The Witcher 4 in Unreal Engine 5 looks stunning: Here are some takeaways from the tech demo

Indian Express

7 days ago

CD Projekt Red, the gaming studio that brought us The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, on Tuesday, June 3, showed a tech demo of The Witcher 4, an upcoming single-player, open-world RPG set in the same universe as its predecessor. In a blog post, CD Projekt Red said that the tech demo showcased how it is working with Epic Games' Unreal Engine to optimise and bring The Witcher 4 to the PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
The tech demo, which takes place in the 'never-before-seen region of Kovir', follows Ciri, the main protagonist in The Witcher 4, along with her horse Kelpie, who travelling in the mountains and dense forests of Kovir to a new port town named Valdrest. In the video, CD Projekt Red and Epic Games also show Ciri talking to NPCs during a mission that involves killing a monster.
The game developers also shed light on how they used Unreal Engine 5 features to power the game's open world and how the engine helps them 'drive performance, visual fidelity, and shape The Witcher 4's immersive open world.' CD Projekt Red, popularly known as CDPR, isn't unfamiliar with Unreal Engine. Back in 2022, the gaming studio announced that it would be working with Fortnite maker Epic Games to develop new tools and use Unreal Engine 5 features to expand its open world development capabilities.
The Witcher 4 tech demo, which runs on the standard non-pro PlayStation 5 at 60 fps, showcases how game developers can use the latest Unreal Engine features like the new Unreal Animation Framework, Nanite Foliage rendering, MetaHuman technology with Mass AI crowd scaling, and others without significantly affecting the performance.
However, in a statement to Video Game Chronicles, CD Projekt Red confirmed that what was shown in the demo wasn't The Witcher 4 gameplay, but just a tech demo that was set in the same universe as the game. Officially announced late last year, The Witcher 4 is one of the most famous games by the studio. And while CDPR hasn't shed much light on the game's story, we now know that the upcoming game will follow Ciri in her adventure in the northern region of the continent.
Some of the highlights in The Witcher 4 tech demo's footage show a high-density foliage area created using the newest Unreal Engine 5 tools. The demo then takes us to a lively town where NPCs naturally talk to each other and do multiple actions simultaneously, like selling goods, doing everyday chores, and even throwing drinks out of a tavern.
And while this isn't The Witcher 4 gameplay many were waiting for, it does give us an insight into how the game will look and feel. In a statement to The Verge, Julius Girbig, a senior technical animator at CDPR, said that they 'specifically wanted to go' with the standard PlayStation 5 to 'show how much we can optimize this engine together with Epic and make it work on current, gen instead of running it on some high-end hardware.'
In the last year, several gaming studios, including some big games, have launched games using the Unreal Engine 5, but many of them have faced performance issues, with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 being the prime example of how buggy a game can get when not optimised properly. However, with CDPR showing off The Witcher 4 running at 60 fps without any problems on the PlayStation 5, we may finally see more mainstream gaming studios ditching their in-house developed engines and going with Unreal Engine 5.