Developer CD Projekt has effectively confirmed that you won't be playing The Witcher 4 before 2025 during a Q&A session with investors.
The Witcher 4 does not yet have an official title, though it was revealed yesterday that it's going internally by the codename Polaris, and that it will be the first entry of a new Witcher trilogy planned to be released within a six year span.
In response to a question about the development timeline of the trilogy, president Adam Kiciński explained that "for Polaris, we are preparing technologies. This is the first project to be released on the new engine, Unreal 5. There is a need of some extra work making this technology viable for huge, open-world, story-driven games. So for this project, for sure, we need some extra effort to deliver. The second and the third installments should go smoother as technology will be better and the tools and the pipelines will be there, but this is all I can say for now."
That question was followed up by another investor asking if, since the entire trilogy would come out in a six year span with three years between each game, is it reasonable to assume that it would take longer than than three years to develop Polaris?
"Yes it is," Kiciński responded.
Assuming that Polaris comes out at the earliest possible date in this 2025 timeframe, that means the final installment of the trilogy wouldn't be out before 2031. Finally, an announced game that might take longer to come to market than The Elder Scrolls 6.
Check out our guide to every single one of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games.
