CD Projekt Red Says The Witcher 4 Will Enter Production Soon
The fourth Witcher game, codenamed Project Polaris, will soon enter production, developer CD Projekt Red confirmed on Wednesday. In a statement detailing its first-half fiscal year earnings, the studio said it was nearing the end of pre-production on the title. The Witcher 4 was first announced by CD Projekt Red in 2022, and was later confirmed to be the first in a new trilogy of Witcher games.
The Witcher 4 enters production
CD Projekt Red is set to begin full production on Project Polaris, the company announced in its press release. press release outlining the financial results for H1 2024. “Work on Polaris is progressing – the development team is approaching a major milestone that will mark the end of the pre-production phase,” said Michał Nowakowski, joint CEO of CD Projekt Red.
The studio didn’t provide further details about The Witcher 4, but did confirm that it is “laying the foundation” for Project Orion – the next game set in the Cyberpunk universe.
Project Polaris was first announced in March 2022, with the studio confirming that the game would be built in Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. Later that year, CD Projekt Red revealed that Polaris would mark the start of a new Witcher saga – the first part in a new trilogy, with the studio aiming to deliver all three games within a six-year period following the launch of The Witcher 4.
What We Know About The Witcher 4
The Witcher 4 has been confirmed as a story-driven open-world RPG, “built on the legacy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.” CD Projekt is also producing two other Witcher titles outside of the new trilogy – a multiplayer-focused Witcher game called Project Sirius, and “Canis Majoris,” a story-driven open-world title confirmed to be a full Unreal Engine 5 remake of the first Witcher game.
In an earlier profit report In November 2023, CD Projekt Red confirmed that nearly half of the studio — amounting to over 300 developers — was working on The Witcher 4. However, the company has yet to announce a release timeline for the game.
More recently, the voice actor for Geralt of Rivia, the protagonist of the first three games, claimed that the character would appear in The Witcher 4, but not in a central role. “The Witcher 4 has been announced. I can’t say anything about it yet,” Doug Cockle said in an interview earlier this month. “What we know is that Geralt will be in the game, we just don’t know how much. And the game won’t be focused on Geralt, so it’s not about him this time.”
