Game News The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo

[Infinitron]

Tags: CD Projekt; The Witcher 4

https://www.thewitcher.com/us/en/news/51521/the-witcher-4-unreal-engine-5-tech-demo

Direct from the State of Unreal 2025, we are excited to share an early development Unreal Engine 5 tech demo for The Witcher 4.

In collaboration with Unreal Engine, we're working to make The Witcher 4 the most immersive Witcher game to date.

Take a peek at how we’re using Unreal Engine 5 to enhance open-world experiences, push boundaries, and lay the foundation for the next Witcher saga.

Keep in mind this isn’t gameplay of The Witcher 4 itself, but a deep dive into the technological groundwork.​

 

[Falksi]

 

[Salem]

Good to have a better direct feed of this for those who wish to see the potential of the coming Witcher. Can't wait for more after what I've seen today

 

[Infinitron]

She looks fine, that's cherry-picked. See Codexers fapping here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-witcher-iv-the-ciri-saga-begins.142368/page-99#post-9453627

 

[Salem]

Ah man, I love my tag!

I am a simp for Ciri

Thank you Inf lol.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Another movie "game". Even less possibility of self-inserting into the character, because it's some edgy girl boss. Zero interest.

 

[Falksi]

She looks fine, that's cherry-picked. See Codexers fapping here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-witcher-iv-the-ciri-saga-begins.142368/page-99#post-9453627

Wait until they see a real woman.

 

[Salem]

She looks fine, that's cherry-picked. See Codexers fapping here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-witcher-iv-the-ciri-saga-begins.142368/page-99#post-9453627

Wait until they see a real woman.

Should get the best of all worlds of having a good woman who loves to cosplay
Don't let dreams be dreams!

 

[Zibniyat]

Don't you just love that blur? Probably not even just "motion blur" which could presumably be turned off, but "standard UE blur". Such impressive graphics...​

 

[Salem]

Don't you just love that blur? Probably not even just "motion blur" which could presumably be turned off, but "standard UE blur". Such impressive graphics...​

Are you talking about the bad implementation of TA Blur ghosting? Probably the one thing I hate is in fair games of moving and seeing weird artefact anti-aliasing all over the place due to poor implementation. Witcher 3 with Red Engine was pretty decent, bar certain things with subtitle text flashing if not configured right.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Salem Zamkni pizdak, jesi zajebal.

 

[Salem]

Salem Zamkni pizdak, jesi zajebal.

I ja tebe puno volim lol

 

[Gargaune]

Looks nice, but we've all seen this marketing spiel before. Gonna have to see some proof, and the only proof these days is the final product.

I'm more curious about the technobabble on offer - I still set plan to keep my i7-9700K until 2030 at least, and if that really was running on a "standard PS5 at 60FPS", maybe I can. Big if on how representative a bespoke, for-the-stage demo is for real game performance, though.

 

[Taxnomore]

Walking in environments and horses confirmed ? So hyped for this !!!!

 

[Sobchak]

Announcement for the fanboys here that are going to be excited:

1) It's a tech demo. All the shit that you witnessed are scripted.
2) Yes, it looks good, it's not mind blowing, it's blurry.
3) You need to comprehend that there's a deal with Epic and CD Projekt, so stop eating all the marketing bullshit. You just witnessed an advertisment.
4) It's not going to run on your PC.

 

[YourMomsHouse]

Salem Zamkni pizdak, jesi zajebal.

I ja tebe puno volim lol

Now it is all starting to make sense...another subhuman Eastern European with a yokel's penchant for goyslop.

 

[Necrensha]

What's with the extreme eyeliner on her eyes? Elizabeth from Bioshock has the same thing but she had the excuse of being an spoiled princess. Is Ciri spending an extra hour or two on her face every morning? Lipstick when she's out there on the wilds? Priorities!

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

UE5 tech demo showreels are growing increasingly tiresome.

 

[luj1]

Once you play the first Witcher game, you are pretty much done

 

[Ryzer]

Ah man, I love my tag!

I am a simp for Ciri

Thank you Inf lol.

The audience Infinitron wants.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Just watched ten minutes, it's a CDPR presentation. TLDR is that UE can't deal with the open world in practice, even if it can in theory. When a visually rich level is built, the game thread gets bottlenecked, because all of its visuals are actors. The actor system is shit. They went to the lower levels of the engine and decoupled static meshes from the actor/component system, which reduced the frame from 60 ms to 40 ms. You can imagine what kind of dirty hacks they had to do. And then they said they can't keep the same version of the engine, because the development times are long, so when a new engine updates come out, they have to merge, and everything breaks.
I didn't listen on, but by the time they get down to playable 16 ms, this won't be Unreal Engine anymore, it'll be some ugly chimera.

 

[luj1]

Once you play the first Witcher game, you are pretty much done

Of course you disagree Infinitron, you are a well known pleb slop guzzler (movies included)

 

[frajaq]

it's ACTUALLY over

 

[Infinitron]

Once you play the first Witcher game, you are pretty much done

Of course you disagree Infinitron, you are a well known pleb slop guzzler (movies included)

Hundreds of Codexers voted Witcher 3 as one of the best RPGs of the 2010s. But you don't even have to agree with them to think that's wrong. I think Witcher 2 and 3 do some things better than the first game (not just graphics), so you're not pretty much done after playing it.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Just watched ten minutes, it's a CDPR presentation. TLDR is that UE can't deal with the open world in practice, even if it can in theory. When a visually rich level is built, the game thread gets bottlenecked, because all of its visuals are actors. The actor system is shit. They went to the lower levels of the engine and decoupled static meshes from the actor/component system, which reduced the frame from 60 ms to 40 ms. You can imagine what kind of dirty hacks they had to do. And then they said they can't keep the same version of the engine, because the development times are long, so when a new engine updates come out, they have to merge, and everything breaks.
I didn't listen on, but by the time they get down to playable 16 ms, this won't be Unreal Engine anymore, it'll be some ugly chimera.

So the key takeaway is that UE5 is a big fat bloated mess of an engine opportunity that looks good in showreels.