The Witcher 4: what we know about the start of a new trilogy

As The Witcher's last game approaches a decade since its release, we're all anxiously awaiting CD Projekt Red's next move. We now know that The Witcher 4 is in full development and will star Geralt's adopted daughter Ciri as the new protagonist for the series.

We've been told that the next Witcher games will be what we've come to expect: "a story-driven open-world RPG built on the legacy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt", which hopefully makes the Lambert and Keira school rumors ring true. The next game will kick off a new Witcher trilogy, with all three being delivered within a six-year period. And frankly, we're more than ready to bring out the silver swords again.

With the Witcher 4 only entering full production in late 2024, the next Witcher saga is still in the distant future. But we've got plenty to speculate about and a stunning tech demo to pore over in the meantime. With that in mind, let's take a look at everything we know about the next Witcher game.

Is there a Witcher 4 release date?

The earliest The Witcher 4 will release is 2027, but it's just as likely to be later than that.

We know that 2027 is at least a possibility, thanks to CD Projekt Red's 2024 earnings presentation telling us that "All we could share now to give more visibility to investors is that the game will not be launched within the time frame of the first target for the incentive program, which ends December 31, 2026."

We do know that Witcher 4 is finally in full production, which is good news, but still places Witcher 4 a ways away from release.

In a 2024 investor call, CEO Michał Nowakowski explained most triple-A games take around three years, and CDPR averaged around "about four or five-ish" from beginning to end. Associate game director Pawel Sasko also called it their "most advanced" project in the works, so no wonder it's become a bit of a wait. Regardless of the exact timing, we know that means the first Witcher's remake is an even longer way off.

Witcher 4 trailer

Here's the first reveal trailer for The Witcher 4

The Witcher 4 World Premiere Trailer from The Game Awards 2024 - YouTube

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Hell yeah that's our girl Ciri and this new installment of The Witcher looks as dark and beautiful as ever. Ciri turns up in a small village determined to sacrifice a young women to a monster—standard small village stuff. Ciri naturally follows to save the girl and kill the monster only to find out that her own people killed her for not upholding tradition. No good deed goes unpunished on The Continent.

During her fight with the giant many-legged critter, we can see that Ciri has more than just a silver sword and witcher signs at her disposal. She's retained her magical abilities and uses a lightning shock to repel her enemy.

The Witcher 4 story and characters

Ciri is the star of The Witcher 4

After much nail-biting and speculation we now know that Ciri is definitely our protagonist for The Witcher 4. We'll be taking a trip into the future with Ciri as an established witcher the way Geralt was in his own trilogy. Albeit, with a different voice actor this time.

Based on which Witcher 3 ending you chose, we knew there would be lots of possibilities to continue Ciri's story. In what's considered the best ending for the game, Ciri and Geralt spend time together on the witcher path after Geralt gifts her a silver sword of her own. It sure seems like that's the canon choice, with us picking up Ciri's story as a full-fledged witcher.

Since before the release of The Witcher 3, CDPR has been open about the fact that Geralt wouldn’t return as the protagonist of whatever comes next in the series. "With the third installment, we should wrap it up and conclude a lot of threads," CDPR's CEO Marcin Iwiński told Polygon in 2013. "We are not killing the world and walking away from it, but we will definitely want to make this game the finale in a big way."

In the same interview, executive producer John Mamais hinted that Geralt could return with a smaller role or as a cameo. "We might even include Geralt in later games potentially," Mamais said. "We just need to talk about it and figure out what we're going to do next." Geralt is a very flexible character. His long lifetime (he's over 90 in The Witcher 3) means that he could pop up in stories told long before or after the events of CDPR’s trilogy.

Based on confirmation from the devs and the reveal trailer that features Geralt's voice at the end, we know for sure that Geralt will appear in The Witcher 4. He has to take a break from that retirement at his vineyard in Toussaint sometimes.

The Witcher 4 is the start of a new trilogy

During a CD Projekt Red financial earnings call in September 2022, CEO Adam Kiciński indicated that the next Witcher sequel could be the first in a new trilogy of Witcher games. "We said that there will be a new saga. We have in mind more than one," Kiciński said. "The first saga was three games, so now we are thinking about more than one game."

Kiciński went on to describe the potential new series as "the second Witcher saga," leaving a pretty firm impression that CD Projekt is still in for the long haul on the Witcher. We know the trilogy in the works alongside Project Sirius and Project Canis Majoris, two standalone Witcher projects.

Where will The Witcher 4 be set?

Thanks to Epic's State of Unreal livestream in June 2025, we know that Kovir will be explorable in The Witcher 4. This is the first time that Kovir—the mountainous region in the north—will be visited in The Witcher game series. It's got forest, it's got snow, it's got monsters to hunt—it's pretty much a quintessential Witcher location.

The metropolis of Lan Exeter (located in Kovir) was teased at the end of the tech demo, which seems a lot larger than previous Witcher hub areas—even The Witcher 3's Novigrad.

As for where else Ciri might be exploring in The Witcher 4, we can only speculate for now.

Speaking of speculation, as Kovir is in the north, other northern areas like Poviss, Aedirn, and Cintra might also feature in The Witcher. Hell, Rivia (the city that Geralt adopted as his namesake) could even make an appearance.

Will there be a Lynx School of witchers in The Witcher 4?

So far, the initial teaser image for the next Witcher game is the biggest hint we have to work with. It's a witcher medallion, like the pendant from the Wolf School of witchers that Geralt wears, but this one is of a lynx.

Initially we were hesitant about Lynx School speculation. It hasn't appeared in any Witcher game, novel, or television production so far. The only lynx school lore out in the wild at the moment is unofficial, written by fans on the Witcher Fanon Wiki.

One small official reference to a Lynx is the item codes for the Cat School gear in The Witcher 3. To spawn in different Cat school weapons and armor pieces, you'll use item codes named "Lynx", like how the Ursine gear is referred to in item codes as "Bear".

After the teaser image was revealed, CDPR's community manager Marcin Momot responded to all the speculation with an emphatic nod, later confirming to PC Gamer by email that he wasn't just being cheeky. "I can confirm that the medallion is, in fact, shaped after a lynx," he said.

So, that certainly seems like Lynx School confirmed! We just don't yet know anything about the origins of this order of witchers, who its members are, or whether they're related to the Cat School.

The Witcher 4 development

The Witcher 4 is being made with Unreal Engine 5

Alongside confirmation of The Witcher 4's development, CDPR also explained that it had partnered with Epic Games to use its development engine for the next game.

"It is vital for CD Projekt Red to have the technical direction of our next game decided from the earliest possible phase as in the past, we spent a lot of resources and energy to evolve and adapt REDengine with every subsequent game release," CD Projekt Red CTO Paweł Zawodny said.

Later, game director Jason Slama explained that a major factor in the decision was Unreal 5's open-world capabilities. Instead of continuing to adapt REDengine for the purpose, CDPR will be leaning on what Unreal 5 can already do.

"Players can go in whatever direction they want, they can handle content in any order that they want, theoretically," Slama said. "To really encapsulate that, you need a really stable environment where you can be able to make changes with a high level of confidence that it's not going to break in 1,600 other places down the line."

Will The Witcher 4 be an Epic Games Store exclusive?

Nope, or at least CDPR says that it is "not planning on making the game exclusive to one storefront."

That seems like a really odd thing for the studio to clarify, but when it first announced The Witcher 4, CDPR also announced that the new Witcher game would be made with Unreal Engine 5 instead of the studio's propriety REDengine that it's used since The Witcher 2.

CD Projekt does also own the GOG storefront, so it would be very odd if The Witcher 4 weren't available there. If what you're really asking is whether or not it will be sold on Steam, that's a question that CDPR hasn't explicitly answered.

The animation lead from Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk is directing the new Witcher saga

The former head of animation and animation director for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, Sebastian Kalemba announced on Twitter that he'll be shifting leadership roles to work on the new Witcher games as Game Director.

While titles aren't exactly intuitive in game development, Kalemba's new title as Game Director indicates a responsibility for coordinating the overall production of the new series.

CD Projekt signed a new deal with Witcher creator Andrzej Sapkowski in 2019

CD Projekt famously got the rights to make Witcher games for a flat up-front fee, which novelist Andrzej Sapkowski wasn't thrilled about after the games became enormously popular. Since 2018 the two parties have been negotiating a new deal, and in December 2019 they finally reached it. The new agreement "solidifies and reinforces the company’s relationship with Mr. Andrzej Sapkowski—author of The Witcher saga."

The most interesting quote, however, is this one: "The agreement confers new rights upon the Company and reaffirms its existing title to 'The Witcher' intellectual property in developing video games, graphic novels, board games and merchandise."

That doesn't spell out that new videogames are on the way, but it's a sure sign that CD Projekt has a long-term interest in The Witcher.

The Witcher 4 won't use gen AI

In some good AI news (for once) CD Projekt's joint CEO Michał Nowakowski has stated that The Witcher 4 (and "any projects in the near future") will not use generative AI because it is "quite tricky when it comes to legal IP ownership and so on, and many other aspects."

AKA, CD Projekt Red probably doesn't want to get sued, or mess with any potential future partners. Which makes sense when you think about places like Steam rejecting a game featuring AI-generated art.

The Witcher 4's development is "console-first"

Thanks to Cyberpunk 2077's infamous console issues at launch, The Witcher 4 is taking a "console-first" approach according to Charles Tremblay, VP of technology at CD Projekt Red. So instead of pushing what CD Projekt can do on PC and then attempting to scale back for consoles, The Witcher 4 team has it running smoothly at 60fps on console as their main goal instead.

Worry not PC gamers, that doesn't mean you're getting shafted in favor of PlayStation and Xbox bros, as in the same interview, Tremblay assured us that this method just means it's easier to "scale up" on PC. He further clarified that "Because we're CDPR, we always like to push PCs to the limit," and that "The company started as a PC company and we definitely will want to have the best experience for the PC gamer for sure… But it's too early to say what will it mean for The Witcher 4."

The Witcher 4 gameplay

Holy smokes, there's actual Witcher 4 gameplay out there! It's a tech demo shown off as part of Epic's State of Unreal livestream, sure, but hey, gameplay is gameplay! You can check out the full 10 minute presentation below.

The Witcher 4 Tech Demo Unreal Engine 5 - YouTube

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Apart from this snippet of early gameplay, and the obvious (it's an open world RPG, you swing swords about, ride a horse, use cool powers etc. etc.) we do know a little more about what CD Projekt Red has planned for The Witcher 4:

• Character builds will be more varied. Inspired by Cyberpunk 2077's style of experiencing encounters "in your own way," Game Director Sebastian Kalemba has stated that "This is something we definitely want to bring as a lesson [to The Witcher 4].” Could this mean elemental combos might play a part, like hinted in the reveal trailer? Maybe some stealth? A Sandevistan? We'll just have to wait and see.
• Gwent is back. Hell yeah, fellow Gwent-enjoyers, The Witcher 3's iconic card minigame has been confirmed as returning for Ciri's first Witcher outing, and we're pretty pumped about it.
• Ciri's teleportation powers will be nerfed, or taken away. Her OP powers seen in The Witcher 3 will have to be scaled back, or removed entirely, to presumably not break the game. The in-game lore reason for this? "something totally happened in-between [games]." Very enlightening. But game director Sebastian Kalemba reassured us that they're not just ignoring the lore implications, and that what happened will definitely be addressed in the game.