CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski says the studio dropped its proprietary REDengine for Unreal Engine 5 on The Witcher 4 because of a bigger rethink of the company’s purpose. The move was not a response to technical limits in REDengine.

He pushed back on the common view that Cyberpunk 2077’s rocky launch forced the change. “The issue with Cyberpunk was not really REDengine itself,” Nowakowski said. The company’s original goal was never to build technology. It was to make visually and technically advanced games while telling stories in the most convincing and immersive way possible.

The Matrix Demo That Sparked the Change

The shift began after CD Projekt saw an early version of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 Matrix tech demo. The team asked a direct question: is UE5 ready to ship a game of the scale and type CDPR makes? The answer at the time was no—not at the entry level.

That led to a different approach. If the studio formed a close working relationship with Unreal and helped develop the specific features needed for large-scope games with the technical demands CDPR requires, the engine could work. That realization opened the door to a deeper partnership with Epic Games.

Nowakowski noted that CD Projekt is the only team outside Epic that works inside the engine’s “black box.” Some of the studio’s own modifications have already fed back into Unreal Engine itself.

Keeping the Distinct CDPR Look

The switch raised an obvious concern: will The Witcher 4 simply look like every other Unreal Engine 5 game? Nowakowski addressed it head-on earlier this month.

“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,” he said. “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.”

Faster Releases and Multiple Projects on One Engine

Handing engine development to Epic lets CD Projekt focus on making games instead of maintaining its own tech. The studio expects this change to support more frequent releases.

The Witcher 4, Cyberpunk 2, and the new Project Hadar IP are all being built on Unreal Engine 5. The Witcher 4 will star Ciri as the protagonist and is aiming for a 2028 release.