Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 4, CD Projekt Red A CD Projekt Red senior developer has shared new information about the studio’s ambitions and outlook — including why they made the switch to the Unreal Engine. The news comes along with more information about the studio’s next entry in The Witcher franchise.

CD Projekt Red’s vice president of technology, Charles Tremblay, spoke with Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell about why the game developer moved away from its own bespoke gaming engine in favor of Epic Games’ Unreal. “I know a lot of people are curious about it, so I’ll try to explain,” Tremblay said, explaining that the REDengine wasn’t actually the main cause of concern the studio had when developing Cyberpunk 2077, and the game’s troubled launch also didn’t account for the studio’s switch:

“The first thing I want to say again, to be sure, 100 percent clear, is that the whole team, myself included, are extremely proud of the engine we built for Cyberpunk. So it is not about, ‘This is so bad that we need to switch’ and, you know, ‘Kill me now’ – that is not true. That is not true, and this is not why the decision was made to switch.”

“The way we built stuff in the past was very one-sided, like one project at a time,” Tremblay added. “We pushed the limit — but also we saw that if we wanted to have a multi-project at the same time, building in parallel, sharing technology together, it is not easy.” These factors played a role in CD Projekt Red switching to Unreal, with the developer also wanting to be on good terms with Epic Games going forward. “We can also help them [Epic] to achieve their vision, to do open world game[s], and also they can help us too, from some technical perspectives, on some of the aspects that we would like them [to] and that we would like to not have to be focusing on too much — because in the end, we are a game company, right?”

The studio currently has multiple projects in its pipeline, including the new Witcher game, a Cyberpunk sequel and a new IP code named ‘Hadar.’ Tremblay reaffirmed the studio’s commitment to releasing quality games — and not having any new titles mimic the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. “[T]he next game we do will not be smaller, and it will not be worse. So it will be better, bigger, greater than The Witcher 3, it will be better than Cyberpunk — because for us, it’s unacceptable [to launch that way]. We don’t want to go back.”

CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 4 Enters “Full-Scale Production”

A promotional image for Project Polaris (The Witcher 4).

Last week it was officially announced that The Witcher 4 had entered production, with CD Projekt Red’s Piotr Nielubowicz saying the game is “currently the most far along” of the titles the studio is working on, and adding that it is in “full-scale production”. An exact timeline for the game’s release has yet to be confirmed, but it has been revealed that the game will run on Unreal Engine 5. The Witcher 4 is also expected to be the first game in a three-game trilogy.

Although the recent Witcher 4 news is promising, fans shouldn’t expect too much information to come from the studio ahead of the game’s release. CD Projekt Red’s joint CEO Michael Nowakowski also shared with Eurogamer how the studio learned from Cyberpunk‘s launch, saying they plan to be “smarter in how we want to announce and kick-off marketing campaigns.” He added that the studio will “drop the crumbs here and there” to get early conversations going without sharing too much ahead of schedule.

Cyberpunk 2077 is available now on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.