The Witcher series may have begun as a series of novels, but there’s little argument that it wasn’t the games that took this niche Polish fantasy world to mainstream success. The first game was a rough but ambitious debut for developer CD Projekt Red, but it was with the sequels that they — and the games — became very impressive. The Witcher 3 in particular was a massive success, both in terms of sales and critical reception. The open-world game brought millions of players into the world of monsters, magic, politics, and a deep RPG story that many consider to be the top of the genre.
After the game’s success, leading to multiple spinoff properties including a live-action Netflix show and the stand-alone Gwent card game, few doubted that the series would end there. While the team’s first attempt at a new IP left much to be desired, CD Projekt Red looks to recapture the goodwill and success that put them on the map with another entry which, for now at least, is being considered The Witcher 4. There are just a few details to dig into at the moment, with not much more than an announcement that the project is being worked on, but here’s everything we know so far about The Witcher 4.
Further reading
- The Witcher reveal repeats Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest mistake
- The best RPGs for PS5
- The upcoming best PC games
Release date
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 so early 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.
Platforms
No platforms have been confirmed, but based on the estimated timeline, The Witcher 4 should firmly be a current-gen only game. We would expect a PS5, Xbox Series X/ S, and PC version to release simultaneously. While The Witcher 3 somehow managed to cram itself onto the Switch, we don’t think that will be possible this time around. Again, nothing is set in stone here either.
Trailer
Well, this is a bit of a bummer, but we only have a single image so far in terms of … well, anything The Witcher 4 related. 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. Is this Geralt’s pendant? It could be, but it could also belong to many other Witchers. We don’t know if Geralt will even be in this game, though Executive Producer John Mamais has stated previously that they could see themselves bringing Geralt back in future games, though not necessarily as the main character.
The Witcher 4 could also take place before, or long after, the adventures of Geralt. If it does take place after The Witcher 3, then we will have to know which ending the team considers canon as well. A prequel could be a direction they would want to take the series to give all the new fans of the world an easier entry point. So much is uncertain that it is almost useless to speculate until we see even a single character or video, so stay tuned.
Gameplay
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.
Multiplayer
No CD Projekt Red game has had multiplayer, and while it would be interesting to think about hunting monsters with a team of Witchers, that’s probably better off as a thought. All the Witcher games are so grounded in you being Geralt, making choices, and going through an adventure that multiplayer just seems like a poor fit. They might be able to do so in a different mode divorced from the single-player, but it would probably feel like a tacked-on extra that isn’t really what fans of the series are looking for.
DLC
The Witcher 3 had some of the best DLC in recent memory, especially for a single-player RPG. While that ball has been dropped with Cyberpunk, we have high expectations that the team will not only want to make up for that blunder with The Witcher 4, but also live up to their own standards once again. We hope for more great storylines to be added that provide more details, lore, and interesting choices to the world in future content updates that feel more like the old-school expansion packs than what passes for DLC in most modern games.
Pre-order
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.
