The Witcher 4 narrative lead says CD Projekt Red "can't break" the stuff that people want from a Witcher game: "We have to do that"

The Witcher 4 narrative director Philipp Weber has said the upcoming sequel is carrying over lessons learned from CD Projekt Red's past games, and the developer "can't break" the things that already work.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Weber said the team is using "most of the good lessons we learned on The Witcher 3" while making The Witcher 4. Of course, developers want to do "new things, cool things, ambitious things, innovative things" - but they're also hyper aware of what made The Witcher 3 pop in the first place.

"But also we know the things that The Witcher 3 was good at, that we wanted to do on The Witcher 3, and we have to really push that," he added. "We can't break that. The stuff that we want from a Witcher game, that people want from a Witcher game, we can't break that. We have to do that."

"A lot of the narrative lessons from The Witcher 3, we use them exactly the same way. A lot of the rules on how to do quests that we wrote down, for, as an example, new team members on The Witcher 4. Those are the rules from The Witcher 3. Sometimes we have new things for new features, but the core stuff, it's that same philosophy we wanted."

Weber recently reiterated that point elsewhere, too, explaining that the studio has a strict 'no fetch quests' philosophy that isn't about to change with The Witcher 4. And he's even holding on to sage advice that he got in his earliest days at the famed RPG studio.

Don't expect The Witcher 4 to look exactly like its big showcase when it launches, as CD Projekt is "not guaranteeing that this will appear unchanged" in the full RPG