At Unreal Fest 2025, we got our first insights into the tech behind CD Projekt Red’s latest game: The Witcher 4. MeinMMO editor Sophia Weiss already feels almost at home.
The Witcher 3 was the first game I played on my self-bought PS4 in 2016. In total, I spent about 180 to 200 hours playing, after having watched 90% of Gronkh’s Let’s Play beforehand. Gerald and his friends are very dear to me.
Moreover, Velen and especially Kaer Morhen remind me a lot of my home, the Garmisch-Partenkirchen region. Admittedly, it resembles the mentioned region in the muddy autumn or spring. But somehow, it feels like home, with the moor landscape and snow-covered mountains.
The developers of this (to me) cozy game, CD Projekt Red, are currently working on the next installment of The Witcher. This time, with Gerald’s adopted daughter Ciri taking the lead. Fresh insights from the State of Unreal 2025 were recently shared, including glimpses into the new region Kovir.
And when Ciri first gazes over the vast valley during the tech demo, I have that feeling again as if I were at home. Gerald could easily be standing there – it wouldn’t have made a difference to me.
I had the opportunity to watch the tech demo a bit earlier and also got to ask Julius Girbig, the Senior Technical Animator, some questions. You can read my impressions here.
If you wish to see what the buzz is all about, this is the demo:
Ciri will be something special – and I think that’s good
The setting of the demo, the snowy peaks of Kovir, pushes all the right buttons for me, with the deep forests, mountains, and vast valleys. I am incredibly curious how Ciri’s trusty horse Kelpie will be portrayed in the final game – right now it looks like a new game is in the making for horse fans.
Kelpie is also my personal highlight because the developers are putting in real effort to simulate a realistic horse. They even implemented entirely new systems for this.
And then, of course, Ciri comes on top. As a regular gym-goer and hobby swordswoman, I am exactly the target audience for characters like Ciri and her stories.
Based on my own experience, I know that women tend to fight (with swords) slightly differently than men. Accordingly, I wanted to know if that would affect Ciri’s animations and fighting styles in The Witcher 4.
Julius Girbig replied that they would definitely take that into account. Gerald is simply a powerhouse. Ciri is too, just in a different way. However, he couldn’t reveal more yet.
I personally speculate that with Ciri, one must approach fights more cautiously and use more tricks. For example, I’m thinking of her chain from the first trailer, traps, or her magic.
Pretty looks is not what I personally focus on as a player. For me, the graphics of The Witcher 4 already look really good – somehow cozy. What’s important to me are the story, a coherent world, and as few bugs as possible.
But all the tools presented should cover most of that: a coherent gaming experience without annoying loading screens and errors, with a consistent, vibrant world. If CD Projekt Red can implement all that as they intend. And that is quite a lot.
How CD Projekt Red dips their toes into the Unreal Engine
Ciri’s game will be the first CD Projekt Red game built not with the Red Engine, but with Unreal Engine 5. However, The Witcher 4 does not look like Unreal Engine, but rather like Red Engine.
That was intentional, Julius Girbig explained. They are putting in real effort to ensure that the look and feel their games are known for are not lost. They are also working closely with Epic to ensure the engine does everything the developers need.
One of the first things to appear in the demo is indeed Ciri’s horse Kelpie – a truly beautiful Friesian mare. As a former horse girl and Friesian fan, I am naturally a bit biased and think she is just great. However, she doesn’t only look good:
The team shows that they are very serious about the realistic movement of the animal. For this, they packed muscles beneath its fur. The tool ML Deformer
is supposed to enable the following realistic movement through machine learning and a large pool of training data.
Kelpie is also animated as Root Motion Animation
. This means that the mare’s animations are not entirely predefined, but are supposed to emerge from the character itself. For example, jumps will not always look the same: the animation from takeoff to landing is based on Kelpie, her position, whether with or without a rider, the ground, and finally the landing spot.
On top of that comes something called a Multi Character Motion Move Set
. This is supposed to ensure that multiple characters interact coherently with each other. Specifically, Julius Girbig mentioned the tool in connection with Kelpie and Ciri:
When Ciri wants to mount her horse, the game selects from a series of animations the one that would produce the fewest animation errors based on the current positions of the two characters, the environment, and the situation. This way, Ciri should be able to elegantly mount her mare at any time.
More realistic daily routines with AI and new systems
Just before the village of Valdrest, the journey with Kelpie ends and Ciri enters the village. Here, too, a number of new systems are at work, which CD Projekt Red and Epic have designed together. Above all, the Unreal Animation Framework (UEF) and the Mass System. These are supposed to simulate bustling markets like the one in Valdrest in tandem.
The UEF is supposed to offer advanced blending, state machines, and procedurally generated animations. A state machine can be thought of as a sequence of events or a schedule
for a game element like an NPC. So, for example, it is set whether an NPC will go to buy fish or drink at the tavern. In the specific case of The Witcher 4, there should even be a larger selection of possible activities that such an NPC can carry out on a daily basis.
The Mass System, on the other hand, is supposed to manage so-called agents, i.e., NPCs, and ensure realistic scenes and complex interactions.
This is particularly evident in large group scenes: According to CD Projekt Red, during the demo alone within Valdrest, about 300 NPCs are supposed to follow their daily routines, controlled by the two systems.
Artificial intelligence is also in use. According to Julius Girbig, however, this should not just generate thousands of new interactions out of nowhere. The developers are currently working on a large selection of interaction and reaction possibilities from which the AI will select and match the most sensible ones, similar to the multi-character motion move set.
Not every day in Valdrest is supposed to be the same – and neither is any demo run: If Ciri takes off her hood, someone might spit at her feet. If she keeps it on, that won’t happen.
However, the innovations in the world of The Witcher 4 should also be visibly apparent to the players. With the stronger base hardware of PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, CD Projekt Red aims to raise the level of detail in the overworld. In the demo, for example, they zoom in close to a tree crown, presenting individual leaves on branches with correct lighting.
And with the so-called Fastgeo streaming, the environment is supposed to load especially quickly. This aims to prevent suddenly in-popping structures and slow loading. This also means fewer loading screens for the open world. This tool is also one of those created by CD Projekt Red in cooperation with Epic.
Overall, the demo, as well as the conversation with Julius Girbig, gives me the feeling that CD Projekt Red is very concerned about ensuring that what makes a Witcher game remains intact for this fourth installment. Just better on the technical side.
The Witcher 4 could be MY game
With the new setting in Kovir, Ciri as the main character, and Kelpie, I feel right at home. High mountains, snow-capped peaks, and a badass lady in the lead. I feel truly seen. Almost as if CD Projekt Red found my Christmas wish list and thought, let’s make a really cool game for Sophia, so she doesn’t have to go LARPing anymore
.
Yes, I would like The Witcher 4 right now. Immediately. (Please.) But the game is still in development.
In terms of the intended outcome, I also hope that the developers have all the time in the world to make The Witcher 4 the best game it can be. My expectations for the game are now set accordingly, and I am curious whether the devs will deliver what they promised: a great Witcher game.
By the way, if you want more insights into the development of The Witcher 4, MeinMMO might have just what you need. Already in December 2024, MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski spoke with executive producer Gosia Mitrega and game director Sebastian Kalemba: “There are always consequences” – The sacrificed woman in the new Witcher trailer means much more than you think
