CD Projekt Red Discusses Tech Demo for The Witcher 4
Published on: 6/16/2025
Digital Foundry sat down with CD Projekt Red and Epic to discuss the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo for The Witcher 4, diving into the cutting-edge details of rendering, like the hefty polygon count needed for a realistic pine tree. A key point was that the demo ran on a PlayStation 5, not a PC.
Charles Tremblay, CDPR’s VP of technology, explained, “We usually start with PC and scale down, but past issues pushed us to prioritize consoles this time. Working with Unreal, we aimed to hit our ambitious goals at 60 fps on PS5, which was a challenge.”
This shift might remind some of Cyberpunk 2077’s rocky PS launch, which led to Sony pulling it from their store, or The Witcher 3’s post-release patching. CDPR is clearly trying to avoid another launch disaster with The Witcher 4.
Jakub Knapik, VP of art and global art director at CDPR, added, “It’s easier to scale up than down. With tech like Lumen, we set a solid visual and technical foundation on consoles, knowing we can build on it. We’re CDPR—we love pushing PCs to the max. We’ll expand raytracing and more, but we’re still figuring out what that looks like.”
PC fans shouldn’t panic yet. While The Witcher 4 targets 60 fps on PS5, it won’t skimp on PC performance. Tremblay emphasized, “We started as a PC company, and we’ll ensure a top-notch PC experience.” Specifics for The Witcher 4’s PC version remain under wraps, but CDPR plans to go big on raytracing and other features.
