CD Projekt Red’s decision to move The Witcher 4 from its proprietary REDengine to Unreal Engine 5 was not primarily driven by limitations with its previous technology, according to joint CEO Michal Nowakowski. Speaking on a podcast with Deconstructors of Fun, Nowakowski explained that the studio’s long-term objective was not to become a technology company, but to focus on creating visually advanced games and telling stories in an immersive way. The company’s future projects, including The Witcher 4, will therefore use Unreal Engine 5 as part of a broader shift in how CD Projekt Red approaches game development.
Nowakowski said the decision was not a direct response to the launch problems experienced by Cyberpunk 2077, which was also developed using REDengine. Instead, the turning point came when CD Projekt Red saw an early version of Epic Games’ The Matrix technology demo and began evaluating whether Unreal Engine 5 could support games with the scale and technical requirements of its projects. At the time, the studio did not believe the engine was ready to handle its requirements out of the box, but discussions with Epic Games opened the possibility of adapting the technology through a closer technical partnership.
The relationship between the two companies subsequently developed into a deeper collaboration around Unreal Engine 5. According to Nowakowski, CD Projekt Red works with Epic on parts of the engine that are particularly important for the type of large-scale games the studio develops. Rather than maintaining an entire proprietary engine internally, the approach allows CD Projekt Red to build on an established technology platform while concentrating more of its development resources on game creation. The studio expects this model to simplify development and allow it to produce more games without having to create the underlying technology entirely from scratch.
The Witcher 4 will be one of the first major projects to demonstrate the results of this collaboration, although players will have to wait until 2028 for its launch. The partnership has also attracted attention because of Unreal Engine 5’s history of performance and stuttering concerns in some games, with CD Projekt Red contributing to improvements that could benefit its own projects as well as the wider Unreal Engine ecosystem. For CD Projekt Red, however, the central objective remains using technology as a foundation for its games rather than making proprietary technology development a primary focus.
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