Earlier this week, CD Projekt confirmed an insistent rumor that a new game The Witcher would succeed cyberpunk 2077, developed under the Unreal Engine 5.
Since this announcement, speculation and interventions from the Polish studio have gone well as to what awaits us for this new saga in the universe imagined by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. The opportunity for us to make a first point on this new adventure, after the legendary action-RPG trilogy centered on the White Wolf.
Witcher's Legacy
First element that was the result of wild speculation on the day of the announcement: an image presenting a medallion clearly different from that resulting from the iconic School of the Wolf. Many fans found a similarity to a lynx in it, due to its characteristic large ears. A theory confirmed by several members of the Polish studio, suggesting that this new saga will be an opportunity to discover a School of Lynx… which has never existed before in books or games.
This is actually a fanfiction sequel to The Witcher 3. To give some context to this, we need to divulge the latter's ending. After Vesemir's heroic sacrifice following the Wild Hunt's assault on Kaer Morhen and the ensuing events, the School of the Wolf was without a Grand Master or father and was therefore disbanded. Geralt went to live his best life as a winemaker in Beauclair to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, while Lambert and Eskel went their separate ways.
Together with his magician lover Keira Metz, the most sarcastic of Geralt's brothers has made it his mission, in fanfiction, to create a new school mixing the styles of the Schools of the Wolf and the Cat. The latter having a sad reputation as money-hungry assassins, which Lambert tries to clear in honor of an old deceased friend from this School.
If the School of the Lynx were to be canonized in this new saga, the implications for the resulting story could be numerous. Logically, the iconic characters from the original saga that we know and love will no longer be at the center of the plot, but could make brief appearances. If the story takes place many years after that of The Witcher 3, the Lady of Space and Time that is Ciri could still have a role to play.
But the most notable element of this School of the Lynx is that it includes not only witchers, but also witchers! Even though the Ordeal of Herbs has been established as too dangerous for a woman's body, this data could open many doors. CD Projekt RED has indeed tried with Cyberpunk 2077 the exercise of a rather advanced character creator. It could be that the Polish studio reuses what it has learned to offer players the possibility of creating their own witcher in this new saga.
Engine of the future?
In addition to this medallion, which has already caused a lot of ink to flow, CD Projekt RED has announced a long-term partnership with Epic Games to develop its next game under the Unreal Engine 5. The Polish studio therefore intends to abandon its in-house REDengine engine after being done with Cyberpunk 2077.
CD Projekt RED and Epic Games will therefore work hand in hand to adapt the Unreal Engine 5 to its new open world game, confirming at the same time that this new The Witcher should in its gameplay be part of the right line of his illustrious predecessor. A partnership that promises to be beneficial for both parties.
On the one hand, it will improve an engine that is still very young, but already impressive, and on the other, it will save time for the development of this new saga. Since The Witcher 2, CD Projekt RED has indeed had to constantly rewrite its engine from scratch to adapt it to each game. This has therefore cost a lot of time and resources. According to a former studio developer, the REDengine engine was also very capricious and difficult to understand. This was unfortunately seen with Cyberpunk 2077, whose launch was marred by numerous bugs and performance issues, especially on consoles.
The use of Unreal Engine 5 should relieve CD Projekt RED of this burden so that it can focus on what it does best: tell a rich and poignant story, magnified by sumptuous graphics. Some, however, feared that this partnership means an exclusivity of the PC version of this new saga on the Epic Games Store. The Polish studio, however, quickly confirmed that it will not be, and that the game will be released as much on the Epic platform as Steam or GOG, the CD Projekt RED platform.
Wiser development?
Shortly after the announcement, Jason Slama, currently director of the free-to-play card game Gwent, released a statement meaning that he will also be at the helm of this new game in The Witcher universe. He also took the opportunity to indicate that the studio is recruiting for this new project, which is currently naturally in a very embryonic state.
Some have taken a stab at it, given the studio's notorious crunch practices and employee treatment to make The Witcher 3, and more specifically Cyberpunk 2077. Jason Slama responded emphatically, “Never on my watch! ". The future will tell if the man will be able to keep his promise to, like Lambert vis-à -vis the École du Chat, wash away the stormy reputation of CD Projekt RED on this point.
The transition of development to the Unreal Engine 5 could already greatly help in this direction, allowing teams to allocate more energy on something other than trying somehow to readapt the REDengine once again to a new game. .
Unfortunately, it will be necessary to wait at least several more years before seeing the tip of the ears of the lynx pointing. The development of Cyberpunk 2077 is still far from over, since it has yet to accommodate at least one major expansion. Somewhere in the offices of the Polish studio, the idea of ​​a multiplayer mode within Night City is also budding.
It is therefore rather logical to estimate that this new saga The Witcher will only arrive on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S… in the more or less distant future. It is in these moments that we would like, like Ciri, to be able to move through time and space.
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