For the reason that launch of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt again in 2015, a completely new console technology has been launched and hit its stride. Developer CD Projekt RED needs to ensure this soar in console generations can also be seen in its upcoming RPG The Witcher 4. Talking to GamesRadar, The Witcher 4’s engineering manufacturing supervisor Jan Hermanowicz defined that the studio is engaged on the “generational shift in the case of {hardware}, engines, and know-how between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4.”
Hermanowicz mentioned that CD Projekt RED needs to do that generational soar proper. This is able to imply that the studio needs to take full benefit of the Xbox Sequence X/S and PS5 {hardware} to create a dense world for gamers to discover, utterly with realistically and immersively dense cities. “That generational shift, we wish to do it proper,” Hermanowicz mentioned. “Our ambition is to take full benefit of it and actually ship the next-gen expertise.”
In an effort to this, Hermanowicz spoke about how the builders of The Witcher 4 are spending loads of time with one of many densest cities from The Witcher 3 – Novigrad. “We truly checked out what we did up to now, what was cool about that, and what we couldn’t do on the time,” he mentioned, whereas additionally noting that the studio is “stepping up” the NPC density within the upcoming title, particularly when in comparison with Novigrad. He, nonetheless, does say that CD Projekt RED is “not entering into this blindly.”
“We truly checked out what we did up to now, what was cool about that, and what we couldn’t do on the time,” Hermanowicz mentioned.
An instance of the form of density that CD Projekt RED seems to be going for might be seen within the tech demo for The Witcher 4 that the studio had launched in collaboration with Epic Video games’ Unreal Engine division. The tech demo gave us a have a look at town of Valdrest, which featured loads of NPCs simply going about their enterprise as protagonist Ciri walked by.
The tech demo was primarily used to showcase how the studio is making use of recent Unreal Engine 5.6 options just like the improved MetaHuman Creator in addition to the Nanite Foliage system to develop The Witcher 4. As famous within the video, the crew was in a position to make use of 300 skeletal mesh brokers for the animations showcased.
Senior technical animator Julius Girbig spoke about among the new options that the crew is ready to make use of in Unreal Engine 5.6. In an interview from earlier this month, Girbig famous that whereas he’s “not truly digging into the code that a lot,” the brand new software allowed him to create and refine “tons of of characters.”
“It simply unlocks me as an artist,” mentioned Girbirg. “Now, with this engine, it all of the sudden unlocks me to create a lot larger issues and suppose larger. It’s actually, actually superior to have the ability to use issues just like the nanite foliage to create these huge forests and no matter involves your thoughts, and it will likely be obtainable for everybody.”
The Witcher 4 is at present in growth for PC, PS5 and Xbox Sequence X/S. It doesn’t but have a launch date.
