CD Projekt Red switched to Unreal Engine 5 for the next entry in The Witcher series to use an engine with a solid base and stop chasing REDEngine’s tools and features for each new game, according to a former CDPR employee.
Speaking on Twitter, former CD Projekt Red employee Bart Wronski provided some context for why the studio switched to Unreal Engine 5, revealing that for each new game, the studio basically rewrote REDEngine from scratch, hoping it would work better than the previous time, but then had to hack it due to crunch, which made it not maintainable. As this would be happening again, the studio opted for an engine with a solid base to avoid making the same mistakes of the past.
Now they would do it again (as CP did not have systems of W3), so it was better to just drop the ball and use something with a solid base and not chase its tools and features.Gameplay / open world things need to be written again anyway.
— Bart Wronski 🇺🇦 (@BartWronsk) March 22, 2022
In another tweet, Bart Wronksi further elaborated on what he meant by rewriting the engine from scratch, confirming that many core-level systems were rewritten between The Witcher 2 and 3, and again between The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, often one by one.
Yes, all of the ones you list were scrapped between W2 and W3. And W3 and CP77. Even streaming, script system, literally everything (ok, some parts of renderer funnily actually stayed). Though often one by one.Art worked on W3 DLCs.
The next entry in The Witcher series, as mentioned already, has been announced earlier this week. Outside of the fact that the game will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, very little is currently known about it.
The new The Witcher is in development for yet to be confirmed platforms. We will keep you updated on it as soon as more come in, so stay tuned for all the latest news.
