The Witcher 4: new game release date, as CD Projekt Red says ‘a new saga begins’ with Unreal Engine 5

The developers of one of the most revered series of role-playing games have revealed that a new instalment of the Witcher franchise is in the works.

Poland’s CD Projekt Red has announced that a fourth game in the series - based on the works of author Andrzej Sapkowski, which have also been turned into a successful Netflix series - will usher in a “new saga” for the franchise.

But what can we expect from the newest adventure, and when might it actually be released?

Here is everything you need to know about it.

What can we expect from The Witcher 4?

The announcement marks the first official confirmation of a new game in The Witcher series since the 2015 release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — which won a total of 250 Game of the Year awards.

The Witcher games are set in a fantasy world known as the Continent, where players take control of Geralt of Rivia, one of the few remaining witchers - travelling monster slayers for hire.

Aside from confirmation that the game is in development, there have been very few indications as to what to expect from the project.

A teaser image shared to coincide with the announcement does show a medallion half covered in snow, with the tagline, “A new saga begins”.

Could this be hinting at a more frigid setting for the upcoming game? The previous game’s large open worlds have featured their fair share of snowy environments, but could the fourth instalment take place among longer standing permafrost?

Then there’s that tagline, which hints that The Witcher 4 may only be the first game in a series of new franchise instalments.

It could also be a hint at the more general future of the series; could we see the games and the Netflix series more closely align with one another?

Could it expand into new mediums? Could we see an MCU-approach of interlinked media applied to the franchise?

Only time will tell.

What is Unreal Engine 5?

What we do know, is that the game will be shifting to using Unreal Engine 5 as its game engine.

Simple speaking, game engines are the software with which developers build games, and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine is considered one of the very best when it comes to producing big-budget, graphically pleasing adventures.

To this point, CD Projekt Red have used their own proprietary REDengine tech to create their games.

Tim Sweeney, Founder and CEO of Epic Games, said: "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 honoured by the opportunity to partner with CD Projekt Red to push the limits of interactive storytelling and gameplay together, and this effort will benefit the developer community for years to come."

When will it be released?

Not surprisingly, CD Projekt Red have given no indication of when the finished game may be released, and The Witcher 4 could be years away yet.

Big-budget video games often have a long gestation period, and the studio’s latest effort - Cyberpunk 2077 - took over eight years to fall into gamers hands after it was announced in 2012.

Fans will be hoping it’s not quite that long until we see The Witcher 4 get its release, though a release date of 2030 wouldn’t be surprising.

The development of Cyberpunk was hampered by multiple delays, not to mention the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the release of a new generation of games consoles complicating matters further.

Hopefully, CD Projekt Red will have learned from its mistakes, and will be able to deliver Witcher 4 in a more efficient manner.

For comparison’s sake, The Witcher 3 took only two years from announcement to release, although in the current climate of blockbuster game development, this relatively short turnaround is almost unheard of.

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