Back in March we learned that a brand-new Witcher game was in development at CD Projekt Red that would kick off a whole new saga for the franchise.
Now, the publisher/developer has announced in a recent press update that the initial “research phase” for the game has been completed, meaning it is now in the pre-production stage of development. Typically this means that the general scope and costing/timelines for development have been figured out and now the development team will turn to fleshing out the core setting and concept as well as begin gameplay prototyping and project planning.
Adam Kicinski, CEO of the CD PROJEKT Group says in the blog post, “We are very eager to revisit the universe which has shaped our history to such an extent. We have recently concluded the research phase for the first game in the new Witcher saga, which means that from now on further development expenditures will be capitalized on our balance sheet.”
The development of the new title sees the developer move away from their in-house engine REDengine and instead adopt Unreal Engine 5 in a new multi-year partnership with Epic Games. REDengine, however, is still being utilised to develop the upcoming expansion for Cyberpunk 2077.
