First The Witcher 4 footage looks stunning even on a base PS5
PlayStation 5 owners can breathe easy knowing they won't need a new console to enjoy The Witcher 4 with amazing graphics.
While we finally got our first look at The Witcher 4 during The Game Awards 2024. It was via an entirely pre-rendered trailer, without so much as a whiff of gameplay.
Today, however, as part of a State of Unreal presentation showing off the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5 (which is being used for The Witcher 4 as part of a multi-year deal), CD Projekt took to the stage to show what The Witcher 4 will actually look like in action.
Although it's technically not gameplay and more of a tech demo (so don't expect this exact section to appear in the final game) this is the first real in-engine glimpse at The Witcher 4 and it looks remarkably good in terms of visuals.
Things begin with a cut scene of a wagon being attacked by monsters, with new protagonist Ciri investigating it sometime afterwards, before transitioning to gameplay of her running through a mountainside, riding her horse, and strolling through a busy town (the whole thing starts at the 30:10 mark in the video below).
There's talk of realistic muscle movement for horses, faster rendering for foliage, and densely populated towns, but the most impressive detail is that this demo is running smoothly on a standard PlayStation 5 – not a PS5 Pro.
According to The Witcher 4's game director Sebastian Kalemba, not only is the demo running at a consistent 60 frames per second, but it also has ray-tracing enabled.
As a reminder, the standard PlayStation 5 has separate performance and quality modes. You can't usually have the best quality graphics and a smooth frame rate of 60fps at the same time.
It wasn't until the PS5 Pro that having games run with both high frame rates and ray-tracing became more common.
This means that anyone still holding onto their original PlayStation 5 won't be forced to upgrade to the more expensive Pro console, if they want The Witcher 4 looking as good as it possibly can.
That said, it won't be surprising if The Witcher 4 offers higher fidelity rates and/or 120 frames per second on the Pro. By that point, though, the differences will be negligible to most people.
The demo contains no examples of combat or any other mechanics, though CD Projekt has confirmed that The Witcher 4 will take place in the northern region of Kovir, a setting not seen before in the series.
With any luck, you'll be able to play The Witcher 4 as early as 2027, at least according to CD Projekt's most recent financial results. That said, the studio hasn't ruled out needing more time than that, so don't be shocked if it takes until 2028 for the sequel to come out.
Given the timing, it's also possible The Witcher 4 will wind up a cross-gen release and launch for the PlayStation 6 and next Xbox, as well as PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
It's widely suspected that Sony and Microsoft will have new hardware out in a couple of years. Earlier this year, an allegedly cancelled Blade Runner game was claimed to have been in development for such hardware and was aiming for a 2027 launch.
(YouTube)
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