The Witcher 4 enters pre-production but Cyberpunk 2077 remains top priority

metro.co.uk:

The research phase on the new Witcher game has ended, but that means it’s still years away from coming out.

At the moment, CD Projekt is primarily focusing on the first story expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, which it has confirmed is aiming for a 2023 release.

That said, it sounds like things are going smoothly with its new Witcher game, as chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz has revealed that it has entered the pre-production phase.

In a financial update video, he explains that the research phase recently wrapped up and the team has ‘begun to capitalise development expenses related to this new game.’

While the new Witcher was never going to be released anytime soon, Nielubowicz’s comments only make that more apparent since it means actual development hasn’t even started yet.

The game will be the first CD Projekt title to be built with Epic Game’s Unreal Engine 5 and Nielubowicz has stressed how important this new partnership is to the company.

Cyberpunk 2077 will continue to make use of CD Projekt’s in-house REDengine, but Nielubowicz has suggested that future projects will make use of Unreal Engine 5.

Whether or not this means the REDengine will wind up being put out to pasture isn’t clear yet.

Although the next Witcher is still years away from release, fans at least have the next-gen release of The Witcher 3 to look forward to. Nielubowicz has reiterated the plan to have it out within the last quarter of 2022, so October to December time.

The only entirely new project the company has planned for 2022 isn’t even a game, but the Cyberpunk 2077 anime tie-in for Netflix.

Titled Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners, it’s so far scheduled to release within the second half of the year and will be 10 episodes long.

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