CD Projekt Red Co-Director Michał Nowakowski was interviewed game developer It tells how the studio changed its approach to developing The Witcher 4 after learning from the lessons of Cyberpunk 2077.
Image source: CD Projekt Red
Let’s remember that upon release in December 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 was criticized for sloppy technical execution (especially on consoles) – it even promised to refund any unhappy customers and temporarily removed the game from the PS Store.
Subsequently, CD Projekt Red assured that the studio’s transition to Unreal Engine 5 will make early testing of The Witcher 4 easier, which should have a positive impact on the game’s performance on different platform versions.
The person in charge didn’t mention Xbox Series S
According to Nowakovsky, two years before release, The Witcher 4 was already running on all platforms: “You come into the studio, fire up The Witcher 4. You can do it on PC. You can do it on PS5. You can do it on Xbox Series X, and it will work.”.
If there is an issue with one of The Witcher 4’s target platforms, the developers will halt all processes until the issue is resolved. This will slow down production, but the team won’t have any unresolved issues along the way.
In the case of Cyberpunk 2077, the studio focused on PC and mistakenly believed that adapting the game for consoles wouldn’t be difficult – just lower the graphics settings. CDPR still has not recovered its reputation after that failure.
The Witcher 4 is expected to be released on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and S in 2028. The project is positioned as “The biggest, boldest, most ambitious game yet” in the history of the studio. They promised a vast world, intense gameplay, and a deep and powerful story.
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