cyberpunk was not really REDengine itself.
According to Nowakowski, what actually got the studio's attention was Epic's The Matrix Awakens tech demo. He said CD Projekt Red got an early look at it and asked whether UE5 was ready to ship a game like theirs. The answer was no, at least not at the entry level, but he said a relationship with Epic and some targeted work on the engine could make it viable. That turned into a strategic collaboration between the two, and it is the same partnership behind the UE5 tech demo for The Witcher 4 shown at State of Unreal last year.
He also said the studio never wanted to be a tech company. "The dream of the company was actually never to make technology," Nowakowski explained. He thinks CD Projekt Red is now the only team outside of Epic working inside the engine's "black box," which he believes will let the studio make more games without building the tech from scratch.
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REDengine was used for The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077. The engine has been changed to Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4, which is targeting a 2028 release window, though CD Projekt Red has described that as a target and not a locked date. Of course, we will only find out how well the Epic partnership works once the game ships.
