Cyberpunk 2077 Devs Switching to Unreal Engine for The Witcher 4 From One They Were “extremely proud of” Was Born Because of Mutual Cooperation

Dec 3, 2024, 6:31 AM

Cyberpunk 2077’s developer, CD Projekt Red, is all set to move from its native game engine to the widely adopted Unreal Engine for its upcoming sequel to The Witcher 3. Switching from the internal RED engine seems like a strategic move to build a relationship with Epic Games.

Cyberpunk 2077 in-game — Cyberpunk 2077 was developed on CDPR’s internal RED engine. Image Credit: CD Projekt Red

The decision to switch between the two engines is not due to the previous engine failing to meet the developer’s expectations. It is a strategic move to transition from an individualistic approach to one that lays grounds for cooperation amongst various teams.

Cyberpunk 2077 Developer Lets Go of Internal RED Engine

Witcher 3 in-game — The next-in-line Witcher is currently under full-scale production. Image Credit: CD Projekt Red

Developers have been adapting to the latest Unreal Engine 5 to develop their games currently. CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski has recently announced the next-in-line Witcher game, which is codenamed Project Polaris but is unofficially branded by the name The Witcher 4. He said that the game is officially under full-scale production, which is the most intensive stage of game development.

The reason for switching from its internal engine to Unreal Engine by no means undermines the capabilities of the former. The studio is proud of what it managed to achieve through Cyberpunk 2077. The flaws in the game were due to other reasons.

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Charles Tremblay, vice president of technology at CDPR, shed some light on the same during an interview with Eurogamer. He said:

The first thing I want to say again, to be sure, 100 percent clear, is that the whole team, myself included, are extremely proud of the engine we built for Cyberpunk. So it is not about, ‘This is so bad that we need to switch’ and, you know, ‘Kill me now’ – that is not true. That is not true, and this is not why the decision was made to switch.

This statement is a clear indicator of how the team at CDPR feels about their internal engine that made The Witcher 3 possible, which is one of the best games on the market even now.

The Shift From Internal RED Engine To Unreal Was A Strategic One

The biggest reason for the switch was related to cooperation amongst different teams within the studio focusing on multiple projects at the same time. The internal RED engine restricted the team to focus on a single game, whereas Unreal enables multiple projects to get developed at the same time.

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This is something that CDPR wanted for the future: to work on multiple projects at the same time and to also build a healthy relationship with Epic Games.

There are quite a few projects lined up for it in the future, including Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel, codename Orion, and a fresh IP that is currently in the very early stages of ideation at the moment, codenamed Hadar. Are you excited to see the next Witcher game on Unreal Engine? Let us know in the comments below.

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