The Witcher 4 is the “most advanced” project of all the games that CD Projekt Red (and its partners) are currently working on.
This was stated by Pawel Sasko, associate game director on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. Speaking on the Flow games podcast, Sasko wasn’t able to give much detail on any of CD Projekt Red’s upcoming games, but he did give a bit of an overview, explaining that The Witcher 4 is by far the furthest along.
Sasko echoed statements made during a conference call with CD Projekt investors in May, which itself reaffirmed plans for The Witcher 4 to enter production later this year. Describing The Witcher 1 Remake, Cyberpunk 2, a somewhat troubled spin-off, Project Sirius, and the new Witcher series starting with The Witcher 4, Sasko notes that the latter game is “the furthest along of all of them.”
The most important thing is that the project is advanced in terms of development, not in terms of technology. CD Projekt isn’t really talking about The Witcher 4 as a game, but rather an internal idea, and it’s likely that games like Cyberpunk 2, which is set to release after The Witcher 4, will push the technological boundaries even further. Sasko also reiterated that The Witcher 4 has the majority of CD Projekt’s workforce behind it, saying that “most of the people are working on Project Polaris.” As of May, that number was “over 400 people,” suggesting that the developer is really preparing for this phase of production.
Another interesting snippet from this part of the conversation is that The Molasses Flood – the indie studio working on the somewhat troubled development of Project Sirius – is working directly with Sasko at the new Boston studio he’s helping to set up. The developer only joined CDPR in 2021, and it’s only since then that this Boston studio has been established. This suggests that CDPR is offering a bit of extra help and expertise to the new project, which is designed as a game aimed more at fans of The Witcher on Netflix than dedicated RPG players.
The Witcher 4 won’t be “The Witcher 3 with new clothes,” CDPR says, “we’ll add new gameplay elements and mechanics” to the RPG.