Among the most anticipated big titles, there is GTA 6, but also The Witcher 4. The 3rd game has really anchored the license in the hearts of the players, and we have not yet been treated to an adventure of the same caliber since in the RPG genre. Cyberpunk 2077 was quite different, aside from being underwhelming, Elden Ring favors pure exploration and combat. And despite its best efforts to emulate The Witcher, Horizon Forbiden West truly has ridiculous dialogue. There is The Elder Scrolls 6, far on the horizon, but between its nebulous release date and the disappointments that have been the games developed by Bethesda since Skyrim, we can not help but wait more for the next game The Witcher.
Official game title
The official title of the game has not yet been revealed, this is not The Witcher 4 we are simply entitled to a sentence “A new saga begins”. Even if it’s incorrect, and it shouldn’t be so named, the game simply named “The Witcher 4” by almost everyone in the meantime, since it’s still significantly more convenient and more light.
This is going to be the first title in a new series of The Witcher games, it remains to be discovered what word they will start with in order to properly differentiate them from their predecessors.
Development progress and release date
As of May 2022, The Witcher 4’s “research phase” was complete, implying that the game should be in pre-production as of this writing. While half of the studio is working on Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion, the rest of the studio would be on The Witcher 4. At this point, to make the slightest prediction on the release date would be terribly risky. Sometimes the development goes perfectly, and the studio has measured its ambitions, so the game comes out after 2 or 3 years. The opposite can also happen, and the game can then take more than 7 years to be released, as was the case for Cyberpunk 2077, which was the delay between announcement and release (in a terrible state, which more is). Optimistically, we can expect The Witcher 4 from 2024, or, for a slightly more realistic date, 2025, but that could be much later.
The Unreal Engine 5 as a foundation
One of the biggest news about The Witcher 4 is CD Projekt Red’s abandonment of their in-house graphics engine, named REDengine technology. It was used for The Witcher 2, 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. In the latter case, the engine clearly showed its limits in many areas, which contributed to making development longer and more difficult, even if it did not. clearly wasn’t the only problem. The studio has decided to do like the majority of large studios and publishers, by falling back on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5, which has been specifically designed to be very powerful, versatile, and relatively easy to use. . It’s impossible to predict how development will go, but not having to worry about the graphics engine is one less thorn in the side of developers. It also means that The Witcher 4 has the potential to be very beautiful and graphically polished.
There is an additional element that can be removed from theannouncement of the new Witcher game on Unreal Engine 5. A special partnership has also been undertaken with Epic Games to assist the studio as much as possible in the use of this tool, in order to create the best possible open world type experience. If you ever doubted it, this confirms that The Witcher 4 will be an open-world.
Geralt de Riv and the protagonist of the school of the lynx
We have already dedicated an article to this subject, you can find it below. But to sum up the main points, Geralt will not be the protagonist of The Witcher 4. It has already been said many times by the studio that he was finally going to retire, but that we can expect to find him in the form of a secondary character for example. As can be seen in the teaser image, which accompanied the game’s announcement, thehe medallion is not that of Geralt (wolf), but a medallion of the school of the lynx.
The spiritual sequel to The Witcher 3 involves another school of witchers, that of the Lynx. Geralt being from the school of the wolf, we must expect a radically different story and characters. It is still unknown what CD Projekt Red has planned, but it is not without risks.
This witcher school does not exist in the canonical works from the universe of The Witcher. It’s something invented (or taken over) by CD Projekt Red. There is indeed a fan fiction that mentions the school of the lynx, but it is completely unknown if it is a source of inspiration or not. This in any case eliminates known characters from the story, like Ciri and other witchers like Vesemir. This could open up various possibilities, such as creating your own witcher, or even the possibility of playing a witcher. Since the other schools are officially all-male, this may be the studio’s trick of taking liberties.
The Witcher 3 story and ending, obstacles to a direct sequel
Warning, spoilers : If you’ve finished The Witcher 3, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Geralt’s story is pretty hard to continue past this point, and Ciri’s is even more so. Extending their story further necessarily requires the studio to choose one of many possible endings. Some imply that Ciri is dead, and that Geralt continues his solitary life to avenge her, for example, when the White Frost approaches, and threatens to plunge the world into an ice age. In another ending, Ciri is empress, or witcher, and Geralt is with Triss or Yennefer for example. Even the political face of the Continent can change drastically depending on Geralt’s choices regarding Radovid’s assassination. The whole continent can be Niilfguardian, or not. Some games haven’t been shy about taking the plunge and choosing a specific ending as their base, but that’s still a bit frustrating for fans, and it takes away from the charm and charm of the previous game, with its endings denied by the studio.
Geralt de Riv’s life was very long, and he traveled widely, the new story may be set in a period prior to the trilogy and/or in a previously neglected region. The teaser image shows a medallion buried by snow, which suggests that the story will take place in the North, or in a mountainous region. Both stick well to the image of the lynx, a wild and elusive animal, which one does not cross near civilization. The White Cold could also be involved, but that’s more related to Ciri’s story.
That’s all for now, all you have to do is be patient. This article will be updated when new information becomes available.
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