CD Projekt Red was present at the State of Unreal to showcase how they utilized the game engine’s latest technology in their upcoming game. To effectively do that, they had to give players a peek into what gameplay would feel like.
The Witcher 4 tech demo was running at 60fps on the base PS5 with ray-tracing enabled. Initially, some thought that what was showcased was actual gameplay from the upcoming installment. However, CD Projekt has revealed that what was shown was simply a tech demo set in The Witcher 4 world.
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“This is a tech demo, and a first look at the cutting-edge technology powering The Witcher 4 – but not The Witcher 4 itself,” a spokesperson clarified to VGC. “It showcases the powerful foundation we’re building in close collaboration with Epic Games to push open-world design further than ever before and the core systems and features we’re developing using Unreal Engine 5.”
“We’re really proud of this early milestone and excited to give you a sneak peek at some of the cool tech like UAF, Nanite Foliage, Smart Objects, ML Deformer, and FastGeo Streaming that are helping shape the future of The Witcher.”
The key tech advancements highlighted in The Witcher 4 tech demo
The Witcher 4 State of Unreal demo featured a mix of cinematics and what was previously thought to be actual gameplay. It showed the protagonist Ciri exploring a town in Kovir—the setting for the game.
The Witcher 4 presentation, hosted by CD Projekt’s game director Sebastian Kalemba and cinematic director Kajetan Kapuscinski in the company of Epic Game’s senior director, product strategy Wyeth Johnson, was leveraged to showcase the power of Unreal Engine 5 which can be used to build more complex scenes with greater details and faster rendering speed.
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Epic has redesigned the game engine’s animation system, introducing multi-character motion matching in Unreal. This new innovation was showcased using Ciri mounting her horse. The two characters were perfectly synchronized. Unlike in the past, the game engine is now capable of bespoke, natural-looking animation that adapts to the angle the player is viewing from.
“We started our partnership with Epic Games to push open-world game technology forward,” said CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michał Nowakowski
“To show this early look at the work we’ve been doing using Unreal Engine running at 60 FPS on PlayStation 5, is a significant milestone — and a testament of the great cooperation between our teams. But we’re far from finished. I look forward to seeing more advancements and inspiring technology from this partnership as development of The Witcher 4 on Unreal Engine 5 continues.”
More realistic worlds and NPC reactions
Kalemba mentioned that so much of The Witcher 4 world is natural and organic, “especially Kovir with its dense forest and wild nature”. Johnson added that wild nature is hard to replicate.
“However, with nanite geometry, we’ve freed artists from so many of their old constraints,” Johnson said. “But we don’t want to rest until everything we do in Unreal has that same spirit of freedom.”
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“Foliage is a huge piece of that puzzle. So, we are excited to introduce nanite foliage. In order to achieve gorgeous foliage density everywhere, while still being memory efficient, fast to render, we believe that a new idea was needed. So, instead of the same card approach we’ve been using for the past 20 years, artists should be free to take a nanite approach to foliage, modeling every single leaf and pine needle.”
Another interesting reveal was how responsive the world was. In one scene, while at the market, Ciri bumped into an NPC carrying a box, and the character spilled the fruits in the box. A child quickly ran to steal some fruit from the ground. These details show how the main character’s actions can trigger chain reactions in the environment and fill us with excitement about what is to come.
