"It was the shift towards open world support": Witcher 4 developers explain the reason to shift to Unreal Engine 5

sportskeeda.com:

When CD Projekt RED announced Witcher 4, it created a buzz around the entire community. The new game is likely to be a new saga, yet fans seem to have branded the game as a continuation of The Witcher trilogy, which was based around Geralt.

While developers have given very few details, one substantial piece of news includes the adoption of a new engine. In a recent virtual interview, the developers have spoken about using Unreal Engine 5.

CD Projekt RED will work in a strategic partnership with Epic. As a result, not only will the new game be based on Unreal Engine 5, but the Polish studio will also work to enhance the overall engine.

There was a curiosity among fans as to why CD Projekt RED has shifted from the current REDengine. It now appears that there is a solid rationale behind it.

The Witcher games have a reputation for having a solid open-world setting. While Witcher 4 might be the start of a new saga, it would have been unrealistic for it to break the mold.

CTO Pawel Zawodny has confirmed that the open-world capabilities of Unreal Engine 5 are what drew them towards it.

Zawodny added that he hopes the collaboration will result in something truly spectacular. Game Director Jason Slama added something quite interesting about a certain open-world demo last year, which grabbed their attention. There was a glimpse from the demo showing a notice board containing a poster asking for monster slayers.

Slama also described the difficulties of open-world games compared to linear games. Slama believes things can go wrong very quickly in open-world games.

Slama believes the Unreal Engine 5 will provide Witcher 4 with the required stability.

It's not rocket science that developers often try to learn from the positives of different