CD Projekt CEO says Polaris 'is Witcher 4,' company quickly takes it back
Back in March 2022, CD Projekt announced that a new Witcher game(opens in new tab) was in development, which we eventually came to know as Project Polaris. We immediately called it The Witcher 4(opens in new tab)—it's the one coming after The Witcher 3, so it just made sense—but CD Projekt made a point of saying it had not announced «a game called The Witcher 4.»
«It was our initial confirmation of a new saga in The Witcher franchise,» global PR director Radek Grabowski tweeted at the time. «Right now, we are not discussing any specifics in terms or story, characters, mechanics, or plot details.»
But that was then and this is now, and now CD Projekt has—for the first time, as far as I know—referred to Polaris as The Witcher 4. The statement came during the company's year-end financial call, in response to a question about CD Projekt's move to Unreal Engine 5.
«We are preparing things on the pipeline sides and toolset sides,» CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński said. «Some developers are still learning the technology, and at the same time there are teams working together with Epic on all those aspects that are needed for our open-world, story-driven RPGs. And definitely for the first project, Polaris, it will maybe not slow down, but it won't accelerate the process.
»But for the next project, we assume that it should smooth the production. That was one of the reasons behind the strategy, that we want to release three big Witcher games(opens in new tab) within six years, starting from the release of Polaris, which is Witcher 4."
This was actually brought to my attention by a colleague at GamesRadar(opens in new tab), who wanted to double-check with me that Kiciński was in fact saying «Witcher 4,» and not, maybe, «Witcher, but
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