CD Projekt Red switched to Unreal Engine 5 for the next entry in The Witcher series to use an engine with a solid base and stop chasing REDEngine's tools and features for each new game, according to a former CDPR employee.
Speaking on Twitter, former CD Projekt Red employee Bart Wronski provided some context for why the studio switched to Unreal Engine 5, revealing that for each new game, the studio basically rewrote REDEngine from scratch, hoping it would work better than the previous time, but then had to hack it due to crunch, which made it not maintainable. As this would be happening again, the studio opted for an engine with a solid base to avoid making the same mistakes of the past.
Now they would do it again (as CP did *not* have systems of W3), so it was better to just drop the ball and use something with a solid base and not chase its tools and features.
Gameplay / open world things need to be written again anyway.— Bart Wronski 🇺🇦 (@BartWronsk) March 22, 2022
In another tweet, Bart Wronksi further elaborated on what he meant by rewriting the engine from scratch, confirming that many core-level systems were rewritten between The Witcher 2 and 3, and again between The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, often one by one.
Yes, *all* of the ones you list were scrapped between W2 and W3. And W3 and CP77. Even streaming, script system, literally everything (ok, some parts of renderer funnily actually stayed). Though often one by one.
Art worked on W3 DLCs.— Bart Wronski 🇺🇦 (@BartWronsk) March 22, 2022
The next entry in The Witcher series, as mentioned already, has been announced earlier this week. Outside of the fact that the game will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, very little is currently known about it.
One of the core aspects of our internal RED 2.0 Transformation is a much stronger focus on technology, and our cooperation with Epic Games is based on this principle. From the outset, we did not consider a typical licensing arrangement; both we and Epic see this as a long-term, fulfilling tech partnership. 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. This cooperation is so exciting, because it will elevate development predictability and efficiency, while simultaneously granting us access to cutting-edge game development tools. I can’t wait for the great games we’re going to create using Unreal Engine 5!
The new The Witcher is in development for yet to be confirmed platforms. We will keep you updated on it as soon as more come in, so stay tuned for all the latest news.
