The Witcher 4 release date estimate, trailer, gameplay, and latest news

When is The Witcher 4 release date? CD Projekt Red initially confirmed the existence of a new game in The Witcher series via a press release in March 2022 and a title update in October 2022. Following a long wait – one that felt like an eternity for fans of the series – The Witcher 4 was officially revealed at The Game Awards in December 2024 alongside its first trailer.

We know that the upcoming open-world game is the first installment in a new trilogy, and sees Ciri take on the role of the protagonist. While CDPR's global PR director had previously hinted the next installment wouldn't be called The Witcher 4, the official reveal trailer has confirmed its position as a direct sequel in the mainline series.

The Witcher 4 release date will be in 2027 at the earliest. This was confirmed by CD Projekt Red CFO Piotr Nielubowicz during the investor conference for fiscal year 2024

According to Nielubowicz, The Witcher 4 has been in "full-scale production" since the end of 2024. In a Q&A session, he was asked whether there was "any confidence" that The Witcher 4 would land in 2027 now that a pre-2026 release date has now been ruled out.

"We are not going to announce the precise launch date for the game yet," Nielubowicz said. "All we can share now for more visibility for investors is that the game will not be launched within the time frame for the first target for the incentive program, which ends 31st December 2026."

CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kicinski stated the game was "at least three years away" during an investors call back in 2022. However, the cinematic trailer revealed at The Game Awards 2024 did not include gameplay. This follows The Witcher 3's "Killing Monsters" cinematic trailer, which dropped just shy of two years prior to The Witcher 3's launch.

Given the length of production required for a title as ambitious as The Witcher 4, plus the change from REDengine to Unreal, we may not see a gameplay trailer until late 2025.

There is also The Witcher Remake, a separate project made by Fool's Theory under CD Projekt Red's supervision. However, it's since been confirmed that the modernized version of Geralt's first adventure will arrive after The Witcher 4 and be built in the Unreal 5 engine.

The Witcher 4 trailers

The Witcher 4 was officially revealed at The Game Awards in December 2024, alongside its first trailer. It depicts Geralt's adoptive daughter, Ciri, embarking on a hunt to slay the Bauk terrorizing the northern village of Stromford. While Ciri was considered an honorary Witcher, having undergone training at Kaer Morhen, this reveal trailer confirms that she has since completed the Trial of the Grasses: a painful process that causes apprentice Witchers to mutate, imbuing them with superhuman abilities and their signature feline eyes.

In combat, Ciri wields her signature sword, Zireael, and a magic chain that harks back to the first time we see Geralt in action during his fight with the Striga in The Witcher Enhanced Edition's trailer. We also see her take a swig of one of the potions that Witchers concoct, giving her enhanced reflexes in combat.

Once Ciri removes the Bauk's head from its body, she returns to Stromford to find the sacrificial daughter slain by one of her fellow villagers. These final beats call upon the series' thematic crux: humans are as monstrous as the beasts that harry them. It also hints at the choices and consequences in The Witcher 4's quests – perhaps, if Ciri hadn't been so focused on slaying the Bauk, she might have saved this young innocent.

The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5

CD Projekt Red's press release announced that the new The Witcher game will use Unreal Engine 5 instead of the studio's proprietary REDengine, which is what it's used for all past games until now.

This is part of a "multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games," which includes helping Epic "tailor the engine for open-world experiences, beginning with the development of the next game in The Witcher franchise."

You can make of that what you will. However, since that statement was made, we've received confirmation that The Witcher 4 will not be an Epic Games Store exclusive.

The Witcher 4 gameplay

During Unreal Fest in June 2025, we got our first glimpse of The Witcher gameplay. Playing on a standard PS5 at 60FPS, the gameplay shown is utterly stunning, showing the snowy region of Kovir in immense detail thanks to Unreal's Nanite geometry.

Starting 30 minutes into the broadcast, which you can watch above, the gameplay footage also introduces us to Kelpie, Ciri's equine companion. Not only does she look beautiful, but Unreal technology has the pair feeling more in sync than ever as you explore the land on horseback. In third-person the whole time, you can explore both on Kelpie and off.

Off horseback, we also see Ciri making her way around one of Kovir's villages, as NPCs live their individual lives around her. Speaking with a merchant, we learn more about the quest that Ciri is currently on. He has sent her looking for his wagons, and Ciri brings back the bad news that they have been destroyed by a Manticore, which, as The Witcher, she's very interested in hunting down.

The Witcher 4 news

Other than confirming the medallion in the initial teaser is meant to be a lynx, as a nod to the School of the Lynx, all we had before that was a business strategy report from 2021. The studio revealed on Twitter its plans to start "parallel triple-A development" in 2022, focusing on their "two core franchises," The Witcher and Cyberpunk.

In the report, SVP of business development Michał Nowakowski explains, "We'll wait until much closer to our game's launch before we start showing things like trailers, demos, or going in depth about mechanics."

Previously, CD Projekt Red revealed that they plan to integrate "online experiences" into the next Witcher game. However, joint CEO Adam Kiciński is clear that the studio's focus on making "single-player, story-driven triple-A RPGs" isn't changing and that the online technology they're currently developing will be "seamlessly integrated."

In March 2024, CDPR revealed that there are over 400 devs on The Witcher 4 – ten times the number currently working on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. Of course, that's to be expected considering the order of release priority, but it's nonetheless a grand undertaking. CD Projekt Red ended the year with the cinematic trailer and confirmation that The Witcher 4 Gwent minigame is on the cards.

In April 2025, rumors of a The Witcher 4 beta began to swirl, as some community members had reportedly been invited to a playtest. CDPR was quick to quash this as nonsense, stating that any potential beta tests would be announced publicly through its official channels.

Is Geralt in The Witcher 4?

Despite what we were told before the game's announcement, we may not have seen the end of The Witcher 3's protagonist, Geralt. CD Projekt confirmed to IGN that "Geralt will appear in the game, but we don't want to spoil his role precisely."

CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwinksi previously hinted that Geralt will appear in The Witcher 4 somehow. "We are not killing the world and walking away from it," Iwinski told Polygon in 2013, "but we definitely want to make this game the finale in a big way." Tantalizingly, he added: "We might even include Geralt in later games, potentially." More of the White Wolf is a win in our book.

We first got wind of Geralt's return in an August 2024 interview with Geralt VA Doug Cockle. "Geralt will be part of the game," he said. "We just don't know how much, and the game won't focus on Geralt. So it's not about him this time."

Cockle later backtracked in a December 2024 Geektown interview. "I said something about this and then I got slapped by CD Projekt," Cockle says. "I don't know how true it is – I went off a rumor. I thought I'd seen somebody from CD Projekt say that Geralt will be in Witcher 4 but he won't be the main character. And I don't actually know if that's true now because they came back and they went: 'We haven't put anything out there, don't say anything.'"

Fortunately, with the latest confirmation coming in from CD Projekt, we do know for certain now that Geralt will feature in some capacity. We can imagine he'll be dragged out of retirement – after all, a lifetime of hunting monsters isn't something you can easily put to rest. As for Yennefer, VO Denise Gough maintains she has yet to receive word.

The Witcher 4 Polaris

The Witcher 4's internal codename, Polaris, was announced in an update by CDPR in October 2022. If it's anything like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it has the potential to be one of the best PC games ever, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Alongside this project, we can expect two other titles in The Witcher universe. However, these are spin-off titles rather than the subsequent games in the new trilogy. The first is codenamed Canis Majoris, while the other is codenamed Sirius.

Canis Majoris and Sirius are the codenames representing two upcoming titles in The Witcher series. CD Projekt Red refers to Canis Majoris as a "full-fledged Witcher game", which was revealed as a Witcher 1 remake.

While we know little about Sirius, CD Projekt Red has confirmed that The Molasses Flood is developing it. It's the studio behind the roguelike survival game The Flame in the Flood and the co-op game Drake Hollow, so we'd hazard a guess that survival could be the aim of the game. Regardless, CD Projekt Red claims Sirius "will differ from our past productions, offering multiplayer gameplay on top of a single-player experience including a campaign with quests and a story," which is sure to pique the interest of many long-time Witcher fans.

That's everything we know about The Witcher 4 release date so far, but we'll be sure to update this page with the latest news as soon as we hear anything. While you wait, you can check out other great RPG games besides The Witcher 3 to get your adventuring fix. We also have a list of upcoming PC games set to release in 2025 and beyond that are worth a look.