Overview

• CD Projekt Red showcased a Witcher 4 tech demo running at 60 frames per second with hardware ray tracing on a standard PlayStation 5 during the State of Unreal presentation.
• The studio has abandoned its proprietary REDengine in favor of Unreal Engine 5 to leverage features such as Nanite foliage, Smart Objects, ML Deformer and FastGeo Streaming.
• Charles Tremblay, CD Projekt Red’s vice president of technology, warned that achieving a consistent 60 FPS on Xbox Series S will be “extremely challenging” but is the next optimization target.
• Adopting a console-first workflow is intended to prevent repeating Cyberpunk 2077’s launch problems by prioritizing performance on current-gen hardware before scaling to PC.
• The team plans to scale up visuals and stability for high-end PCs once console targets are met and expects The Witcher 4 to launch in 2027 or later.