CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 4 already runs on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, two years before its planned 2028 release — a direct response to the Cyberpunk 2077 launch.
Co-CEO Michal Nowakowski told Game Developer that the days of building for one machine and assuming the rest will sort itself out are over.
“You come to the studio, you launch Witcher 4 right now. You can launch it on PC. You can launch it on PS5. You can launch it on Xbox Series X, and it’s going to run.”
Michal Nowakowski, co-CEO, CD Projekt Red
The Witcher 4 and the Cyberpunk 2077 lesson
The change traces back to Cyberpunk 2077’s launch in 2020, when the game was pulled from the PlayStation Store over its broken console versions. Nowakowski said development was PC-driven from the start, chasing “the best possible visuals”, on the theory that scaling down to consoles would not be much of a challenge.
“There was this, as it turned out, false belief that toning it down to whatever was the current gen is not going to be that much of a challenge.”
Michal Nowakowski, co-CEO, CD Projekt Red
CD Projekt Red had got away with it on The Witcher 3 — “got a bit lucky here and there” — and assumed it would again. It did not.
“Since then, we don’t take chances. We want to be sure that it actually works.”
Michal Nowakowski, co-CEO, CD Projekt Red
The discipline carries into milestones. If a build is wrong on a single platform, the team stops and fixes it properly rather than logging the problem and promising to catch up later. Nowakowski described how skipped checkmarks used to compound: “two milestones or three milestones down the road, you have like four or five missing checkmarks and it’s not that easy.”
What else CD Projekt Red confirmed
The same interview covered the Witcher 3 Remastered, out September 29 as a free upgrade for owners. CD Projekt Red is working with Hungarian studio Geeksoft, which grew out of the modding community and knows the Witcher 3’s engine inside out.
Project Hadar, the studio’s mysterious new IP, stays under wraps: Nowakowski would only say more will come “at some point”, perhaps within the next five years.
The Witcher 4 is due in 2028 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X. For the full picture, see what we know about the Witcher 4 release date.
Which platforms is The Witcher 4 coming to?
The Witcher 4 is targeting PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, with a 2028 release window. CD Projekt Red says the game already runs on all three platforms ahead of that launch.
Why was Cyberpunk 2077’s launch so bad?
Cyberpunk 2077 was developed PC-first for maximum visual fidelity, and CD Projekt Red assumed downscaling to consoles would be easy. The console versions launched broken and were pulled from the PlayStation Store in 2020.
What is Project Hadar?
Project Hadar is a mysterious new IP from CD Projekt Red. Co-CEO Michal Nowakowski says more details will come at some point, possibly within the next five years.
