CD Projekt Red Confirms a New Witcher Game Is In Development, Will Use Unreal Engine 5

CD Projekt Red has confirmed that a new Witcher game is currently in development and that it will use Unreal Engine 5.

While not much has been revealed about this upcoming game, the announcement did confirm that this new game will be "kicking off a new saga for the franchise and a new technology partnership with Epic Games."

No development timeframe or release date were given either, but CD Projekt Red did share a teaser image (which you can see below), that features a medallion and the phrase, "a new saga begins."

CD Projekt did state, however, that "we are not planning on making the game exclusive to one storefront" despite working together with Epic.

There was also no word as to whether Geralt of Rivia would star in this new "saga," but the medallion does appear to be of a similar fashion to Geralt's wolf medallion that is just one of those that were given to witcher candidates from the School of the Wolf after they pass the Trial of the Grasses. The medallion is covered in snow, so it could be one from the School of Cat or a new school altogether, but we will have to wait to find out.

The move to Unreal Engine 5 is also notable as CD Projekt Red had used their own propreitary REDending technology to build their games since The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

"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," CD Projekt Red CTO Paweł Zawodny said. "From the outset, we did not consider a typical licensing arrangement; both we and Epic see this as a long-term, fulfilling tech partnership.

"It is vital for CD PROJEKT RED to have the technical direction of our next game decided from the earliest possible phase as; in the past, we spent a lot of resources and energy to evolve and adapt REDengine with every subsequent game release. This cooperation is so exciting, because it will elevate development predictability and efficiency, while simultaneously granting us access to cutting-edge game development tools. I can’t wait for the great games we’re going to create using Unreal Engine 5!”

“Epic has been building Unreal Engine 5 to enable teams to create dynamic open worlds at an unprecedented scale and level of fidelity," Founder and CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeney added. "We are deeply honored 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.”

While this new Witcher game will utilize Unreal Engine 5, CD Projekt Red did say that REDengine is "still being used for the development of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion."

The Witcher 3 was released in 2015 and it won "a total of 250 Game of the Year awards," including from IGN. In 2020, CD Projekt Red released Cyberpunk 2077 and it had a rough start, to say the least, particularly on last-gen consoles.

This led to Sony removing the game from the PSN store and massive backlash. Since then, CD Projekt Red has committed to righting the ship and recently released the next-gen upgrades for the game for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

CD Projekt also confirmed that it's learned a "huge lesson," and hopefully that translates to many fewer problems for the launch of this new Witcher game.

In 2020, CD Projekt confirmed that it would return to the world of The Witcher after Cyberpunk 2077 is released and that it would not be The Witcher 4, i.e. a continuation of Geralt's story. The team has previously said that Geralt's story was complete, but this new press release neither confirms nor denies that this new direction is still the case.

While the wait for this new entry may be a long one, CD Projekt is still planning on releasing the next-gen upgrade for The Witcher 3 later this year and fans can check out Season 2 of Netflix's The Witcher right now.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.