The Witcher 4: everything we know so far

When talking about the best RPGs you can play right now, The Witcher 3 is going to be brought up. In fact, odds are that it will even appear in most people’s best games of all time list, and for good reason. Inspired by the book series of the same name, the first Witcher game is one of the best PC games, and has now become a household name thanks to the success of the Netflix show. However, after the third game, CD Project Red moved on to Cyberpunk 2077 and we were left wondering if we’d tossed our last coin to the Witcher.

It seems there are still more stories to tell in The Witcher universe, with multiple upcoming video game projects in the works. The most interesting, of course, is the next step in the story, which we’re currently calling The Witcher 4. We’ve taken our potions, oiled up our blades, and are ready to hunt down all the information we know so far about this highly anticipated upcoming game.

While Nintendo fans can look forward to Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Civilization 7, this game won’t be an upcoming Switch game like it is an upcoming Xbox Series X game or upcoming PC game. However, there’s always a chance it could show up on the Switch 2.

Release date speculation

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Witcher 4 has no release date of any kind. We don’t even know what year this game might happen to release in, but we do know that The Witcher 3 took the team around three-and-a-half to four years of development time, while Cyberpunk 2077 took even longer than that. If The Witcher 4 is going to be around the same scale, and with development being in such an early stage that there’s nothing to be shown yet, the best we can guess right now is that it will be at least three or four years before this game is ready at the earliest.

Another milestone for the next Witcher game completed! Congratulations to the whole Team! I’m proud to see how you’ve progressed over time. Entering the production stage of Polaris is an important step on our path to deliver the game and our long term strategic goals. Go Team,… https://t.co/XfIXGIRTxm

— Michał Nowakowski (@michalnowakow) November 26, 2024

The only update since the announcement came in a post on X (formerly Twitter) where Sebastian Kalemba and Michal Nowakowsi commented on Project Polaris (aka Witcher 4) going into “the full-scale production phase!” We aren’t ready to adjust our expectations on when the game will arrive, but it is now the primary focus of the team.

Platforms

What we have NOT announced today:
– A game called The Witcher 4.
– A game exclusive to one storefront.
It was our initial confirmation of a new saga in The Witcher franchise. Right now, we are not discussing any specifics in terms or story, characters, mechanics, or plot details.

— Radek (@gamebowski) March 21, 2022

No platforms have been confirmed, but based on the estimated timeline, The Witcher 4 should firmly be a current-gen-only game. It has at least been confirmed to not be exclusive to any platform, as the post above notes. We would expect PS5, Xbox Series X/ S, and PC versions to be released simultaneously. While The Witcher 3 somehow managed to cram itself onto the Switch, we don’t think that will be possible this time around. However, it could be possible on whatever the Switch 2 ends up being.

Trailers

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Well, this is a bit of a bummer, but we only have a single image so far in terms of … well, anything related to The Witcher 4. The image itself is just of a glowing wolf necklace, which denotes which school a Witcher is from, with glowing red eyes half-buried in snow. This appears to be the pendant of a different Witcher school than Geralt’s, however.

Another important hint from the above tweet is that this will be a new saga in the franchise and won’t be called The Witcher 4 to indicate this new direction. That said, the voice of Geralt, Doug Cockle, did let slip in a video for Fall Damage that “Geralt will be a part of the game. We just don’t know how much, and the game won’t focus on Geralt, so it’s not about him this time.”

Gameplay

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We have no gameplay to analyze here either, but we do feel confident that CD Projekt Red won’t want to shake their flagship series up too much in the gameplay department. We do hope the combat in The Witcher 4 is improved, but in terms of it being a third-person, open-world RPG with deep narratives and dynamic characters, all we can hope is that this next game lives up to the standards that the last game did. We don’t need a bigger world, either, but more detail and ways to interact and impact it with our decisions would be ideal.

Once we see the game in action, we can start to talk about what is changed and what will stay the same.

Preorder

This one will be a while. The Witcher 4 doesn’t even have an official title yet, let alone any kind of release window. Heck, we don’t even know what systems we can play it on for sure just yet. It will probably be a few years yet before pre-orders go up, but when they do, we will be sure to let you know all those details here. The Witcher 3 had some great editions to pick from, so hopefully The Witcher 4 will follow suit as well.