CD Projekt Red has confirmed that The Witcher 4 is now in full production, marking a major milestone for the project, codenamed Project Polaris, that comes more than two years after the project was first confirmed.
Game director Sebastian Kalemba he said on social media:
“I am thrilled to announce that Project Polaris has entered full-scale production! With new challenges just around the corner, it is these talented and hard-working people who make me confident that together we can make the upcoming Witcher Saga an extraordinary experience. There’s no point in stopping now! Stay tuned to find out what’s on the other side of the coin!”
Going into full production essentially means that the studio is now putting all of its resources into creating the game, with the overarching story, gameplay, and vision for the game having been established in pre-production. Of course, many things will still be defined and changed by launch – it may turn out that certain game ideas don’t work or aren’t as fun as expected and will need to change, for example – but the basic framework of ideas is now in place.
More than two years have passed since the announcement of Project Polaris and the confirmation of Kalemba as game director – he was head of animation and animation director on The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 – but there is a major technical hurdle to overcome as CDPR moves away from its own in-house game engine in favor of Unreal Engine 5. This, as we have seen even in studios that have moved from Unreal Engine 4, has a significant impact on the production pipeline, as developers and artists say they want to integrate features into the game, like Nanite textures and Lumen global lighting.
Another way CDPR could gain experience with Unreal Engine 5 is through a remake of The Witcher, although that project is in the hands of Fool’s Theory, a studio founded by former CDPR developers. Fool’s Theory is leading the development, but they are sharing the technology and tools that CDPR is building to interface with Unreal Engine 5, so it’s a great technical testing ground for what they want to do.
Source: CDPR Sebastian Kalemba
