The Witcher 4 devs reveal why they chose Unreal Engine 5

techradar.com:

CD Projekt Red delighted many last month by revealing that The Witcher 4 is in development (even if it’s not technically called that). Kicking off a new saga, the next Witcher game will focus on a different Witcher school, but what surprised many was the choice of tech powering it.

The Witcher 4 isn’t using the studio’s proprietary REDengine that powered  Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3. Instead, CD Project Red confirmed it will be using Unreal Engine 5, and now we know why.

Speaking during yesterday’s State of Unreal event, CD Projekt Red's chief technology officer Paweł Zawodny said, «Our collaboration with Epic has just started. It was the shift towards open-world support that brought Unreal Engine 5 to our attention. This opens a new chapter for us where we really want to see how our experience in building open-world games gets combined with all the engineering power of Epic.»

Joining Zawodny for this talk was Jasom Slama, game director at CD Projekt Red. Detailing how this collaboration begun, he confirmed «there was one demo that happened last year, that was the medieval environment demo, where at one point there's a notice board that looks strangely familiar to things we've done in the past – that even has a sign that says 'monster slayer wanted'.» It’s an obvious nod to The Witcher, which often sees Geralt of Rivia picking up work from local notice boards.

Evidently, this caught the team’s attention. Elaborating further, Slama continues on, stating «And I'm like, 'Hmm, are they trying to tell us, come over to Unreal Engine, look how great your games can look on there? Was that whole demo made with that nefarious purpose?' I don't know, but it definitely caught my eye.»

Moving onto the team’s philosophy for open-world