CD Projekt has discussed its technical ambitions for The Witcher 4, which marks a big change in strategy for the studio.
The history of CD Projekt is rooted in the PC market, stemming back to the original The Witcher in 2007 and their origins as a CD-ROM importer, but development of The Witcher 4 will see the studio make a shift in priorities.
The majority of CD Projekt’s games have been built for PC first, with console versions scaled down from this baseline to accommodate their technical limitations. However, this method has caused some issues in the past, with console versions of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077 riddled with problems at launch – especially the latter.
An Unreal Engine 5 demo for The Witcher 4 earlier this month indicated a possible sea change at the studio, showing the upcoming sequel running on a standard PlayStation 5 at 60fps. Now, CD Projekt has confirmed Sony’s console is the priority for The Witcher 4.
When asked by Digital Foundry, about the reasons why it chose to show the Unreal Engine 5 demo on PlayStation 5, Charles Tremblay, vice president of technology at CD Projekt, said: ‘As you said, we always do PC and we push [the technology] and try to scale down. But then we had so many problems in the past that we tried to see, ok this time around we really want to be more console-first development.’
After noting the challenge of targeting 60fps on PlayStation 5 with a game like The Witcher 4, he added: ‘Where we go from there is hard to say, but right now we really wanted to focus on what does it mean to make this ambition on a console, and we have all our other projects at 60fps and we really wanted to aim for 60fps once again.’
While it remains to be seen what this means for the PC version, Tremblay did reassure PC players that it still wants to offer the ‘best experience’ for those on the platform.
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When asked how the studio would potentially scale up The Witcher 4 beyond PlayStation 5, Tremblay said: ‘I don’t want to go too much in details and again, not to overpromise, but in the past something that’s super important for the group is that if people pay good money for their hardware, then we want them to have what the game can provide for that. Not like a simplified experience. So this is something we’ll definitely explore.
‘The company started as a PC company and we definitely will want to have the best experience for the PC gamer for sure, but it’s too early to say what it will mean for The Witcher 4.’
According to Tremblay, the bigger hurdle is scaling down from the PlayStation 5 version, most notably for the Xbox Series S.
‘This is something that is next on our radar for sure,’ Tremblay replied, when asked about the Xbox Series S version. ‘I will say that 60fps will definitely be extremely challenging on [Xbox] Series S. Let’s just say this is something that we need to figure out.’
As per Microsoft rules, developers have to ensure their games can run on both the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S, with no difference in features. This has caused problems in the past, with Baldur’s Gate 3 being delayed on Xbox Series X/S due to issues related to the lower-powered console.
The Witcher 4 doesn’t have a release date yet but it is expected to launch in 2027, with a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 set to follow.
That’s around the time that the PlayStation 6 has been rumoured for release, but unsurprisingly Tremblay made no mention of that.
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