CD Projekt Red has revealed that The Witcher 4 will be built “for consoles first” and then adapted for PC, overtly ignoring their old strategy of first focusing on PC. This is different from their normal PC first method of the other releases.
In a recent chat with Digital Foundry, the Polish studio revealed their partnership with Epic Games on the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo for The Witcher 4. The chat gave us some insight into modern games and their challenges, particularly why you would need a lot of polygons to design pine trees.
Learning from Past Launch Challenges
CD Projekt Red’s VP of technology Charles Tremblay shared the rationale behind this strategic change. He mentioned that the studio has always developed for PC first, making it more technically advanced before scaling down for console. But, it has caused many issues in earlier launches.
Tremblay said the team didn’t want to repeat that mistake, so they’re taking a console-first approach this time. By collaborating closely with their Unreal Engine partners, they learned how difficult it would be to achieve their ambitious vision and maintain 60 fps on PlayStation 5 hardware.
The studio has a history of rocky launches, with Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 both needing lots of patches. Sony has taken Cyberpunk 2077 down from the PlayStation digital storefront after the game’s troublesome launch on the console.
Technical Foundations and Scaling Philosophy
Jakub Knapik of CDPR, who is the VP of art as well as global art director, increased the information. He said solid foundations make it easier to scale performance up rather than down. The developers believe that Unreal Engine 5’s technologies, such as Lumen’s lighting system, delivers the same look at all performances.
According to Knapik, the studio can enhance the graphics and technology after creating these bases. But he said that the details on how it will be done are yet to be figured out. The studio has always pushed the limits of PC hardware. This is part of the creation process.
PC Gaming Remains a Priority
CD Projekt Red said it still considers PC gamers a crucial part of their vision, despite making the game for consoles first. The team intends to add more raytracing options as well as other high-end PC hardware features and technologies.
Tremblay said the studio wants to be PC gaming-oriented since it began as a PC developer and the team wants to offer the best for PC. He made it clear, however, that while the foundation will be built with console specifications in mind, PC players will still have access to better graphical settings and performance.
The executive pointed out that it is still too early to say exactly what PC improvements will happen for The Witcher 4, but did confirm that pushing visual boundaries would be a constant.
Balancing Ambition with Stability
In an attempt to balance its ambitious creative vision with stable launches, CD Projekt Red has made this shift. To establish an engine solid enough for the console, it wants to avoid a technical mess like the latest releases, while still providing cutting-edge experience.
The method implies a more cautious approach of development that refocuses on stability to improve performance on all platforms.
By using this methodology, The Witcher 4 could launch in a better state, not requiring extensive fixes like past games after release.