It’s been years since we got an update on Project Polaris — more commonly referred to as The Witcher 4 — but developer CD Projekt Red announced Tuesday that it has now entered “full-scale production.”
Ahead of its quarterly investor call, joint CEO Michał Nowakowski said that the highly-anticipated game is in the “most intensive phase of development.”
“We are very pleased with our progress on this project, and I wish to thank the team for its dedication,” Nowakowski said.
Game director Sebastian Kalemba confirmed the news on X with an image of some Witcher coins (that were probably tossed to your Witcher). “With new challenges just around the corner, it’s the talented and hard-working people who make me believe we can together make the upcoming Witcher Saga a remarkable experience.
CD Projekt Red announced that Project Polaris was in pre-production in 2022 with a short teaser image that pictured a wolf pendant commonly worn by Geralt of Rivia laying in the snow and the tagline “A new saga begins.” We’ve gotten sparse updates on development since then, but we know that it’s the first in a new trilogy of AAA RPGs that’ll all be developed in Unreal Engine 5. Nowakowski said during a financial presentation that it won’t be “The Witcher 3 in new clothing,” with new gameplay.
Indeed, Polaris is CD Projekt Red’s biggest project right now. As of November, 400 out of 650 developers are assigned to Polaris, with the second biggest project being Orion.
— CD PROJEKT IR (@CDPROJEKTRED_IR) November 26, 2024
However, due to the switch to Unreal Engine 5, development will take a while, with one estimate saying it was at least three years away.
It’s worth noting that it’s still unclear if this is The Witcher 4. Polaris and The Witcher 4 have been used interchangeably, but global PR director Radek Grabowski wrote on X that at the time of Polaris‘ announcement, the team did not announce a game called The Witcher 4.
There are other Witcher games in development, including Canis Majoris that’ll be separate from the new series, and Sirius, which is being developed by Molasses Flood and is set in the Witcher universe. This all makes sense as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of the highest-selling games of all time.
In other news from Tuesday’s financial presentation, CD Projekt Red announced that Cyberpunk 2077 had sold 30 million copies. Its Phantom Liberty DLC sold over 8 million since launch last year.