The Witcher 4 has entered pre-production, CD Projekt confirms
The company recently wrapped up the research phase for the next game in the series
CD Projekt has confirmed that The Witcher 4 has entered pre-production.
While it doesn’t yet have an official title, the company announced in March that its next Witcher game will kick off “a new saga” for the franchise.
It also revealed at the time that the open-world title is being built with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, rather than its proprietary REDengine, which powered previous Witcher games and Cyberpunk 2077.
CD Project’s chief financial officer, Piotr Nielubowicz, provided an update on the game as part of the company’s earnings results on Thursday.
“We have recently wrapped up the research phase, which means the project has now progressed to pre-production and we’ve begun to capitalise development expenses related to this new game,” he said.
CD Projekt claimed in April that The Witcher franchise has shipped over 65 million units, including more than 40 million copies of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Following a delay, it confirmed last week that The Witcher 3 is now scheduled to be released for new-gen consoles in the fourth quarter of 2022.
CD Projekt said in April that Cyberpunk 2077 had sold 18 million copies since its December 2020 release, and that a major expansion featuring a new storyline is in development.
Nielubowicz said on Thursday that CD Projekt Red is working on another Cyberpunk 2077 update featuring “further improvements” to the game.
“However,” he added, “the bulk of our production capacity has now shifted to developing a large, story-driven expansion for Cyberpunk, which we expect to release next year.”
Hundreds of lines of dialogue reportedly taken from Cyberpunk 2077‘s expansion appeared online this week, seemingly outlining the entire plot of the DLC’s questline.