It will be a long time before the next Witcher game is released. But at least Project Polaris will soon be entering the production phase, according to a lead developer.
CD Projekt Red is working on an ambitious plan for the next few years. The Polish development studio is not only creating the sequels to The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077, but also a remake of its first Witcher game. None of these titles are even remotely in sight yet, but at least there is a small update from Associate Game Director Paweł Sasko. In Podcastfrom Flow Games, he at least vaguely talks about the status of the upcoming games. We summarize the most important statements.
The Witcher 4 is more advanced than Cyberpunk 2 and the remake. Polaris is the working title for the new Witcher game, which will not be called The Witcher 4, but will be the start of a new saga. This game is being developed primarily in Poland and has by far the largest team, over 400 people. It is scheduled to go into production this year. (The only picture of the next Witcher game so far shows this witcher medallion.)
What does that mean specifically? “Production” is usually the third of six steps in game development (seven if you count post-launch). The mechanics, style and script have usually been decided beforehand, and now it’s time to put it all into practice. Production is almost always the most time-consuming part of development. The Witcher 3 took about three and a half years to develop. Cyberpunk 2077 entered pre-production in 2016 and was released in December 2020.
What about the other projects? There was no news about the other upcoming games, just a summary of what is already known. We briefly repeat the most important key data.
Project Orion will be the next game in the Cyberpunk universe. This is the game Sasko is most personally involved with. It is mainly being developed at the studio in Boston.
All games except Polaris are explicitly still in the early stages of development, i.e. planning or at most in pre-production. They will therefore only appear in a few years, an official schedule is not yet known. When the next The Witcher will be released is therefore still written in the stars – in 2023, the CEO of CDPR said that three Witcher games should be released in the next six years, i.e. by 2029.
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