Image: CD Projekt Red
The 2024 edition of The Game Awards started with a bang — the very first look at the next Witcher game. It’s called The Witcher 4 and was revealed via a lengthy cinematic trailer that starred Ciri in place of Geralt, who led the original trilogy.
There aren’t many details yet, but CD Projekt Red says that in the new game, “Ciri takes center stage as the protagonist, embarking on her own journey to become a professional monster slayer.” It will be a single-player, open-world RPG. The studio says that “the cinematic trailer is pre-rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU.”
It doesn’t sound like the trailer will necessarily be representative of the final game, however. Here’s how CD Projekt Red explains it:
In the nearly six-minute trailer, viewers were introduced to Ciri, the adopted daughter of Geralt of Rivia, as she takes on a witcher contract in a remote village that has been terrorized for generations by a fearsome monster demanding human sacrifices. Framed as a short, self-contained Witcher story, the trailer showcases Ciri’s new abilities and tools, including a chain and advanced magic powers.
At the heart of the trailer is Ciri’s perspective as an outsider to the village. As the villagers say goodbye to one of their own — a young girl they are preparing for a traditional ritual sacrifice — Ciri chooses to intervene. Aiming to slay the beast and save the girl at the same time, Ciri finds herself at odds with the prejudices and superstitions of the people she tries to protect, leading her to confront a painful witcher lesson: that monsters come in all forms.
We’ve known for some time that CD Projekt Red was working on a follow up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is meant to kick off a new saga for the fantasy franchise. In November the studio revealed that the game, previously codenamed “Polaris,” was in the “full-scale production phase” of development.” It’s being built using Unreal Engine 5, which the studio shifted to following the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077.
No word yet on platforms or release timing.