The Witcher 4 has officially concluded its research phase and entered pre-production

The Witcher 4 (for lack of an official name) has officially concluded its research phase and placed it in pre-production. The wheels appear to be turning smoothly on The Witcher 4(opens in new tab), the next big game being developed at CD Projekt. Only several months after the studio affirmed that it is working on a new Witcher game, CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz said development is currently in the “pre-production” stage.

As affirmed in a CD Projekt Red blog post, the studio thought back on the first quarter of 2022 and uncovered that, during this time, it finished its research for the new Witcher game.

Adding somewhat more detail in a developer update video, CD Projekt Red executive Piotr Nielubowicz said the game has now entered pre-production.

“We are very eager to revisit the universe which has shaped our history to such an extent,” said president Adam Kiciński in the post. “We have recently concluded the research phase for the first game in the new Witcher saga, which means that from now on further development expenditures will be capitalized on our balance sheet.”

Having only recently entered pre-production implies that the new Witcher game is possible still years away, explaining why CD Projekt Red just uncovered it with a single teaser image.

Something so little spawned myriad fan theories, nonetheless, centered around the medallion which led some to believe that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Ciri would be the protagonist of the new game.

CD Projekt later affirmed the picture to be that of a Lynx, however, regardless of whether it’s a new Witcher school is still up for debate.

Isolating the “research” and “pre-production” phases of The Witcher 4 improvement could seem like splitting hairs, however willing to be liberal about it for this situation because by all appearances the game won’t simply proceed with the adventures of Geralt. Cd Projekt has said it will be a completely “new saga,” perhaps highlighting a brand new school of witchers(opens in a new tab) that doesn’t show up in Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels. Fitting all-original characters and content into the current Witcher world put significantly more weight on the shoulders of developers.