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Here's Why The Witcher 4 Is Being Developed With A Console-First Approach

Following the reveal of The Witcher 4 tech demo earlier this month, CD Projekt Red has shared why it has decided to focus on developing the game for consoles first, rather than for PC.

In case you missed it, the State of Unreal showcase offered us the first in-engine look at The Witcher 4 by highlighting the new, explorable region of Kovir, a brand-new look at the game's protagonist, Ciri, while also showing off the many features of Unreal Engine 5, which the game will utilize rather than the studio's proprietary engine.

It looked beautiful, but what's more impressive is the fact that the tech demo was captured entirely on the base PlayStation 5 at 60fps, with ray tracing.

Now, in a new interview with Digital Foundry (via IGN), CDPR’s VP of technology, Charles Tremblay, has explained that the studio is aiming for a "console-first" development with The Witcher 4 after learning from its mistakes with Cyberpunk 2077.

"We always do PC and we push and then we try to scale down," Tremblay said. "But then we had so many problems in the past that we tried to say, 'This time around we really want to be more console-first development.'"

Cyberpunk 2077's launch in 2020 was a disaster, particularly for PlayStation and Xbox. While the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions did have their issues, it was the PS4 and Xbox One versions that suffered most. Performance was so bad on the last-gen consoles that, at one point, the game was taken down from the PS Store altogether, and refunds were issued.

Almost five years and a bunch of updates later, Cyberpunk 2077 is now one of the best RPGs you can play right now, but CDPR has said it doesn't want to make the same mistakes again with The Witcher 4.

Jakub Knapik, VP and Global Art Director at CDPR, explained that by focusing on the game's development with consoles, it will make "scaling up" to PC easier, as opposed to scaling down for PlayStation and Xbox.

"We wanted to solve certain foundations," Knapik said. "It’s pretty logical when you think about it, because it’s easier to scale up than down. We knew that once we set up certain foundations both visually and technically, there’s room to scale up. Now, what that means is another question. We’re CDPR: We always like to push PCs to the limit. It’s just a creative process how to really use it."

However, Tremblay later admitted that releasing The Witcher 4 on Xbox Series S at 60fps "will definitely be extremely challenging" and that the studio is now actively trying to figure it out.

Despite the "console-first" approach, the VP of technology confirmed that PC players who invest in their hardware won't miss out.

"In the past, something that’s super important for the group is that if people pay good money for their hardware, then we want them to have what the game can provide for that, not like a simplified experience," he said.

"So this is something we will definitely explore. The company started as a PC company, and we’ll definitely want to have the best experience for the PC gamer for sure. But it’s too early to say what this will mean for The Witcher 4."

The Witcher 4 doesn't have a release date just yet, but it's not expected to launch until 2027 at the earliest. The studio is also actively working on multiple other projects, including Cyberpunk 2 and a Witcher remake.