CD Projekt Red has emphasised that footage of The Witcher 4 showcased at State of Unreal 2025 was not gameplay.
As reported by VGC, the developer said it was a “first look at the cutting edge technology powering The Witcher 4 – but not The Witcher 4 itself”.
“It showcases the powerful foundation we’re building in close collaboration with Epic Games to push open-world design further than ever before, and the core systems and features we’re developing using Unreal Engine 5,” a CDPR spokesperson said.
“We’re really proud of this early milestone and excited to give you a sneak peek at some of the cool tech like Unreal Animated Framework, Nanite Foliage, Smart Objects, ML Deformer, and Fast Geo Streaming that are helping shape the future of The Witcher.”
While showing the game, CDPR developers described what was shown as a “technological showcase set in the world of The Witcher 4”, which ran on a base PlayStation 5.
“We started our partnership with Epic Games to push open-world game technology forward,” added CDPR co-CEO Michał Nowakowski.
“To show this early look at the work we’ve been doing using Unreal Engine 5 running at 60 FPS on PS5 is a significant milestone.
“[It’s] a testament of the great cooperation between our teams, but we’re far from finished. I look forward to seeing more advancements and inspiring technology from this partnership as development of The Witcher 4 on Unreal Engine 5 continues.”
CDPR’s partnership with Epic was announced in 2022. It will be the developer’s first game not using its proprietary RedEngine since the 2011 release of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. 2007’s The Witcher used a modified version of BioWare’s Aurora Engine.
As reported at the time, the partnership will see CDPR developers working with Epic to further enhance Unreal Engine 5 for the needs of open-world development.
“Epic has been building Unreal Engine 5 to enable teams to create dynamic open worlds at an unprecedented scale and level of fidelity,” said Epic CEO Tim Sweeney.
“We are deeply honoured by the opportunity to partner with CDPR to push the limits of interactive storytelling and gameplay together, and this effort will benefit the developer community for years to come.”
Epic launched Unreal Engine 5.6 during its State of Unreal event yesterday. It unveiled MetaHuman 5.6, described as a “digital human framework” that is out of early access and embedded in the new engine.
It also announced that RealityScan 2.0 will launch in the coming weeks, which includes AI-powered masking, smarter image alignment, and airbourne laser scan support.
This tech was demonstrated during the tech demo for The Witcher 4, which supported devs in “capturing natural objects in high fidelity”.