Source: The Game Business

[...] The developer has walked away from its REDengine, which powered The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, in favour of Unreal Engine. Nowakowski tells us that REDengine needed starting from scratch with each new release. By moving to Unreal, it should make switching between projects simpler.

Initially, there will be some pain. Pipelines and tools will need reworking and changing. But the bigger threat from this technical pivot is whether using an off-the-shelf engine might negatively impact the uniqueness of the games.

“That was a big question we were asking ourselves, because pushing the envelope with how the games look, the cinematic feel of it all, is very, very important,” Nowakowski answers. “And that was a big question mark when we were in the R&D phase over whether Unreal Engine 5 is going to be a good fit or not. We really asked ourselves all of these questions, and in some cases the answer was, ‘not yet.’

“But together with Epic, we can bring it to that point. I know when we made that switch, people were saying, ‘Oh, it’s going to be another Unreal-looking game.’ But we’re not going to be. We really are going to be able to differentiate ourselves. People are going to feel this is a CDPR game still, and the technology under the hood is actually going to be irrelevant from a pure fan perspective.”

If they make it for PC, I'm going to buy the best edition; they deserve it. I hope he also publishes a book like the W3 collector's guide I have. This is going to be amazing, I hope to enjoy 16 years of it.

Source: Game Developer

Cyberpunk 2077 was a lesson for CD Projekt Red. After its disastrous launch and subsequent removal from the PlayStation Store, developer CD Projekt Red now makes sure that its games are working on all platforms throughout development, co-CEO Michal Nowakowski told Game Developer.

"You come to the studio, you launch Witcher 4 right now," Nowakowski said. "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."

That's in contrast to how Cyberpunk 2077 worked its way through development—the whole thing was PC-driven, Nowakowski said. "The way the studio was thinking was that we are reaching for the best possible visuals," he said. "We want to push the boundaries of what is doable in terms of cinematic feeling and whatnot, and PC was just the best suited rig for that. 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."

Nowakowski said CD Projekt Red faced this sort of challenge with The Witcher 3, but "got a bit lucky here and there," which made the studio feel like Cyberpunk 2077 would end up fine, too. "Since then, we don't take chances," he said. "We want to be sure that it actually works."

If something's wrong with The Witcher 4 on a single platform, the developer stops to fix everything until they're sure of the problem. It means the milestone process for the game is a little different. "For example, technically, we should hit, let's say, 10 checkmarks," he posited. "Back in the past, if we missed one or two, we were like, 'we're gonna catch up with that later on.' Sometimes we did, but sometimes we didn't, and then two milestones or three milestones down the road, you have like four or five missing checkmarks and it's not that easy."

Since the game set in Kovir

I’ve been working on an idea for a while: what if the consequences of a Witcher 3 playthrough didn’t effectively stop when Geralt leaves an area?

Not in the sense of endlessly generating new quests. More simply: events happened, people know different things about them, information moves through witnesses, soldiers, courts, gossip, correspondence, etc., and some consequences remain active for a while even if Geralt never touches them again.

I finally have a public demo running from one of my old completed saves.

It reconstructs a timeline from the save, tracks what is true in the world now, shows how information from past events has spread, and exposes the unresolved consequences that are still “in motion.” You can also roll the clock forward 30, 60, or 90 days with no player intervention and see what remains active or fades away.

The interesting part to me isn’t making Geralt the centre of everything. It’s the opposite: the world can continue carrying the consequences of what he did through people and systems that have their own channels.

This is still a bounded prototype. It doesn’t cover every quest or every NPC, and the methodology page spells out exactly what data is currently included and what isn’t.

Demo:

https://twistyroads.github.io/living-world-observatory/

I’d be interested in whether this feels like a direction that would actually make a completed Witcher world feel more persistent, especially from people who know the game or modding tools better than I do.

Source: The Game Business

CD Projekt joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski told The Game Business that he has no control over whether there will be a physical disc on PS5. But said that the company is fond of creating tangible items.

“We know what PlayStation has announced. And we have no influence on the policies of the first parties. The discs for the first parties, including PlayStation, have to be manufactured in their own factories. So, if they stop manufacturing indeed by 2028, then yes [we won’t have a disc].

“But we’re big fans of people having access to tangible collectible things. We’re nerds ourselves, and we like that. We always supported that. So, whatever is the case, we’re going to be for sure having a box. We’re going to have a box that’s going to have some feelies in it. Something you’re going to be wanting to open up and enjoy. But we have no influence actually on what’s the case here.”

We all know geralt is in love with yennefer by the end of the books and settled down with her. but the game is giving us OPTIONAL romance options in the DLC once again.

many of us are going to ignore that and keep our Geralt with yen. why? cause it’s player choice and we control geralt

why can’t this same logic apply to stop the constant ciri sexuality discourse. YOU choose her canon. YOU control her. there is no “compulsory” path

if you make her sleep with male partners? That’s fine. If you choose female partners only? That’s fine. If you choose little of both? Great. That’s fine too.

Ciri is a FICTIONAL character and with devs saying they’re going to give more freedom of narrative choices in Witcher 4 this discourse over whether ciri prefers men or women is REDUNDANT.

YOU THE PLAYER. are ROLEPLAYING in an RPG as ciri. YOU decide YOUR canon. Don’t let ppl tell you what “book” canon is cause we have left book canon territory AGES ago

Namely bc mistle, her ex, sexually assaulted her. While yes, that was fucked up, i don't think that makes Ciri NOT bisexual? She was INTO her, was she not? I mean she had a tattoo of her and kept it, and in TW3 can say she " prefers women " ( although thinking about it, i think the game's canon of mistle is different from the books') but, no yeah Ciri is bisexual.

Now if only it let us kiss Astrid instead of Skjall..

EDIT: 1. ive seen alot of people say the new dlc isn't free, I was wrong. I probably misheard it at gamescom. 2. The reason I asked this is because cdpr has been making witcher 4, the new dlc, the remaster of witcher 3 and both dlcs and the anime over the past couple of years so I was wondering how are they so rich to keep pumping out stuff like this? Especially for free? I senn the reddit replies or whatever u call them, and it's because cp77 and witcher 3 are still selling millions per year.

This might sound stupid but with the announcement of the remaster they said that anyone who owned the the witcher 3 gets to upgrade to the remaster for free, along with anyone who didn't own the 2 previous dlcs gets them for free also, nit only that there's also a 3rd new free dlc. Genuinely how are they profiting from this???

Still can't find Wanda's credits

I know people won't like this but from the trailers and footage released over the past few days something looks... off to me?

I'm aware that this is all subject to change but the footage all looks either too bright or plasticy? Was wondering if this will just be a result of the new path tracing and if you were to not use these features would this effect be negated?

Anyway still excited for the remaster and dlc just something i've noticed.

I was looking over my Witcher 3 ps4 collectors edition and got the sad reminder that the Witcher 4 will most likely not get a physical release from PlayStation. It makes me sad seeing the physical media I adore and grew up with slowly digitizing with time.

Credits: Moxuan Zhang

Just found out this incredible drawing is already more than a decade old, and I was amazed. Really shows the relevance of these games and hopefully the next one reaches the same highs!

May we enjoy and play Gwent for even more decades to come!

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past

Watched this on stream!!

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past

In a time when almost all gaming companies treat fans like sh** and only care about money, CDPR comes and gives stuff for free. Guys, CDPR is a gem and I'm glad I'm a Witcher fan

some ss from remastered

Finally!

And if so, can Ciri kiss girls? I think that'd be cool. :D