CD Projekt RED executives say that The Witcher 4 will be bigger and better than Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, the marketing won’t be early, and they will work more closely with consoles.
Developers told Eurogamer a lot about the preparation for The Witcher 4, what the game will be like, how it will be promoted, and when to expect the first teasers. The switch to Unreal Engine and the experience from Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 have allowed for some organizational approaches to be changed, improving the scalability of production. By involving enough specialists, CD Projekt RED aims to create better games and develop several projects simultaneously.
“The next game we create will not be smaller or worse. It will be better, bigger, better than The Witcher 3, it will be better than Cyberpunk, because it is unacceptable for us to go back. Even if there are some difficult moments or even something bad happens, I still think we will do even more than what we achieved in past years. So technology should not block us,” says CDPR CEO Michal Nowakowski.
The Witcher 4 on consoles
CD Projekt RED plans to move away from PC-only releases and late releases on consoles. Previously, the approach was “everything is fine on PC, let’s move on”, but now the development stages will be more
“When a console works very late, it’s more unacceptable, and it’s part of our process. So we conduct checks on the console to know exactly where we are on all platforms,” said CDPR Vice President of Technology Charles Tremblay.
One of the main difficulties in developing Cyberpunk 2077 was problems with consoles and the speed of data reading from storage. In response to the question of whether CDPR would consider Larian’s strategy with Baldur’s Gate 3 of launching on PC and then a few months later on consoles, Tremblay replied:
“Actually, this is what we discussed, but we are not 100% sure. It’s hard to say whether we want to go this route at this stage. … Most likely, there will be a launch not only for PC. I don’t think this is the strategy we want to adopt right now. Will this mean that we will have, say, 20 available platforms at release? No, but it won’t be just PC, and then everything else.”
“I think we had a lot of problems because of how late we started releasing on PS4 and Xbox [One] at that time, and we never want to be in that place again,” added Michal Nowakowski.
When will the marketing for Witcher 4 begin
The head of the studio notes that one of the lessons from Cyberpunk 2077 is to be “smarter about how we want to announce and start the marketing campaign.” The new principle is simple—announce the date when you are really sure of it.
“Honestly, when we officially started the marketing campaign with pre-orders, where Keanu was on stage [E3 in June 2019], the plan was actually to launch the game about a year later. It just didn’t happen. Yes, we didn’t plan a two-year campaign, and I still think that one year will be entirely sufficient for the advertising campaign of this game,” says Nowakowski.
According to him, CD Projekt RED has proven the correctness of the new strategy with the Phantom Liberty expansion. The campaign lasted about half a year, but it was just an expansion, and the studio plans a longer period for the new game—but definitely not two years.
“Having said that, I want to emphasize: this doesn’t mean that we won’t tease or release some cool materials earlier. Such a marketing campaign, a bit earlier than the game’s launch, differs from a ‘mass attack’ when you announce the date, start collecting pre-orders, and these races continue until you launch the game.”
It’s about videos or other content that would “excite fans.” Not to create hype, but to start the first reasoned conversations about the game.
“If I ask you, what do you know about The Witcher 4? The answer will be ‘not much’, probably,—there are theories and such. But there’s nothing concrete. So we want to drop crumbs here and there, so that people (and the media too) can pick it up and try to understand what we’re trying to say.”
So, since there are no materials from the developers yet, it seems logical not to expect the game’s release for a year or more. Judging by everything, the previous rumors about the release of The Witcher 4 in 2025 are somewhat exaggerated. Initially, teasers and other small content should appear. Also, probably, do not expect a simultaneous release on all platforms at once, but consoles will not be neglected.
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