In a Q&A session that followed the studio’s Q3 report, the joint CEO of CDPR, Michał Nowakowski, discussed the development cycle for the next Witcher games. He says they’re now 4 years into developing the Witcher 4 using Unreal Engine 5.
Our plan still is to launch the whole trilogy within a six-year period, so yes, that would mean we would plan to have a shorter development time
Michał Nowakowski
They have now cracked the code with the engine and are well-versed with all its features and tech. He is confident that the next Witcher trilogy will be released within 6 years, so a much shorter development period.
That’s amazing, I would love if they could do it. But it seems insanely ambitious.
I wonder if this is confirmation that the whole trilogy is planned to be compatible with Series X.
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Witcher IV has been ““shown runnning”” on PS5, so it will be on Xbox Series X and S for sure.
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I know, my wondering is to do with the second and third games in the new trilogy that he mentioned. If they’re only planning on two years of additional development for each of those games, my guess is they’re planning on keeping the technical/engine aspects of the game the same or only minimally iterate between sequels. They probably plan on reusing a lot of assets too - all three games taking place in the same open world? Just speculating. 
But we’re probably not looking at giant technical leaps with each sequel which to me signals cross gen compatibility for the whole set even though the next gen will be well underway by then.
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I feel like all games will be compatible with current gen for the foreseeable future. Maybe at worst they drop the Series S and Microsoft laxes on the parity requirement, but I doubt even that for most games. I think as developers are understanding UE5 more memory optimization is less of an issue. Overall though especially for the Series X and PS5, I’m not sure how much “better” games can get or if it’d make financial sense for them to drop either console with the rising costs of hardware (upgrades will be slow).
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That’s music to my ears and I hope that’s true. I would love to see more Xbox 360 style iterative sequels like Mass Effect 3 or BioShock 2. I don’t need or even really want a complete technological reinvention every time.
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I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. But that’s from my very uninformed opinion. It just feels like development has sort of standardized. Like maybe most games (lower end games) still target the Xbox One/PS4. Why not? Any game that releases on the Switch 2 can, and the Xbox One/PS4 still have thriving populations spending more. With the rising costs of development and subsequent rising costs of hardware, I feel like what’d make the most financial sense is supporting as much hardware as possible and not chasing insane unsustainable ideals of graphical increases. I’m fine with everything just running better on next gen. I don’t need the wheel to be reinvented.
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Staffy, we can dream, yeah ?
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Yeah it’s not that I care much for D4, but neither do I much for God of War. Happy for the fans though. If it’s that.
Oh hold on, i am in completely the wrong thread. My head thought this was about the TGA tease, lmao.
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They’ll probably take 7-8 years for Witcher 4, do a lot of work on the sequels in that time and then release them quicker but I still doubt it, these things never come out in time, even a single game never mind 3. This screams of CDPR putting out stuff to keep investors happy.