CD Projekt RED finally revealed Project Polaris, its new title in The Witcher series, as The Witcher 4 during The Game Awards. While it entered full production last month and is likely nowhere close to receiving a release date, it’s confirmed to feature Ciri as the new protagonist.
While it will feature new enemies and regions with a focus on player agency, what about the map size? Speaking on the Friends Per Second podcast, game director Sebastian Kalemba and executive producer Gosia Mitrega revealed that it’s “more or less the same” as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, it’s not a one-to-one scale.
Kalemba first shared an anecdote on the length of The Witcher 3’s story expansions during development. “When we threw the numbers, we were like, ‘Five to ten hours maybe for Hearts of Stone,’ and Blood and Wine, ‘maybe ten to fifteen hours.’ And we ended up with thirty hours! So, it’s exactly, like you know, this is chaos theory.”
“Of course, empirically, we have so much knowledge regarding the structure of Witcher 1, 2, 3, the structure of Cyberpunk, and all the expansions. So, we use this data.” However, CD Projekt RED looks at the scale “a little differently. We don’t want to be a servant to the numbers, you know what I mean?”
Regarding The Witcher 4’s map, it’s “definitely more or less the same when it comes to the size.” Even the quest amount is “more or less the same. Again, the game is going to be big. But also, the ambition of the entire team is huge. So first and foremost, we want to deliver a super compelling experience.”
Kalemba couldn’t comment on whether it will be “90, 85, or 100 percent” of The Witcher 3’s world size. However, the team is going for “quality over quantity. What we can promise – yes, this game will be pretty big. It’s going to be big compared to everything we’ve prepared so far.” The sentiment matches CD Projekt RED’s earlier comments about the title being “better, bigger, greater than The Witcher 3.”
Stay tuned for more details on The Witcher 4, and check out our feature for everything confirmed.
