Yesterday, CD Projekt Red surprised us all with the announcement of a new Witcher saga, developed on Unreal Engine 5 as part of a new partnership with Epic Games. While many developers partnering with Epic tend to release PC games exclusively on the Epic Games Store, CD Projekt has made it clear that it won't be doing that.
While it is still too early for CD Projekt Red to unveil any real details about the next Witcher game, we do know that the title will be developed on Unreal Engine 5 and work on the game has only recently begun, so we are still years away from a trailer, let alone a release date. Still, the official Witcher Twitter account did step in last night to confirm that there are no plans to make the next game exclusive to one storefront.
We are not planning on making the game exclusive to one storefront.
— The Witcher (@witchergame) March 21, 2022
With that in mind, we can expect The Witcher 4, (not a confirmed title), to release on GOG, EGS and Steam when the time comes. As for how long this partnership with Epic will last – CD Projekt has signed a 15-year deal.
As we noted yesterday, this Epic Games deal is very significant for CD Projekt Red. For The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, the studio used its own in-house engine, the RED Engine. This strategy ended up causing headaches over the course of development on Cyberpunk 2077. Moving forward, CD Projekt Red has committed to using Unreal Engine instead, which is more widely used across the industry.
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KitGuru Says: The idea of a Witcher game being EGS exclusive always seemed a little far-fetched given that CD Projekt owns and operates GOG and has committed to DRM-free releases for its major titles. Still, it is good to get confirmation on this.