In a tech demo proven earlier this month on the State of Unreal showcase, the studio confirmed off the sport, enjoying the demo on a normal PlayStation 5 operating the sport at 60 frames-per-second with ray-tracing enabled. The Witcher 4’s improvement marks the primary time CD Projekt RED will abandon its proprietary REDengine in favor of utilizing Epic Video games’ Unreal Engine 5.
“I believe that after we began the collaboration [with Epic], we had tremendous excessive ambition for this challenge, and we at all times do PC [first] and we push [the limits] after which we attempt to scale down [for console],” CDPR vp of know-how Charles Tremblay mentioned of the choice to deal with console. “However then we had so many issues up to now that we tried to see, ‘OK, this time round we actually need to be extra [of] a console-first improvement, proper?’”
Though 2015’s The Witcher 3 launched to just about common acclaim, CD Projekt RED’s subsequent title — 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077 — didn’t fare properly at launch. Regardless of a number of delays, the sport launched with quite a few bugs, and gamers on console seemingly acquired the brief finish of the stick, with Ps 4 and Xbox One gamers particularly complaining concerning the recreation’s fixed crashes and framerate drops. Seven days after its December 10 launch, Cyberpunk 2077 was faraway from PlayStation’s digital storefronts, and wouldn’t return till June of the next yr. Finally, the sport was redeemed by its 2.0 replace, which coincided with the launch of its Phantom Liberty DLC. However regardless of Cyberpunk 2077 finally getting its completely satisfied ending, the rocky street it took to get there’s not a path CDPR devs need to tread once more with The Witcher 4.
“It’s fairly logical when you concentrate on it, as a result of it’s simpler to scale up than down,” CDPR vp and world artwork director Jakub Knapik defined. “We knew that when we arrange sure foundations — each visually and technically — there’s room to scale up. Now, what meaning is one other query. We’re CDPR: We at all times wish to push PCs to the restrict. It’s only a artistic course of, [figuring out] the way to actually use it.”
However for non-console gamers who could also be involved concerning the recreation’s efficiency on PC, CDPR devs say there’s no want to fret.
“Prior to now, one thing that’s tremendous essential for [us] is that if individuals pay good cash for his or her {hardware}, [then] we would like them to have what the sport can present for that, not like a simplified expertise,” Tremblay mentioned. “So that is one thing we’ll positively discover. The corporate began as a PC [gaming] firm, and we’ll positively need to have the perfect expertise for the PC gamer for certain. However it’s too early to say what this can imply for The Witcher 4.”
Tremblay did, nevertheless, categorical concern concerning launching The Witcher 4 on Xbox Sequence S, describing it as a hurdle “that may positively be extraordinarily difficult” to beat.
