CD Projekt Red Didn’t Switch To Unreal Engine Because Of Cyberpunk 2077

There’s no shortage of anticipated games coming out into the marketplace. We know next to nothing about some of those games. For instance, one game franchise that will soon see a new installment we don’t know much about is The Witcher. CD Projekt Red is working through this game, but if you haven’t been keeping tabs, what we do know is that CD Projekt Red switched to Unreal Engine 5 for this game and other projects.

Eurogamer recently did a piece reflecting on what they know behind the scenes at CD Projekt Red. Don’t get too excited; while speaking with various members at CD Projekt Red, nothing has yet been unveiled to highlight what’s coming. However, during the piece, we gained some insight into why the company moved from its in-house engine to Unreal Engine 5.

Some might have suspected that Cyberpunk 2077’s incredibly rough and poor launch was behind this transition. However, CDPR’s vice president of technology, Charles Tremblay, notes that this is not the case at all. The team was proud of what they built for Cyberpunk 2077, but it ultimately came down to the development studio wanting to work on multiple projects at once.

The way we built stuff in the past was very one-sided, like one project at a time. We pushed the limit – but also we saw that if we wanted to have a multi-project at the same time, building in parallel, sharing technology together, it is not easy. – Charles Tremblay

This would have made it hard to share technology between the various groups, as before, the focus was just on one project. However, the move to Unreal Engine 5 made it far easier to share information. It’s noted that this also gives a good partnership with Epic as they work on the technology, which is, I’m sure, a win for everyone involved.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there weren’t lessons learned from Cyberpunk 2077’s launch failure. It was also noted that the teams will reach new milestones before production further ramps up. That’s notable because we know that The Witcher 4 just entered full-scale production. So, it seems that this game development production is progressing smoothly.

We’ll also likely see marketing change a bit as, again, we can point to Cyberpunk 2077’s early reveal and teases that eventually were only met with a series of delays. That said, it was noted within the Eurogamer report the studio is still looking to drop little crumbs here and there to give media and fans talk about the game. That might help paint a picture of what The Witcher 4 will entail without going into a mass attack of marketing content. Unfortunately, it’s a mystery when some of those breadcrumbs will fall.