CD Projekt recently announced that the next main instalment in The Witcher series is officially in development, at the same time also confirming that the game is being built on Unreal Engine 5. That, as it turns out, is the first step in a multi-year partnership with Epic Games revolving around the engine and its future iterations.
“This is an exciting moment as we’re moving from REDengine to Unreal Engine 5, beginning a multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games,” CD Projekt RED wrote. ” It covers not only licensing, but technical development of Unreal Engine 5, as well as potential future versions of Unreal Engine, where relevant. We’ll closely collaborate with Epic Games’ developers with the primary goal being to help tailor the engine for open-world experiences.”
While the original The Witcher was built on the Aurora Engine, CD Projekt RED its own in-house REDengine for The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077, so it should be interesting to see how the studio’s development and output are impacted by switching to Unreal Engine for future projects.
That said, CDPR also confirms that the upcoming expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 is still being made on REDengine.