On Monday, Mar. 21, CD Projekt Red announced the highly anticipated next outing for its mainline series and most popular IP, The Witcher. The experience was last seen on 2015's The Wild Hunt, which debuted to varied issues across platforms but maintained a steady appreciation that has no sooner bolstered The Witcher 3 as among the best video games ever made.

Aptly coined The Witcher: A New Saga Begins in its announcement made on Twitter, CDPR will be ditching its REDengine for Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5 to avoid the various issues that have plagued the Polish developer's games for years. The most notable of tarnished releases was 2020's much-maligned Cyberpunk 2077, which recently got a massive facelift in the form of patch 1.5 but still remains a stain on CDPR's image.

The partnership between CDPR and Epic Games will see it go beyond simply powering The Witcher but will, according to CDPR, aid the engine overall in the development of future open-world experiences. It will cover both licensing and technical development of Unreal Engine 5 and go even beyond to iterations of Unreal as of yet unknown at this time.

While REDengine won't be used for the developer's next Witcher title, it will still power the forthcoming expansions for Cyberpunk 2077, which remain undated. REDengine will also be powering the free next-generation upgrade of The Witcher 3, slated for debut in Q2 2022.

CDPR voiced no info on when fans can expect the next Witcher series sequel, but the time frame can be loosely estimated as about five years, given the new time necessary for the dev team to acquaint themselves with Unreal Engine, as well as formulate a whole new story and world for this "A New Saga Begins" descriptor.

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As for story beats, the next Witcher game could potentially follow the young adult Ciri, but it all depends on how CDPR wants to approach the narrative. The Witcher 3 culminated with three varied endings depending on the players' choices throughout the experience, which means that CDPR would either have to make one ending a primary climax or simply go a different route by focusing on a different school and area completely new to The Witcher video games.

For those concerned, this may cause issues for those against storefront exclusivity. CDPR relayed they will not be making any of its future titles exclusive to Epic Games or any alternative. CDPR directly owns GOG. Thus, storefront exclusivity wouldn't exactly be viable, but fans should be aware that all of the major goodies and in-game exclusives will most certainly reside on the aforementioned store.

Epic Games has long made it a point to push the needle of gaming beyond its potential, as witnessed in both The Matrix Awakens and Lumen in the Land of Nanite, both tech demos exploring the prowess behind UE5. Sony clearly sees the potential in Epic Games, as witnessed in its $200 million investment, its second funding of the Fortnite creator following its previous $250 million investment in 2020.

Epic Games founder and CEO, Tim Sweeney, relays his enjoyment and excitement of the partnership in the press release:

"We are deeply honored by the opportunity to partner with CD Projekt Red to push the limits of interactive storytelling and gameplay together, and this effort will benefit the developer community for years to come."

Hopefully, his words find truth in the areas where crunch is concerned, a major issue in the industry writ large and one that has been directly linked to CDPR on a number of occasions. The critical reception of Cyberpunk 2077 certainly left many fans saddened and concerned about the future of CDPR's other IP, but with UE5 powering the next Witcher outing, fans can breathe a sigh of relief.

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