CD Projekt RED announces a new installment under the graphics engine Unreal Engine 5

CD Project RED wants to bury the past with Cyberpunk 2077 and go back to where he gained all his popularity: The Witcher. In this way, the company announced today that a new installment of the game is being developed under the graphics engine Unreal Engine 5also indicating a new technology partnership with Epic Games, which is the owner of the graphics engine. This means that it will be the first game in the saga that is not developed with the in-house graphics engine, the REDengine.

CD Projekt RED today revealed that the next installment in The Witcher video game series is currently in development using Unreal Engine 5, kicking off a new saga for the franchise and a new technology partnership with Epic Games.

Today’s announcement marks the first official confirmation of a new game in The Witcher series since the release of CD PROJEKT RED’s previous AAA single-player RPG in the franchise, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which earned a total of 250 Game of the Year awards and which was later expanded with the add-ons Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine.

The teaser image for the new game shows a medallion, accompanied by the phrase A New Saga Begins. Beyond this initial confirmation of a new saga of The Witcher franchise, no further details have been given, such as the development period or the release date.

CD Projekt RED also announced that they will be moving to Unreal Engine 5 as part of multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games. Since The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, released in 2011, CD Projekt RED has used its proprietary REDengine technology to build its games. This new relationship with Epic encompasses not only the licensing, but also the technical development of Unreal Engine 5, as well as potential future versions of the Unreal Engine, where applicable. Developers at CD Projekt RED will be collaborating with those at Epic with the primary goal of helping adapt the engine for open world experiences, beginning with the development of the next game in The Witcher franchise.

Paweł Zawodny, CTO of CD Projekt RED, commented on the use of Unreal Engine 5 for this and future games:

“One of the core aspects of our internal RED 2.0 transformation is a much stronger focus on technology, and our cooperation with Epic Games is based on this principle. From the beginning, we did not envision a typical license agreement; both we and Epic see this as a long-term and successful technology partnership. For CD Projekt RED it is vital to have the technical direction of our next game decided from the earliest possible stage, as in the past we spent a lot of resources and energy to evolve and adapt REDengine with every game release. This cooperation is very exciting because it will increase the predictability and efficiency of development, while giving us access to state-of-the-art game development tools. I can’t wait to see what great games we will create with Unreal Engine 5”.

Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, commented on the partnership:

“Epic has been building Unreal Engine 5 to enable teams to create dynamic open worlds at an unprecedented scale and level of fidelity. We are deeply honored by the opportunity to partner with CD Projekt RED to together push the boundaries of interactive storytelling and gameplay, and this effort will benefit the developer community for years to come.”

Concurrent with these announcements, CD Projekt RED has also confirmed that REDengine, the technology that powers Cyberpunk 2077, is still being used for the development of the next Cyberpunk 2077 expansion.