Witcher 4 might end up being the project that finally closes the book on one of gaming’s roughest reputation hits. CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michał Nowakowski recently admitted the studio still hasn’t fully recovered from Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous 2020 launch, and he’s pinning real hope on The Witcher 4 to win back the fans who walked away.
- CDPR co-CEO Michał Nowakowski says he’s not “100 percent convinced” the studio has completed its redemption arc after Cyberpunk 2077.
- He hopes The Witcher 4, or whatever CDPR makes after it, can finally restore that lost trust.
- CDPR is running a rolling 10-year content plan that begins with The Witcher 4.
- The studio is dropping its in-house REDengine in favor of Unreal Engine 5 for all future titles.
- CDPR says it has no interest in releasing a major game every single year.
- The Witcher 4 stars Ciri instead of Geralt and currently has no confirmed release date.
Witcher 4 Studio Still Owns Up to Cyberpunk 2077’s Failures
Six years on, Cyberpunk 2077 still casts a long shadow over CD Projekt Red, and Nowakowski isn’t pretending otherwise. Speaking with Edge’s Knowledge newsletter, he didn’t sugarcoat where things stand. “I’m not 100 percent convinced we went through the full redemption arc,” he said. “I’m convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that’s a fair thing.”
That’s a pretty unusual amount of honesty from a studio executive, especially one whose company spent years clawing its way back into players’ good graces. Nowakowski’s hope is that The Witcher 4 finishes the job Cyberpunk 2077’s recovery started, though he was careful not to frame it as a guarantee. “I do hope we will be able to make it back,” he said, “if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next.”
What Went Wrong With Cyberpunk 2077’s Launch
For anyone who needs the refresher, Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December 2020 carrying years of hype built on the back of The Witcher 3’s massive success. What players actually got, especially on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, was a buggy, crash-prone mess that ran so poorly Sony pulled the game from the PlayStation Store entirely after an unprecedented wave of refund requests.
CDPR spent the next three years digging out of that hole, eventually landing the game in what a lot of people now call gaming’s redemption hall of fame, alongside comeback stories like Star Wars Battlefront 2 and No Man’s Sky. By CDPR’s own numbers, fixing the game cost roughly $126 million by the time Phantom Liberty launched to critical acclaim in late 2023. Phantom Liberty ended up being the game’s only paid expansion, and it’s widely credited with finally turning Cyberpunk 2077’s reputation around.
CDPR’s 10-Year Plan Starts With The Witcher 4
Nowakowski also pulled back the curtain on how CDPR is thinking about the next decade. The studio is operating off a rolling 10-year roadmap, and The Witcher 4 sits right at the front of it. The bigger strategic shift is CDPR moving away from being both a game studio and an engine maker, and instead becoming a company that focuses purely on making games while leaving the tech side to specialists.
The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past Comes First
Before The Witcher 4 even arrives, CDPR’s first real test with the community lands sooner than expected. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past, a surprise third expansion co-developed with Fool’s Theory, is currently expected sometime in 2027. Given everything riding on rebuilding trust, fans are likely to scrutinize this release closely as an early signal of where CDPR’s head is at heading into The Witcher 4.
Why CDPR Is Ditching REDengine for Unreal Engine 5
The REDengine has powered every CDPR game since the original Witcher trilogy, but that’s changing. The Witcher 4 and everything CDPR makes going forward will run on Unreal Engine 5 instead. Back in June 2025, the studio showed off an early tech demo of The Witcher 4 running on Unreal Engine 5, and it turned heads for how far along the visuals already looked.
This isn’t just a simple licensing swap either. CDPR and Epic Games have reportedly entered a 15-year strategic partnership aimed at overhauling Unreal Engine 5’s open-world tools and addressing some of its well-known PC optimization headaches. If that collaboration actually pays off, it could end up benefiting more than just The Witcher 4, potentially raising the bar for open-world performance across the entire industry.
CDPR Isn’t Chasing Annual AAA Releases
Even with a 10-year plan in motion, Nowakowski made it clear CDPR isn’t trying to turn into a yearly-release machine. “Our dream is to be making more games, although we never want to turn into the studio that’s going to be launching a big game every year,” he explained. “It may happen, but this is not the goal. We just want to make really cool games, and we don’t want to have a ton of IPs either.”
That mindset lines up with what’s already known about The Witcher 4’s scope. Unlike The Witcher 3, which got years of post-launch support and major expansions, CDPR has said it won’t have the same kind of post-launch depth this time around, meaning the base game will need to land right the first time rather than counting on DLC to smooth things over later.
What We Know About The Witcher 4 So Far
Details are still limited, but a few things are confirmed. The Witcher 4 puts Ciri in the lead role instead of Geralt, marking a real shift for the franchise after years built around one protagonist. CDPR has also confirmed the game’s map size and quest density should land in the same general range as The Witcher 3. There’s currently no confirmed release date, with most estimates pointing to 2027 at the earliest. Separately, CDPR also has a remake of the original Witcher in development, giving the studio multiple Witcher projects moving through the pipeline at once.
For official updates as they come, CDPR’s official studio site and The Witcher’s official site are the best places to track announcements directly from the source.
More Gaming News Worth Checking Out
There’s a lot else happening across gaming right now too. Destiny 2 players should check out the Eververse glitch giving away free items before Bungie patches it. Gacha fans can read up on Zenless Zone Zero’s new Version 3.1 characters, and trading card collectors should look into the Pokemon TCG Delta Reign reveal featuring Mega Rayquaza. Pop fans might also enjoy the Olivia Rodrigo Fortnite skin reveal, and Lego collectors can check out the Lego Hello Kitty set leaks for January 2027.
