CD Projekt Red has confirmed that The Witcher 4 will receive a physical edition — but in the same breath, co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has been very clear that the studio has absolutely no control over whether an actual game disc will be inside it. The culprit is Sony’s decision to end physical disc production for new PlayStation games starting January 2028, which puts it on a direct collision course with The Witcher 4’s confirmed 2028 release window.
Nowakowski addressed the situation in an interview with The Game Business, laying out CDPR’s position with refreshing directness: “We don’t know how things will pan out. We’ve heard PlayStation’s announcements, and we have zero control over platform holders’ policies. If they completely phase out disc production by 2028, then yes, there won’t be a disc. But we are huge fans of tangible collectibles ourselves; we love that stuff. So no matter what, we’ll have a boxed edition filled with some cool merchandise.”
In other words: there will be a box. It will have things in it. Whether one of those things is a disc containing The Witcher 4 depends entirely on decisions being made in Sony’s boardroom, not CD Projekt’s.
The Sony Policy That’s Changing Everything
To understand why this is happening, you need to know what Sony announced back in July 2026. In a short PlayStation Blog post, Sony confirmed that physical disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will end starting January 2028. After that date, new PlayStation titles will only be available through the PlayStation Store or through retailers as digital codes. Games already released or confirmed for disc release before the January 2028 cutoff are unaffected — but anything launching after that date will be digital-only from Sony’s side of the equation.
Sony’s stated reasoning: “The general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs.” The company framed it as a natural evolution of consumer behaviour rather than a dramatic industry shift. The gaming community did not receive it that way. The announcement triggered an immediate and significant backlash, with players citing concerns about game ownership, resale value, the second-hand market, the ability to play games without an internet connection, and what the move means for game preservation long-term. Sony has since given no indication it intends to reconsider.
The mechanics of the decision are worth understanding too. PlayStation disc production is handled internally by Sony — it’s not something a third-party developer or publisher can work around by going to an alternative disc manufacturer. As Nowakowski explained: “The discs for first parties, for PlayStation, have to be manufactured in their own factories. So if they stop manufacturing, then indeed, by 2028…” — the sentence doesn’t need finishing. CDPR literally cannot put a PS5 disc of The Witcher 4 in a box if Sony’s factories have stopped producing them.
What The Witcher 4’s Physical Edition Will Actually Include
CD Projekt Red has a long tradition of producing what are genuinely considered some of the best collector’s editions in gaming. The Witcher 3’s physical releases included cloth maps, compendiums, soundtracks, figurines, and thick physical manuals — the kind of tangible package that fans of physical media point to as exactly what they want from a boxed release. CDPR is clearly not interested in abandoning that tradition.
Nowakowski used two specific terms in the interview to describe what players can expect: “tangible collectible things” and “feelies” — the latter being a gaming and hobbyist term for the tactile, physical extras that come with a product beyond the game itself. The implication is that even if there’s no disc, the box will contain meaningful physical content rather than just being an empty shell with a download code card.
What that might look like in practice:
- A download code for the game itself — the approach Rockstar is already taking with GTA 6’s physical edition
- Physical extras like art books, cloth maps, compendiums, or lore guides — CDPR’s signature collector edition inclusions
- Potentially a figurine or statue of Ciri, the new protagonist of The Witcher 4
- A soundtrack or other media items in physical form
Whether this “feelies” approach will apply to a standard edition or only to a premium collector’s tier is a significant open question. Nowakowski’s wording was vague enough to leave room for the box-with-extras to be a higher-tier release only, with standard buyers simply purchasing digitally. CDPR hasn’t announced pricing tiers or confirmed how many editions The Witcher 4 will ship in.
The Witcher 4 — What We Know About the Game Itself
Beyond the physical edition question, the 2028 confirmation is itself significant news. The Witcher 4 — officially titled The Witcher as a fresh start for the franchise — was first revealed at The Game Awards in December 2024, confirming that Ciri would be the protagonist of this new chapter rather than Geralt. The game is described as the beginning of a new saga within the Witcher universe.
The development scale is enormous. Nowakowski confirmed that more than 500 developers are currently working on The Witcher 4, making it CD Projekt Red’s biggest and most ambitious project to date. The game is being built in Unreal Engine 5, and a tech demonstration released by CDPR has shown dense crowd systems, improved foliage rendering, real-time ray tracing, and a confirmed target of 60 FPS on base PS5 hardware — a notable commitment given how many recent open-world RPGs have struggled to hit that frame rate on current-gen consoles.
The Witcher 4 notably won’t have expansions — CDPR confirmed this recently, distinguishing it from The Witcher 3 which received two major paid DLCs. Instead, the studio is putting its full focus on the base game. The Witcher 3 is still receiving content though — Songs of the Past, a third narrative expansion for The Witcher 3 following Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, is confirmed for 2027. That’s genuinely impressive for a game that launched in 2015.
Where Xbox Stands — And Why Nintendo Is the Exception
The Witcher 4’s disc problem is primarily a PlayStation issue because Sony is the only platform holder to have officially confirmed a hard cutoff date. But the Xbox situation isn’t exactly settled either.
Reports have suggested that Microsoft’s next-generation console — codenamed Project Helix — will launch without a disc drive. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma declined to confirm or deny this directly when asked at Gamescom, instead emphasising the need for “efficiency and affordability” in next-gen hardware design — language that strongly implies the direction without committing to it officially. Microsoft is also testing a disc-to-digital programme that would let Xbox players convert existing physical game collections into digital licences, which would make significantly more sense as a feature if future hardware doesn’t support discs at all.
Nintendo remains the one major platform holder that has neither confirmed nor signalled a move away from physical media. The Nintendo Switch 2 launched with full cartridge support, and Nintendo has made no announcements about ending physical game production. Given Nintendo’s traditionally strong commitment to game cartridges and its different manufacturing setup compared to disc-based consoles, it’s the platform where physical game ownership has the clearest near-term future — which is a sentence nobody would have predicted needing to write a few years ago.
The Code-in-a-Box Question — Is This Really “Physical”?
This is the debate that’s going to run for the next two years until the policy actually takes effect. GTA 6 is already doing the download code approach for its physical edition — the game ships November 19 and its physical version contains a download code rather than a disc, even though the game is releasing before Sony’s January 2028 cutoff. Rockstar made that choice proactively. CDPR may not have a choice at all.
The philosophical question of whether a box containing a download code counts as a “physical game” is one the gaming community has very strong opinions about. For many players, the entire point of physical media is ownership that isn’t contingent on a digital storefront remaining operational, the ability to resell or lend games, and not needing an internet connection to install. A download code provides exactly none of those things — it’s just a different distribution mechanism for a digital product, packaged in cardboard.
For others, the physical extras are the draw — the art books, the maps, the figurines, the sense of receiving something meaningful in the post. For those buyers, a “feelies” box with a download code is still a worthwhile purchase.
Neither camp is wrong. But CDPR is clearly trying to serve both by committing to a physical box while being honest that the disc question is out of their hands. It’s a more transparent approach than some studios, and Nowakowski’s comments read as genuine frustration with a situation the company can’t control rather than a spin job on a business decision.
The broader context of the physical media debate has been one of the biggest ongoing stories in gaming this year. On a related note, the tariff refund story this week highlighted some interesting contrasts in how gaming companies treat their customers when money is on the line. And if you’ve been following the overall gaming news landscape this week, Squadron 42 also got delayed to Q2 2027 — for completely different reasons involving GTA 6, which is itself coming out as a disc-less physical edition. Meanwhile, the massive 12TB Valve data leak is still being picked through by the community for what could be one of gaming history’s most significant archive finds.
