The Witcher 4 dev says it's "too early" to talk in detail about what will feature in the upcoming RPG - let alone the rest of the new trilogy - but that the tech it features will benefit far more than just CDPR.
In an interview with Jan Hermanowicz, engineering production manager on The Witcher 4, I asked what the new technology CD Projekt Red showed off during its recent Witcher 4 tech demo meant for the rest of the saga. After The Witcher 4, the studio has already made clear that it's got plans for a completely new trilogy, with The Witcher 5 and 6 to follow the fourquel relatively quickly.
Hermanowicz didn't give much away, pointing out that the tech demo was just that - a demo. That means that it's still too early to talk about the contents of The Witcher 4, which means it's "definitely too early to talk about what will be in the rest of the new saga."
But even if "it's way too early to talk about the saga itself," Hermanowicz was able to talk about what its existence means for CD Projekt Red and the rest of the studio by extension. The studio has switched from its in-house engine to Unreal for The Witcher 4 (and beyond), and the new tools offer "a lot of cool things that allow for fast iteration and moving forward."
That's some of the basis for the faster-than-usual expected turnaround for the other games in the series - "the more tailored, the more appropriate for our type of game the pipelines are and the technology is, the easier it is to make the game," Hermanowicz says. It's also useful for the other upcoming CD Projekt Red games. "We have multiple projects in flight now. [Cyberpunk 2077 sequel Project] Orion moved to pre-production."
"The development of those things and those improvements for open-world technology go across all those projects and benefit all of those projects. So in a sense, we are now using The Witcher 4, and all the assets which are for this technical demo, which is a vehicle to push the tech forward, in return benefits all of the industry."
It's a big claim, but it does ring true. If CDPR has been working with Epic to improve Unreal Engine for its own ends, those improvements can still be felt by studios using Unreal for their own games. Granted, that doesn't give us any information about The Witcher 4's story, let alone The Witcher 5 or 6, but it's still a pretty major boon.
The Witcher 4 dev says "it's very clear" that Ciri is the right choice of protagonist, but that players shouldn't "make opinions" until the game is out.
