The Witcher 4 dev says it takes 5-6 years to make a game after the idea's conception - but isn't saying when The Witcher 4 was thought up

Nov. 27, 2024

Game development obviously takes a lot of time

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There’s been a lot of anticipationaround The Witcher 4 -and the rest ofCD Projekt Rednow that it has multiple projects in the pipeline forThe Witcherand Cyberpunk franchises — and understandably, people also want to know when they can expect to play these new games.

“From the very investigating ideas stage, so really when the first couple of people went into a room and say “hey, how about we make the next Witcher game,” that’s how long it takes – from the moment they start working on the paper and not going into what we call production phase in our vocabulary when talking about games,” said Nowakowski. “So when we start discussing ideas for the game, we start providing for development of these games. But it’s not 3 to 5 years of development, but more like 5 to 6 years of development – I want to clarify that point.”

This earnings call has announced that the next core entry in the Witcher series – codenamed Polaris – has enteredfull productionfollowing its pre-production phase, which focused on conceptualizing the scope and building up resources for the project. However, when asked during the call when Polaris, in particular, started its conceptualizing phase, Nowakowski sidestepped from providing an answer.

“I’m not going to answer that question, obviously, because that would be leading to pointing out a date, which we’re not doing, but thank you, that was a very clever way to ask that question,” said Nowakowski.

Currently, CDPR and its divisions have several projects on their slate. The core CDPR development team is working on the next Witcher game, while the newly established studio in Boston is working on the next Cyberpunk game – under the codename Orion.

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The Witcher 4 is still “the most far along” out of all of CD Projekt Red’s upcoming projects as it starts “the most intensive phase of development”

Alessandro is a freelance writer and editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area who has covered the games, tech, and entertainment industries for more than 13 years. Having previously worked at GameSpot, CNET, and various other outlets writing features and coordinating event coverage, Alessandro enjoys playing games on PC, but also gives plenty of time to his Nintendo Switch. You can find him on various socials at @afillari.

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