One of those creators, then-quest designer Philipp Weber, is now The Witcher 4's narrative director. Weber knows how high expectations for tඣhe RPG are – after all, it's his job to bot🤪tle lightning once again – and although we mostly spoke about The Witcher 3, the conversation steered into how a decade of lessons have helped to shape its follow-up.

Winds howling

While CDPR has grown significantly over the last decade, Weber says the studio's original philosophy – "to let people care about what they're doing" – remains in place.

"We don't want to have team members whose job is, you know: 'Place the trigger. Now place the next trigger. Don't think about what you're doing'. I want every team member to 💮want to make the best game possible, and truly care about the art we're making."

"Part of that is you have to feel ownership," adds Weber. "There's a careful balance. As narrative director, [my job is] to have a very direct vision that the team is supposed to execute, but also, [I shouldn't] look at the hands of the team too closely.

"I think as a quest designer, from my leads and directors I had on The Witcher 3, that was an amazing balance. I knew what they wanted, but at the same time I still got to be creative a🧜nd feel ownership. This ♔is something I really like to keep around."

For The Witcher 4, Weber maintains that one rule has stayed in place since his days on The Witcher 3: no fetch quests. It's something Weber was told during his very first task at CDPR (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:throwing quest ideas into a Gdoc), and part of the reason why the studio's bar for storytelling is so high. CDPR doesn't shy away from tough topics – just look at 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3's Bloody Baron, or even developers within the studio feeling uncomfortable about Cyberpunk 2077's Sinnerman que💧st line – and even an optional 10-minute story can carry thꦬe same weight as major narr🙈ative beats.

"A quest has to be something 💞interesting," says Weber. "I have to feel, as a player, that if I played that quest, my time was well spent and not just spent. I was busy doing stuff, and didn't think about work or taxes. I experienced a story, or something else that was worth it. That basic rule is❀ still there 100%."

On the topic of quests, are there any specific lessons – whether from 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 or The Witcher 3 – that are being carried into The Witcher 4? "All of them," laughs Weber. Specifically, he believes it's important to maintain a balance between "basic rules" on storytelling and "trusting your gut". For the team, that means keeping in mind how you're "supposed" to plot out an act, for example, while not being afraid to deviate from traditional guidelines where necessary.

"We're never a slave to these kinds of things," he explains, pointing to the 'correct' way of writing a story. "In a lot of contemporary storytelling, people got a little bit too good at following the exact rules. A lot of stuff became pretty same-y, and you get like… 'Yes, that's how a character arc is supposed to work'. But then you can sometimes just follow your gut.

"Is this a scene that doesn't have a big narrative [reason] to be there, but I want to see it as a developer and that's why I assume a pla🧜yer also wants to see it? Does it feel good? Does it feel powerful? This is something I really carry with me, to really keep that middle part."

Reflections

It all comes back to The Witcher 3, aꦯs Weber credits his peers for helping to hone that instinct during Wild Hunt. "Tha🐓t was the best game design school I could have imagined," he explains. "Most of the good lessons we learned on The Witcher 3, we want to use on The Witcher 4."

As narrative director, that means trying to honor what made The Witcher 3 work while still leaving room to move the series forward. "Sometimes we have new things – you know, new features – but the core stuff? It's the same philosophy," says Weber. He👍 admits that some of The Witcher 4's development has been about "remembering lessons from The Witcher 3 t🌟hat maybe we even forgot, or changed a little bit," and points to its knack for hard-hitting consequences as an example.

"We want to make sure that when we have consequences, there really is a good reason for the player to see them. Sometimes in the past we would try to be very subtle and very naturalistic about consequences because often a character doesn't tell you 'Well, I'm doing this now because you said this two hours ago'. That can feel unnatural, so we try to avoid that, but the result is that then for a lot of people it's inv🌃isible that this is a consequence at all."

"In The Witcher 3 we had a very good balance of still being natural about it, but usually you always knew when there was a consequence for your actions," Weber continues.

"That's an example of a lesson where we looked back at The Witcher 3 and said 'OK, we have to be able to hit that one again', because choice and consequence is one of the sta๊ndards that we have and want to uphold, and I think The Witcher 3 did it perfectꦗly."

The Witcher 4 has also taken lessons from Cyberpunk 2077, but Weber keeps those a little closer to his chest. "It's difficult to say what specifically, because that might get into spoiler territory and then I think I'm going to get killed," he says, laughing. "But as an example: the way we did characters in Cyberpunk – you know, [players] joining them on their journeys like with Judy, Panam, River, Takemura? This is something that, in terms of storytelling, we're really proud of. We learned a lot on Cyberpunk – how we did these things, how to make those people feel real and tactile, [and these are] things we've learned and try to carry forward."

While Weber understandably can't say much about The Witcher 4 (perhaps CDPR really does enforce its NDAs with a hitman) the approach he outlines is music to my ears. There's a reason we're still buzzing about The Witcher 3 a decade later – there's a depth and consistency to its quests that's rare even across the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RPGs – and if The Witcher 4ꦚ can bottle so much as a crackle of that lightning again, I suspect we'll still be talking about when that turns 10, too.

Feast your eyes on all the killer 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games we're waiting patiently for, from The Witcher 4 to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:GTA 6

In an interview with Jan Hermanowicz, engineering production manager on The Witcher 4, I asked what the new technology CD Projekt Red showed off during its recent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Witcher 4 tech demo meant for the rest of the saga. After The Witcher 4, the studio has already made clear that it's got plans for a completely new trilogy, with The Witcher 5 and 6 to follow the fourquel relatively ♊quickly.

Hermanowicz didn't give much away, pointing out that the tech demo was just that - a demo. That means that it's still too early to talk about the contents of The Witcher 4, which means it's "definitely too early to talk about what will be in the🐭 rest of the new saga."

But even if "it's way too early to talk about the saga itself," Hermanowicz was able to talk about what its existence means for CD Projekt Red and the r꧂est of the studio by extension. The studio has switched from its in-house engine to Unreal for The Witcher 4 (and beyond), and the new tools offer "a lot of cool things that a🦂llow for fast iteration and moving forward."

That's some of the basis for the faster-than-usual expected turnaround for the other games in the series - "the more tailored, the more appropriate for our type of game the pipelines are and the technology is, the easier it is to make the game," Hermanowicz says. It's also useful for the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games. "We have multiple projects ꧑in flight now. [Cyberpunk 2077 sequel Project] Orion moved to pre-production."

"The development of those things and those improvements f🍃or open-world technology go across all those projects and benefit all of those projects. So in a sense, we are now 💛using The Witcher 4, and all the assets which are for this technical demo, which is a vehicle to push the tech forward, in return benefits all of the industry."

It's a big claim, but it does ring true. If CDPR has been working with Epic to improve Unreal Engine for its own ends, those improvements can sti🐼ll be felt by studios using Unreal for their own gam🌠es. Granted, that doesn't give us any information about The Witcher 4's story, let alone The Witcher 5 or 6, but it's still a pretty major boon.

The Witcher 4 dev says "it's very clear" that Ciri is the right choice of protagonist, but that players shouldn't "make opinions" until the game is out.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Jan Hermanowicz, engineering production manager on the recent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 tech demo said that "when the game w✱ill be out, you'll be able to see for yoܫurself and fully embrace her character, her story. And I think that will be the moment to make opinions and make the calls." In other words, players shouldn't be making up their minds about the CDPR's choice of main character years before getting to play as them.

"We showed her in various situations, two emotional states [that were] very distinct from one another," Hermanowicz says. "And there are many, many more parts of her that we will show in the fꦰutur🦩e."

Hermanowicz expressed agreement with recent comments from Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle, who said that players couldn't simply rely on his character for every future game. Cockle also said that players who doubted CDPR's choice should "read the damn books" - an idea that Hermanowicz agrees with.

"For me, personally, reading the books, it's very clear t🎃hat the story slowly transitions from be🧸ing Geralt's story to really being Ciri's story, sometimes narrated through the eyes of Geralt," he says.

Whether or not you can be convinced to read Sapkowski's fantasy series, however, Hermanowicz says nothing's going to change with CDPR's choice of character. Picking Ciri is a "choice we made years ago,💜 and this is how it's gonna be," he says. "And you will see in the game how itಞ will play out." Sadly, that game is still likely to be several years away, so we'll be waiting a while before we do get to see how Ciri's as lead does play out, but I'll be eagerly awaiting regardless.

The Witcher 4 devs are preparing for "a generational shift" after The Witcher 3, and they're studying the RPG's biggest city to help.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, Jan Hermanowicz, engineering production manager on the recent 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 tech demo explained that the studio is adapting to the "generational shift when it comes to hardware, engines, and technology between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4." Since the third part of Geralt's saga relꦕeased in 2015, we've had a whole new console generation, and seen CDPR shift to a new engine for its RPG.

"That generational shift, we want to do it right," Hermanowicz says. "Our ambition is to take full advantage of it and really deliver the next-gen experience." For Hermanowicz in particular, that ambition had to show in the tech demo, which put Valdrest - a small village in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 region of Kovir - in center stage. But by the standards of The Wi𓄧tcher 3, that village was not all that small - in fact, it was a busy port town with 300 NPCs and a bustling market.

That density is evidence of how CD Projekt is "stepping up," but Hermanowicz is keen to point out that the studio is "not stepꦦping into this blindly." To help build believable crowds for Valdrest, he says that the team "spent a lot of time watching recordings of Novigrad from Witcher 3."

That generational leap means that the last game's biggest settlement is a reasonable comparison for the Witcher 4 tec🐽h demo, and the team studied things like NPC density and activity to help shape their showcase. "We actually looked at what we did in the past, what was cool about that, and what we couldn't do at the time," Hermanowicz explains.

That also helped the team consider what they hadn't even thought of last time around - watching Novigrad meant they could determine whether their "ambition was even there, and what new ambitions appeared throughout the last year𒉰s."

Clearly, the detail and density of Valdrest will not necessarily be found in every nook and cranny of The Witcher 4. Both CDPR and Hermanowicz have been keen to remind players that this was a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史🦩查询:proof-of-concept tech demo𝓀 for The Witcher 4, which means it's probably not representative of the finished game. Either way, it's🎐 interesting to note that the biggest cities in The Witcher 3 are helping shape fairly nondescript villages in The Witcher 4.

The Witcher 4 has a "console-first" philosophy and a 60fps target to avoid another Cyberpunk 2077 situation, though the Xbox Series S is "extremely challenging."

The developer is now using Unreal Engine 5 to make The Witcher 4 instead of its bespoke RED Engine, and Charles Tremblay, vice president of technology at CD Pr🔯ojekt Red, tells Digital Foundry that since it had problems in the past going PC-first and then scaling down for console, "this time around we really want to be more console-first."

It's aiming for 60fps on console, and even showed off a Witcher 4 demo on a PS5 to prove that it's possible. Unlike Cyberpunk 2ꦫ077, which only had PC review copies available and then initially ran like cold sludge on consoles, this game should hopefully be different.

But what about the less-powerful Xbox Series S? Microsoft requires parity across its Xbox Series range, and this has proved troublesome before, with the Black Myth: Wukong developers blaming the budget-friendly Series S for a delay in the Xbox port of the action RPG.

"I wish we did a lot of work already on that, but we d🌠id not," admits Tremblay. "So, this is something that is next on our radar for sure. [...] 60fps will definitely be extremely challenging on the Series S. Let's just say that it's something that we need to figure out."

Microsoft has allowed games to launch on the Series consoles without parity before though. Baldur's Gate 3 came to Xbox because Larian and Xbox boss Phil Spencer "found a solution": it dropped split-screen on the Series S.

So, Microsoft might be willing to drop that parity requirement for a game as highly ant🤡icipated as The Witcher 4 if it guarantees more people can buy it on Xbox. But hopefully CD Projekt Red manages to get the game to 60fps on Series S without coꦛmpromising it too much.

While you wait, check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Xbox Series X games you can play today.

Philipp Weber's first "professional" job was as a quest designer on The Witcher 3, the game that made CDPR a household name globally, after a background of modding the older Witcher games for fun. (Talk about manifestation.) But in a recent chat with🐬 GamesRadar+ about the RPG's 10th anniver✅sary, Weber revealed that ꦇthings weren't as rigid as you might expect from a developer♎ so big.

"I ca🧔me in with super hig🐲h motivation, loving the Witcher," he said, explaining that CDPR has a habit of hiring modders like himself. "I think the secret behind The Witcher 3 was that I wasn't an exception – that was the case for so many people."

You see, at the time, CDPR employed around 160 people and the ene🎐rgy was quite "scrappy." So, Weber's first task was simply to open a GDoc, brainstorm ideas, and then chuck whatever potential quests he could think of into the document. It was admittedly "a little bit vibe-based."

"Do it immediately, do it fast, do it dirty," he said of the studio's winning philosophy, which starts with random ideas i💦n a GDoc and ends with detailed side quests littered all around a fantasy world. "We check it and s﷽tart iterating [...] we keep that iteration going until the end – we're never happy with the result until it's too late and the game has to be out."

The Witcher 4's narrative lead is holding onto some of his earliest Witcher 3 feedback for the RPG's sequel: "We don't do fetch quests"

The Witcher 3 is now one of the most revered, well-known games in the entire RPG genre, having sold over 60 million copies and counting, but there was a time when CD Projekt Red was a relatively niꩲche studio. Sure, The Witcher 1 and 2 definitely had solid♒ fanbases and good ideas - The Witcher 3 is what turned CDPR into a household name, though.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4's narrative director Philipp Weber recalled, in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:an interview with GamesRadar+, that that shift began happening when a working demo for tꦛhe threequel started to gain 🌱traction at E3, courting fans from another massive fantasy epic.

"There was this feeling that it was going to be bigger," Weber remembered. "Skyrim was the open world game, and we could feel that sud🍬denly a lot of people who loved Skyrim started paying attention to The Witcher 3. We could kind of feel this… big wave, touching us. There was an excitement, where we could tell that the general public was taking notice. It was a very interesting th🌼ing to see."

The rest is history. The Witcher 3 launched to rave reviews, countless awards, and a decade later, CDPR even went back to add just "one𒀰 mor💜e patch" bringing mods to consoles for the first time ever. To no one's surprise, it's also inf🌠luencing the direction th🥃e studio takes with The Witcher 4.

Here's some other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games of 2025 and beyond.

Philipp Weber joined The Witcher 3's team as a quest designer early on in development and, in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:an interview with GamesRadar+, he recalled that the earliest bit of feedback he received from the studio was that "We don't do fetch quests." Hear, hear.⛦ Now that Weber's leading the narrative on The Witcher 4 a decade later, he told us it's a rule he's holding on to for the open-world🦩 RPG sequel.

The Witcher 3's side quests really made the game stand out in a crowded genre, whether they were funny 10-minute distractions or multi-quest, extraordinarily detailed, hour-long endeavours that wouldn't look out of place in the main story. Pawel Sasko - also a quest designer at the time, now the director of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2 - said "the 🥃goal" was to replicate the feeling of putting down a good boo𝓀k.

Filling a massive world with so many juicy stories is no easy feat, though. Weber rꩵemembered that every designer wrote "10 times as many ideas as those that landed in the game," so there's tons of brainstorming that takes place before the team lands on something as interesting and now-iconic as the Bloody Baron questline, for example.

CD Projekt Red developers are definitely taking what worked in The Witcher 3 and sprinting with them in The Witcher 4, but the studio's also been outspoken about the fact that it can't "copy our own t🥃ricks all over again and again." Here's hoping th𝐆e team can stri⭕ke a nice balance between old and new stuff.

The Witcher 4 lead is "pretty confident" about the series' new saga: "We know how to handle it [...] we made it popular"

We sat down with CDPR veteran and The Witcher 4 narrative director Philipp Weber to mark 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3's 10-year anniversary, and he gave us something of a peek behind the curtain at what the vibe's like at the studio. Theꦰ Witcher 4 has been in ful🐼l-scale production since November 2024, a💮nd although it won't be out until 2027 at the soonest, it sounds like CDPR is firing on all cylinders at this point.

Webe꧑r told us there's the same "scrappy energy" at the studio that there was when he first joined as quest designer on The Witcher 3 i🌠n 2013, a time of "good creative chaos" where a lot of tasks were "a little bit vibe-based" in the sense that developers were just doing what needed to be done regardless of their specific job titles.

"Sometimes I like to just say, 'Get it done. Do it 🌠dirty. Do it the way we used to do it!" Weber said.

This may sound potentially disorderly, but there's an intention behind this philosophy that's defined by CDPR's appreciation and respect for The Witcher 3's legacy as one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RPGs of all time.

"The way we want to do justice to [The Witcher 3's] legacy is to take the philosophy we had during The🔯 Witcher 3 – how to make a game, how to really care about these things, how to tell stories – and keep that," said Weber.

At the same time, "there are [also] new question♛s we want to answe💮r, because this is supposed to feel like a true sequel, not just redoing what we did before. And I think it's really [about] trying to have that healthy mix of moving forward and also trying out some new things."

CDPR unleashed a stunning 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:tech demo for The Witcher 4 earlier this month filled with dramatic valleys, enchanting forests, and plenty of grit and gristle that characterizಞes the medieval age for many of us. Whatever chaotic energy is driving the sequ🌠el's development behind-the-scenes seems A-okay to 🗹me if that's the result.

The Witcher 4 setting could be the never-before-seen region of Kovir, as Ciri journeys to the far north in CD Projekt's new tech demo

CDPR was prepar🦩ing to launch The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings on Xbox 360. The port was largely finished, and work on a follow-up, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, had begun in secret. Yet instead of sticking with what worked for – another hub-🅺based and largely linear RPG – its creators wanted to transplant The Witcher 2's tight, character-driven narrative into a sprawling open world.

"Everyone in the industry said it's not possible – that these things don't 🔯go together, because you almost have contradictory objectives for what you're trying to achieve," recalls Sasko. But even then, ambition was the studio's guiding light.

We know how the story goes. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 launched to critical and commercial acclaim in 2016, an꧅d is considered by many to be the most influential open world RPG of its time. CDPR is a household name. Now 10 years old, The Witcher 3 retains its magic: there's a smokiness to its tone, its confrontational approach to morality, that's still hard to grasp after all these years. Where did it come from?

"We always wanted to make the kind of game we'd want to play," says Philipp Weber, who joined as a quest designer in 2013 and now works as 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4's narrative director. "But at the same time, a lot of it was 🧔built on hope… like, 'I hope this works🌞 out.'"

Early days

While Sasko has been with The Witcher 3 since its earliest days, Weber arrived slightly further into development. It was Weber's first "professional" job, having come from a background of modding previous Witcher games as a hobby. "I came in wi🎐th super high motivation, loving the Witcher," he says, adding that the studio frequently hires modders like himself. "I think the secret behind The Witcher 3 was that I wasn't an exception – that was the case for so many people."

The atmosphere of CDPR, then staffed at around 160, was "scrappy". Weber's first job was to throw quest ideas into a Google Docs page for three days, and many tasks were "a little b♈it vibe-based" – it wasn't uncommon to see developers working across disciplines based on what needed doing.

It's another of the studio's "secrets," suggests Weber: "Do it immediately, do it fast, do it 🅺dirty. We check it and start iterating [...] we keep that iteration going until the end – we're never happy with the result until it's too late and the game has to be out."

"Let's not kid ourselves – this wasn't a small indie game or something, but it was still good creative chaos," recalls Weber. "You could get things done, you could move, be creative, do stuff, and ask questions. When you get bigger, you have to be consciously aware of that factor and say 'even though we [have] so many people and have to organize more, let's not 👍lose this'. It's very easy to lose this. But sometimes… just do it, get it done. Use the engine, come up with something cool, and do it!"

"That's how it felt, especially at the end of Witcher 2 and beginning of Witch💟er 3," agrees Sasko, who remembers CDPR starting to embrace now-common industry standards like quest documentation around that time. "The biggest American studios already did that better, but in Europe, it was a novelty."

When The Witcher 3 started to make rounds at E3 with a working demo, people took notice. Its creators steadily realized they were holding something special. "There was this feeling that it was going to be bigger," says Weber. "Skyrim was the open world game, and we could feel that suddenly a lot ꩲof people who loved Skyrim started paying attention to The Witcher 3. We could kind of feel this… big wave, touching us. There was an excitement, where we could tell that the general public was taking notice. It was a very interesting thing to see."

The secret formula

While that was happening, the studio also knew it was pushing the boat out with the moral complexity of its quests. Even a decade later, few RPGs – if any – have matched the consistency of The Witcher 3's depth, in which everything from the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:now-infamous Bloody Baron quest to the smallest of contr✅acts can leave a lasting impression. Right or w𝐆rong is rarely defined, and goodness glimmers in abhorrence.

It✤s best quests, whether spanning several hours of a bite-sized 10 minutes, capture the feeling of being staggered after finishing a good book. (Sasko 💜lights up at the comparison – "That was the goal!"). A large part of that comes from The Witcher 3's morally grey world, which has been discussed at length, and for good reason: it's the secret sauce that makes CDPR continue to stand out. Every potential addition needed to pass an incredibly high quality bar. Some of Weber's first feedback was "we don't do fetch quests" (a rule he maintains for The Witcher 4), and every designer wrote "10 times as many ideas as those that landed in the game".

Meeting that bar was difficult in more ways than one. Across both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, the studio has broached subjects ranging from eating disorders and terminal illness to domestic abuse and the right to die. Not everyone within CDPR has always been on board. Both Weber and Sasko recall 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:internal oppositi💦on to Cyberpunk 2077's Sinnerman, the beginning of a quest line in which you meet a convicted murderer who wants to record his own crucifixion in a bid to convert more people to Christianity. Evelyn Parker's tragic fate was also controversial, as was the Bloody Baron's unflinchin🅘g familial tragedy in The Witcher 3.

"There were so many conversations in the studio," says Sasko. "I remember when I was working on the Bloody Baron, I came up with the idea of the botchling – and to have it in the game. One of our developers, who was a young father at the time, said that he was disturbed by the zombie miscarried child, and should we really be making games like this? Is it moral, or ethical, to make a story like this? I managed to convince him in the end because I think he understood that we were trying to tell a story about domestic violence, brok✨en human beings, and in a way show players that you can feel empathy for people that have done horrible things… and pose the question of: when is the moment you can forgive someone, as a human being?"

Weber agrees that having the confidence to go there is key to CDPR's knack for storytelling. "We ask difficult questions, but don't preacไh easy answers [...] The Bloody Baron does terrible things, but Geralt can still say that he feels for having lost his family. He can empathize with that aspect – it doesn't mean Geralt says 'I like you, you're a good guy'. This way of writing stories is very important to us."

"We don't just do it to be showy," he continues. "We do it because there's an interesting question to delve into – not necessarily a question we want to answer, but a question we want to explore and think is worth it. I would say that if you never have those discussions, you're probably not making art. 'Maybe we have to 🦩be brave? Dive deeper? Maybe this is something that could touch people the wrong way, are we ready to do that?' Those are discussions that we have to this day, but it's ♔important to have them, because otherwise you're never able to do something like this."

Both developers insist the goal isn't to intentionally court controversy. Instead, Sasko believes it's crucial to not be afraid of it. "It's about touching on topics because you feel they should be talked about, because they are an൩ ౠimportant element of your human experience and who we are as people. If that touches on controversial topics, it's OK – we want to talk about human life, and what it really means to be human."

"I'd rather make a game that some p𒅌eople love and some people don't like, than one everyone says is OK," says Weber.

Maturity is the "biggest element" of The Witcher 3's legacy, according to Sasko. A lot of the team were entering their 30s and 40s during development, and looking for "something more" from their medium. Did the harsh reality of The Witcher 3 come from shared experiences? "I would say we, as Polish people, are much more negative than Western societies," he replies. "We have a tendency🅠 to see glass half empty rather than half full. Part of creating mature entertainment is just realizing that not everything in life is going to go great. In all of our lives, horrible shit is going to happen."

Elaborating, Sasko suggests that having to reckon with the inevitable death of our parents is one of the "most important transitions" of the human condition. "I'm a development psychologist, so I think about those t♐hings a lot. For me this moment of transition, of understanding that your parents are aging and they're going to get sick and die, is a part of our human experience. It's dishonest to always show and paint the world in a positive light."

"You cannot prevent your parents dying," he continues. "You cannot prevent the fact that maybe the pet you spent 15 years of your life with has cancer. You cannot completely prevent this. [But it's about] being thankful for everything you experi⛦enced. Even in this fucking dystopian horrible world of Cyberpunk, or this dark noir Witcher world, there are good people. There are good moments. There are friendships. There's love! I think that's the ambition: to encourage people toward this, and it might be a bit dark when I'm speaking about it, but I want to make sure that ray of sunlight is visible in our work [...] There's a lot of hope in both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. It's just that you need to look for it."

Best endings

Nowadays, it's almost rote to discuss The Witcher 3's impact. Having sold 60 million copies and counting, the RPG brought CD Projekt Red to the genre's forefront seemingly overnight. Juggernauts like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and have been inspired by its open world.

It's a legacy that Sasko, now associate game director on the next Cyberpunk title, struggles to grasp. "Just last week, The Witcher 3 was on sale, but it was in♔ the top 10 best-selling games on Steam together with Cyberpuဣnk, which was incredible to see," he says, grinning. "I couldn't believe it – the game [is] 10 years old!"

For Weber, he feels The Witch🦂er 4 is coming toget🍸her with the same "scrappy energy" that buzzed around CDPR when he first joined. "Sometimes I like to just say 'Get it done. Do it dirty. Do it the way we used to do it!"

As narrative director, Weber doesn't believe his job is to create a "mathematical" improvement to The Witcher 3. Taste is subjective – after all, his favorite Witcher game is the often-forgotten first one ("I love it so much!"). "The way we want to do justice to [The Witcher 3's] legacy is to take the philosophy we had during The Witcher 3 – how to make a game, how to really care about these things, how to tell stories – and keep that," he ex🔴pla🥀ins. "There are [also] new questions we want to answer, because this is supposed to feel like a true sequel, not just redoing what we did before. And I think it's really [about] trying to have that healthy mix of moving forward and also trying out some new things."

In November 2024, The Witcher 4 entered full-scale production. Unlike its predecessor, it will not have the element of surprise working for it. The Witcher 3 came together not through magic, but through human ambition and the courage to tackle reality – and as a result, expectations for its follow-up are sky-high. Few know this as well as Weber, who laughs. "I do see the articles where people talk about The Witcher 3 being one of the best games ever made and 'how are they going to top it?' – I'm like yeah, how are we going to do that?"

By bringing Cyberpunk 2077's density to The Witcher 4, CDPR is finally bridging the tech gap between its biggest RPGs

This was revealed by lead writer Marcin Blacha in a recent , who mentions that some of the "biggest changes" made to the game between its devel♛opment and the final version were related to the titular Wild Hunt. Geralt was once planned to be "kind 🌊of like an insider," and "doing stuff pretending to be one of them."

The scrapped ending sounds particularly interesting, with Blacha upfront in saying that "Mass Effect 2 was a huge inspiration for the game." He continues: "Initially, we had an ending that was kind of inspired by Mass Effect 2… that moment when Geralt gathers a party and goes on a suicide 𓃲mission.

"It was on a Skellige drakkar you were sailing into a froz🔴en sea, and you were supposed💎 to fight the Wild Hunt on this drakkar."

In the end, CD Projekt Red "redesigned" the ending "a little bit," having instead "decided to make this more personal ending." Clearly, the idea wasn't scrapped in its entiꩵrety, with the whole boat on an icy sea setting carrying forth to the a🅷ctual ending, when Geralt takes on the King of the Wild Hunt.

No game is without its scrapped ideas, and it makes you wonder in this case how many bits of content that got edited out of The Witcher 3 could make an appearance in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4. A recent Witcher 4 tech demo revealed that Manticores feature in the upcoming RPG, over 10 years since they were apparently 𒆙cut from the last game, s♒o that's just one example.

The Witcher 4 devs are inspired by RPGs like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Baldur's Gate 3, but "definitely are not going to make a game like Larian did."

CD Projekt Red explains some of what it does, however, look for in other studios' titles for inspiration to in an interview, starting with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. "I love Kingdom Come because of the realism and the feeling, the sense of humor," admi♈ts co-CEO Adam Badowski. The more systems-heavy and simulation-aligned aspects of the RPG are areas CD Projekt Red pays the most attention to, as they migh💦t translate well into The Witcher 4.

"The Kingdom Come kind of simulation, it's great," continues the lead. "There are so many options, you can change the world, it's super great. And we would like to keep that, we'd like to follow this trend as well. So these are our next steps for sure, and it's kind of a similar challenge to what we have in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 because of the open world and storytelling here, freedom of 🍃choices." Nailing Kingdom Come's "kind of simulatioꦉn" isn't easy, though.

"But at the same time, we would like to build very fleshy, very well-motivated characters. So it's kind of in contradiction from time to time. That's a great design challenge." As for other beloved recent RPGs, like Larian Studios' 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3, Badowski explains the inspiration drawn by CD Projekt Red from them hits a bit differently – after all, the turn-based style doesn't exactly fit well into the team's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:open-world "niche" of games like The Witcher 4.

"In Larian's case, it's turn-based, so it's a different kind of game, and the way you interact with characters is totally different," he says. "We like to fully build the characters, understand the past and the futu🍬re of the characters' motivation. That's why it takes so much time. [In Baldur's Gate 3] there are great characters as well, but sometimes your choices, because there's freedom of choice in Larian's work, it pushes you to use different tricks than ours."

That doesn't mean CD Projekt Red doesn't ever admire Larian's work, however: "I think we observe each other, and there are not that many games like that, so that's natural, yeah, and we see how players react, how fans react to those tactics." Joint CEO Micha✅ł Nowakowski adds: "I think we're still more in the, you know, we're a big open world, but a lot of what Baldur's Gate 3 showed was an inspiration, and to be honest, there's no shame in that."

It's not strange for devs to explore fellow devs' work, even if it differs a bit, as Nowakowski details. "I think everybody who launches games nowadays is looking back on what was done before, and is looking at what worked and what was great and how and if they can fit it into whatever they are doing." CD🌄 Projekt Red will, for the most part, stick to its own past games for the bulk of its inspiration while developing new titles, though.

"So, for sure, there was a lot of inspiration in what BG3 did, but I think we're still more sticking to what was The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk, even if we don't want to just make another game like that, just with better graphics," as Nowakowski says – but it'll all be bigger and better. "We do want to inn༒ovate in terms of what's available in terms of gameplay and so on. I hope whe𝕴n the time comes, that's going to become clear for the fans as well."

Concluding CD Projekt Red's thoughts on inspiration drawn from Baldur's Gate 3 and the like, Nowakowski clarifies his and Badowski's words so far: "It's a bit of an unclear answer, but to make it more clear, we definitely are not going to make a game like Larian did. That's the kind of game they can make. But a lot of stuff with how the characters can interact with the world and what it does was for sure some inspiration to us."

Need even more to look forward to? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

Maybe it's the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia, but I never noticed how quiet The Witcher 3 can be. Soft footsteps and the odd NPC bark aside, it seems these thriving townships suffer from a serious lack of actual thriving. Sure, it was (and still is) one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RPGs for a reason, but with The Witcher 3 having turned 10 this year, it's clear that CD Projekt Red has learned a lot of lessons since then. Specifica🐈lly, around how to craft an environment – and the tech demo has me hyped for Ciri to get a taste of Night City's 🌃buzz

Night and day cities

As much as I love t🧸he "city of dreams,", it took the developer almost four years-post launch to achieve Cyberpunk 2077's potential.

Today, Night City is as immersive of a video game metropolis as you can get. Hundreds of NPCs crowd the streets from Heywood to Japantown and beyond, the roads teem with cars of all shapes, sizes, and engine, and sound is pretty much everywhere.

You can almost smell cigarette smoke through the screen, hazy and thick in the early morning air as a nightclub's rhythmic bass keeps the party going, or taste the oily scopdog being wolfed down by a nearby Tyger Claw seconds before getting shoulder-chucked by a dude in leopard-print hotpants. This thoroughly lived-in viไbe i♏s what makes Cyberpunk such an exciting place to escape to in a video game, and sadly, it's something we just did not get in The Witcher 3.

In the videos linked above, I was surprised to see how much I'd disregar♈ded the lack of urban business in CD Projekt Red's most iconic RPG. One of them sees an NPC drinking silently and repetitively from a flask of wine, rooted to the spot, while a passing woman bemoans her husband's adulterous liaisons, all while Geralt simply walks past them like a ghost. Suddenly, a child comes running up besi🅰de him, causing a collision issue with the striding witcher as her character model seems to reverberate off Geralt's for a moment before coming unstuck and continuing on her travels.

In hindsight, the lack of bustle makes th🧸ese cities feel a 🐬bit, well, dead. Thankfully, The Witcher 4 looks to change that.

Leaps and boundaries

This time around, bringing Night City's lively urban environments to The Witcher 4 🐷seems paramount to CD Projekt Red. It's part of the studio's mission to deliver "the mosಞt ambitious, immersive Witcher game ever," harnessing the power of Unreal Engine 5.6 to do so.

In the short clip seen in the tech demo where Ciri walks around a marketplace in Kovir, that power is already evident – as are flavors of Night City's vitality. A tavern keeper is seen throwing an unruly patron out into the streets in what looks like a scripted environmental encounter, triggered by the player's proximity to a certain location. This reminds me of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 quest Don't Lose Your Mind, which kicks in only when observing a car crash whil༺e driving around Corpo Plaza's roundabout.

Not only tha🌺t, the environmental noise is far more realistic. It's only an in-engine demo to showcase the technology, with an on-screen wa𒁃rning indicating that it's "not actual gameplay," but hearing fully-scripted NPC conversations happening while Ciri waltzes past is a far cry from the near deathly silence of towns in The Witcher.

It's too early to say for sure, but this small slice of progress tells me that CD Projekt Red is taking innovation seriously. With plenty of lessons learned through Cyberpunk 2077 and DLC Phantom Liberty, its design philosophy is a testament to the studio's immense growth, reminding us why The Witcher 4 is one of the most exciting 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games on the horizon. Let's hope we get eyes on some actual game footage soon to see if it holds up.

There's plenty more 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming PS5 games on the way besides The Witcher 4... though I'll admit, it's still my most wanted

It's not often we horse girls get to experience games with realistic mounts – the movement is wonky, the animation is off, and the horses feel like they were implemented with little regard for their real-life counterparts. That's why titles like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Red Dead Redemption 2 that feature a semblance of horse realism stand out and attract more than just your average RPG fans, but they're a rarity, and they're admittedly still lacking in many area💟s.

The Witcher 4 might just rewrite the genre's reputation in equestrians' minds, however, with its impressive tech powering the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:"🍸realistic muscles moving and🎶 stretching" under the skin of Ciri's horse, Kelpie. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either – Alice Ruppert, the equestrian and game developer behind , a website "dedicated to horses in video games and video games about horse✱s," seems to th😼ink so, too.

Ruppert discusses CD Projekt Red's tech demo and its exploration of Kelpie's movements, muscles, and more, and it's safe to say she's impressed – although she does proceed with caution as the showcase is meant to highlight developers' "ambitio🦄n for the game and the in-engi🀅ne capabilities" rather than The Witch🌟er 4 as it'll play upon release. "In the minute or so of footage the tech demꦚo shows us of Kelpie, I find a lot of detail to appreciate."

She continues: "We see Kelpie move at a trot and canter in a generally anatomically correct and possible fashion" – a rare sight ot behold in video games, unfortunately. Ruppert also notes that it🎃's nice to see Kelpie treated as a companion rather than a vehicle. "The demo treats Kelpie like a character rather than a bicycle: Ciri calls her name and the horse reacts and canters up to her and Ciri gives her a little pat after mounting."

There's no telling whether this means we'll get more interactions than we did with Roach as Geralt in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3, but it's certainly a good sign "that the horse gamep๊lay in The Witch💖er 4 is getting some additional attention compared to its predecessor." Ruppert then gets into some of the more movement-related specifics from the demo, as it "goes on to show off Kelpie's coat texture and muscle simulation at a gallop in slow motion."

It all looks so smooth, she guesses animations "were most likely either motion captured or animated by someone who really knows their horses, and seeing it is balm on my soul." While there are flaws, as Ruppert notes, they require "nitpicking on a very high level" as "what we see in the Witcher 4 tech demo is easily one of the overall most impr🍸essive and well put together game horse animations ever seen, even if it isn't literally perfect in every way."

As both a longtime horse and RPG lover myself, I can't help but understand what Ruppert means when she admits she "got tears in my eyes the first time I watched this out of sheer 'oh my god they're taking the horse seriously' awe" – the tech demo is stunning, and I agree with her conclusion that "we horse-loving gamers may be in for an absolute treat" if CD Projekt Red's showcase acts as an indicator of what's to come in The Witcher 4.

Need even more to look forward to? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, Wyeth Johnson, senior director of product strategy for Unreal Engine, says that "every developer who uses Unreal will benefit from what we showed today." What Unreal creator Epic showed hinged on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 and its new tech demo, which showed a dense, detailed version of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:region of Kovir, running at 60fps on a base PS5.

Together, Epic and CD Projekt𓂃 Red covered the ways in which Unreal Engine can be used to create detailed forests or large crowds of unique NPCs – without individual devs having to spend dozens of hours sculpting every branch or character's face. That tech allows for easier creation in less time, and Johnson says that's "good for everybody that uses it."

That's a point that Johnson was keen to emphasize. The Unreal ecosystem, he points out, "is vast," and touches almost any industry you can think of. That has its downsides, however, in the fact that Unreal's devs use their own instincts to create the tools they think and hope any given development might use, "but there's no possible way that we could push in every direction to the﷽ apex level that developers like CD Projekt Red are capable of pushing."

Julius Girbig, senior technical animator who helped put together the tech demo, likens it to a massive game development toolbox, in which studios are able to pick and choose the tools they wa🦋nt to use. But they can also choose to leave certain tools in the box if they don't need them, or even create their own tools to add to it. "That's also what is really powerful for us – that if we don't require a certain feature, we don't use it, and we create our own version of it, or we build on top of something that's already there."

Overall, Johnson notes, Unreal's success stems from what each developer makes of it. "Performance is not just what a player interacts with – it's also what a developer interacts with," he says. "And when the water level goes up and the time to achieve quality goes down, then you can be more expressive, you can be more playful, you can try to dre🌊am a little bit more than just worrying about all these systems holding you back."

That's a sentiment that was echoed by Girbig. His focus was on the marketplace that Ciri walks through, and he says that the animation framework and mass AI tech that were shown off were a key part of his work. As an animatioಌn artಌist, he says he's "not actually digging into code that much," but was still able to create and refine "hundreds of characters," each with their own behaviors shaped by Unreal.

"It just unlocks me as an artist. Now, with this engine, it suddenly unlocks me to create much bigger things and thi𓆉nk bigger. It's really, really awesome to be able to use things like the nanite foliage to create these vast forests and whatever comes to your mind, and it will be available for everyone."

Swapping to Unreal was "worth it" for The Witcher 4, says CDPR dev defending the transition away from The Witcher 3's RED engine.

It seems CD Projekt Red devs aren't immune to the effects the impressive tech demo had on the community, and it's not hard to see why – from the first look at The Witcher 4's setting in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:never-before-seen kingdom of Kovir to its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hyper-realistic horse anatomy, it left plenty to be excited about. The stunning visuals and performance offered nothing to scoff at, even if mostly a glance at the studio's "ambition for the game and the in-en♑gine capabilities."

As global community directo🌟r Marcin Momot writes in a , the demo demonstrated "the tech powering The Witcher 4, developed by our team in collaboration with Epic, in buttery smooth 4K/60fps" – some undeniably solid numbers considering the high-tech features CD Projekt Red and Epic Games were hig🃏hlighting. "This game is shaping up to be something special and we can't wait to show you more when the time is right!"

I💃n a reply to his tweet, : "Our team is full of wizards!"

GജSA Head of Communication Fabian Mario Döhla seems similarly blown away by the tech demo, revealing in his own that he's played it himself – and he "still can't get enough" of it.

"Some of the best – and genuinely n▨icest – developers in the industry have poured their heart and soul into this," he says. "I hope you had fun with the tech demo – I've played (on a base PS5!) and watched it a thousand times, and I still can't get enough."

Suffice to say, The Witcher 4 sounds as though it's shaping up to be one of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RPGs in a long while – and althouﷺgh yesterday's showcase was only a tech demo, its deep dive into the engineཧ housing the game has me thrilled for more as a longtime fan.

Between this and other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games, like the mysterious codenamed 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Project Sirius, another Witchꦯer title devs say will "differ from past productions," there's much to look forward to.

Want to keep the excitement flowing? Here are some other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

Speaking after the State of Unreal showcase, Julius Girbig, Senior Technical Anima꧃tor – Coordinator, is full of praise for the engine when asked🅠 about the jump to Unreal from RED.

"We had a blast with Unreal," he says. "We played around with all the different systems, how it's ꦡbuilt, all the dif♓ferent features inside. Obviously, it was a well-thought-out decision to move over.

"We looked at a bunch of different engines, really evaluated it, and it was a conscღious decision that Unreal is the right tool for us in the future, and especially when we move to multiple different projects at the same time. And I think the demo actually shows that it was worth it, the work that we put in is paying off."

When asked whether it was Unreal's featureཧ set that tipped the decision to use it, Girbig ha🍌s the following to say:

"When we're looking at an engine, an engine is essentially just a toolbox, right? We're just looking at 'what does this engine give us? What do we already have?' And it's not like we lost things because of th🙈e transition.

"We're bringing our experience that we already have from RED Engine, all the AAA open-world with streaming, all that experience, we're now bringing over to experts that have been building engines for years as well, and have that experience of running multipl🎐e projects - huge ones at that. Look at Fortnite. And it's that combination that makes us really strongℱ."

Alongside a monster that went 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:unseen in The Witcher 3 and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:horse anatomy, the main pull of The Witcher 4's tech demo, aside from the sights, was the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:region of Kovir. It all looks stunning, but, naturally, you'll want to keep those expectations somewhat in check as director Sebastian Kalemba says the tech demo "showcases both our ambition for the game and the in-engine capabilities," but 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:"isn't a demo" of the RPG.

Chamber pots, spit, and pigs: Between the stunning views, The Witcher 4's Unreal Engine 5 tech demo is the grimy medieval mess I was hoping for.

The tech demo left fans of The Witcher series in a chokehold, blown away by the upcoming game's stunning 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new setting in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:never-before-seen kingdom of Kovir and its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:hyper-realistic horse anatomy. But according to Kalemba, it wasn't exactly an entirely accurate showcase of the RPG as it'll🌠 be when it releases, but rather a deep dive into the impressive Unreal Engine 5 technology that's powering The Witcher 4.

Kalemba clarifies as much in an online following the stream. "This demo is the direct re🌞sult of the strategic partnership we announced back in 2022 between CD Projekt Red and Epic Games," writes the lead, going on to describe the studio's work with Epic to enhance the Unreal Engine's toolset. "Since then, we've been working closely together to develop new tools and enhance existing features in Unreal Engine 5."

That's where yesterday's St🍎ate of Unreal stream comes in – as a look into the "ambition" CD Projekt Red has for the game, rather than the actual final product in action. "The tech💮 demo, running on PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second," writes Kalemba, "showcases both our ambition for the game and the in-engine capabilities powering The Witcher 4." The director then stresses again that the tech demo is just that.

"One super important thinꦺg to remember: this isn't a demo🔴 of the game itself, but rather a showcase of the engine and its capabilities," concludes Kalemba. "It's an early look and demonstration of what's possible at this stage of development, thanks to everyone's joint efforts."

In a follow-up , he also explains that, while the demo ran on a PlayStation 5, the technology "works across all platforms the game will 🅰launch on."

Despite knowing the tech demo was a quick peek into what the Unreal Engine can do myself, I can't help but be all the more excited for the yet-to-arrive RPG – I mean, just look at those 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new Witcher 4 screenshots shared yesterday.

Need even more to look forward to yourself? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

So it was an immense relief to see a woman chuck the contents of a chamber pot off a bridge in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the new tech demo for The Witcher 4. Oh yeah, this is gonna be gross.

It's one thing for The Witcher 4 to launch blood and gore at the camera like a 3D film. I get it, CDPR. Gross! But the grit and gristle I'm really looking for is in the proudly unwashed realities of medieval life. The dirty, uncouth, and uncaring. Here, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 tech demo, which is also filled with gorgeous vall🍬eys and forests and so on, did not disappoint.

There is, of course, the chamber pot, nearly the very first thing we see as Ciri approaches an otherwise pretty city. I'd like t๊o extend a special shoutout to the chamber pot woman and 🤪her brown cap. She doesn't get paid enough for this shit.

Seconds later, as Ciri strolls through the marketplace, the ground strewn with all manner of delightful filth, a guard spits just inches from her feet. Maybe he's not fond of Witchers. Maybe he, like a concerning number of men online, is intimidated by a woman as strong as Ciri. All I know is that he🧸 put some stank on that spit, and for his contributions to this canvas of crap, I have to respect it.

Ciri's walk continues. A live bear performs tricks before a small streetside crowd – not something that𒆙 OSHA would abide, I'd wager. A man drops all his apples on the ground afte꧅r bumping into Ciri. Polish those puppies right up and get 'em on the fruit stand. Pigs pass chickens as they escape their pen, perhaps lured by the apples. Behind a street beggar, an innkeeper rolls an apparent Gwent cheater out into the street. The background music to all of this is an energetic chorus of villagers hawking and gossiping and coughing.

This is the kind of atmosphere that helped make 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3, and games like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, so great. I know this is j🌱ust a tech demo that we shouldn't read too much into, but the direction here seems pretty clear. The Witcher 4 grimes up good.

CDPR says Ciri's face in the new Witcher 4 trailer is "a direct copy of The Witcher 3 model" despite "two subtle changes."

In case you missed it, CDPR debuted for 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 at today's Epic Games State of Unreal showcase, and now that you k🙈now that, you should totally go watch both of them and then come back and read this afterward.

The Witcher 4 wouldn't be a modern RPG if it didn't have fans examining its characters' faces through a microscope trying to find minute changes so they can complain about them on social media, and sure enough, people online were quick🅠 to point out that Ciri looks slightly different in the new footage than she did back in December.

Well, a CDPR spokesperson has confirmed to that it's the same Ciri – not just from the 2024 trailer, but also from 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3, despite𝓰 two subtle changesཧ, one of which has already been edited out of the new trailer.

"It's the same chജaracter model used in the [2024] trail🐟er," the spokesperson said. "Ciri's face is a direct copy of The Witcher 3 model, adapted to work with the latest MetaHuman technology. Two subtle changes were made to improve animation quality: slightly raised eyebrows, and a more relaxed eye area – the latter was present in the trailer but has since been removed."

Elsewhere in the new trailer and tech demo is a look at the fabled manti꧅cores that were reportedly cut from The Witcher 3, footage of Ciri strolling through a bustling city, and a great view of the game's gorgeous open world — all of which is, to me༒, much more interesting than "slightly raised eyebrows."

The Witcher 4 setting could be the never-before-seen region of Kovir, as Ciri journeys to the far north in CD Projekt's new tech demo

If you're scratching your head at The Witcher 4 setting, you wouldn't be alone. The kingdom of Kovir and Poviss stands as a region that players weren't actually able to explore at all in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 as Geralt. Everything we know about the Northern Kingdom stems from some minor in-game references and details gathered from author Andrzej Sapkowski's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher books, which arguably makes it o𒐪bꦕscure enough to not remember well.

What is Kovir, the setting of The Witcher 4?

Two of the most significant mentions of Kovir can be found in The Witcher 3, with the first being a lore book aptly dubbed "Kovir and Poviss." This in-game book rests idly on various bookshelves throughout Wild Hunt, but it contains a wealth of information about the region, including tidbits about its history and reputation. If you don't read everything you come across, it's highly likely you'll miss it. The book's entry reads as follows:

Kovir and Poviss are, without a doubt, the richest realms in the North. Few today remember that this was not always the case, yet their poverty was once literally on everyone's lips, in the form of now-antiquated common sayings. As recently as the days of Heribert the Quarrelsome, one spoke of a particularly impoverished person as being "poorer than a mouse from Poviss," called bone broth "Koviri delight," and referred to beggars as "praxedes," after the bay along the shores of which these kingdoms lie.

Similarly, few remember that a mere handful of generations ago, Kovir and Poviss were still part of Redania. King Radovid I, known as Radovid the Great, handed dominion over them to his hated brother, Troyden, with one stipulation - that he never leave his newly-acquired demesne and not interfere in matters of state.

Handing over this rocky scrap of far-northern ground (where, the saying went, the year had two seasons - August and winter) was naturally meant as a cruel joke, a slap in the face for the over-ambitious Troyden.

Yet time soon proved that Radovid the Great had made a grave error. Before long, it was discovered that Kovir's bare rocks hid priceless treasure in the form of enormous deposits of precious metals and rock salt. This discovery, in turn, led to tremendous growth in productive industry. Mills, forges, and workshops sprouted up like mushrooms after a hearty rain.

Radovid III decided to correct his famous forebear's mistake and take back the northern frontiers of his kingdom. He was convinced the combined armies of Redania and its then-ally Kaedwen would quickly bring this ever more audacious vassal in line. History took a different turn, however, and Kovir won a resounding, crushing victory. Radovid III was forced to sign the First Treaty of Lan Exeter, granting Kovir independence while binding it to eternal neutrality - a promise Troyden's successors have kept with great diligence.

Until recently, Kovir was ruled by Esterad Thyssen, a king as wise as he was greedy. Yet his untimely demise did not stop his lands from continuing to develop and blossom. Koviri metallurgists proudly compete with the best Mahakam can offer, and many believe the University of Lan Exeter long ago surpassed the famous Oxenfurt Academy as the leading seat of higher learning in the North. And so it has come to pass that, over the course of a few generations, the inhabitants of Kovir and Poviss have turned from paupers into princes, from beggars into bankers.

That's not the only taste of Kovir we get in The Witcher 3, however – depending on who you choose to romance, you might hear more about the region at the end of the game. Should you opt to stay with Triss Merigold over Yennefer, the game's post-credits narration will advise you that she and Geralt go on to 🐭move to Kovir. There, Triss ends up acting as court advisor to King Tankred Thyssen, the only son of Esterಌad Thyssen.

Does that mean it's one of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 endings that most qualify as the "canon" finale for Geralt? There's no telling until The Witcher 4 releases, but it's still not the only time Kovir is relﷺevant in a past CD Projekt Red RPG. The kingdom also comes up in The Witcher 2, when Letho of Gulet reveals King Esterad was supposed to be the first target of the Kingslayers in an assassination attempt that never ends up coming to fruition.

As for The Witcher books, including the latest, which is out now, they offer more technical information on the region. Standing strong as the largest exporter of mineral resource𒁃s, famed for its glass industries, and rich in mountains and mines, Kovir is situated north of Redania on the Gulf of Praxeda. Unsurprisingly, the mineral-rich realm exports chromium, copper, gl💙ass, iron ore, lead, nickel, platinum, salt, silver, tin, titanium, tungsten, and zinc.

The Northern Kingdom also accounts for 80% of the world's gold, as described in the fourth Witcher book, The Tower of the Swallow. Lan Exeter serves as Kovir's winter capital, while Port Vanis is its summer counterpart – two areas we're sure to see in The Witcher 4. We may get 𝕴to explore territories like Creyden, Narok, Poviss, Talgar, and Velhad, too, but CD Projekt Red has yet to provide more details on the new game's map.

Hopefully, we don't have to wait much longer to learn about the ins and outs of Kovir in the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red game – but until then, details from the Witcher series' prior entries and Sapkowski's books should tide us over.

Need even more to look forward to? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

CD Projekt Red gave a 𓆉fresh glimpse of its RPG in a tech demo showcase today, which opened with a cinematic scene showing a group of people traveling in the back of a wagon getting attacked by a ferocious, winged beast. As the developer shows off more footage, including our protagonist Ciri talking to a merchant in a bustling town, we find out that we actually just said hello to a manticore.

Ciri's conversation gives a bit more insight into the attack, as it sounds l♛ikꦯe Ciri was sent out to look for the merchant's wagons, which he had claimed were transporting salt. "I found them, and suffice to say, they'll not reach you," Ciri says, before pointing out that there wasn't a speck of salt to be found.

She clarifies that a smuggling trade is "of no concern to me," before adding: "The manticore that flattened your carts and devoured your men, quite the opposite." While the merchant begins to question her on this, we're unfortunately transported away to look at other juicy bits before we can finish listening to the full interaction. Needless to say, 🌌though, it certainly sounds like Ciri might want to take the beast on – perhaps that's what she was g﷽oing to be asked to do.

Despite manticores appearing in The Witcher books and being mentioned in the games, players have never actually had the opportunity to take on one of the legendary creatures themselves. Leaks from💙 2014 suggested that The Witcher 3 was actually supposed to feature them, but they ended up being cut, even though a whole set of ma▨nticore gear was added in the Blood and Wine expansion.

We'll just have to wait and see what role the creatures have in the upcoming RPG – there's still no release date, but rest assured that it's targeting 60fps on current-gen consoles.

The Witcher 4 sees Red Dead Redemption 2's horse anatomy and submits "realistic muscles moving and stretching" under the skin of Ciri's horse Kelpie.

Game director Sebastian Kalemba begins by introducing the new Witcher protagonist and her mount. "Just like Geralt had Roach, Ciri has her own loyal companion," he explains. "These two characters need to feel like one – since you're gonna explore the world on horseback, riding needs to feel seamless, natural, and just fun." What exactly does the lead mean by that? Everything about Kelpie is so realistic, it'd make horses in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Red Dead Redemption 2 blush.

Epic Games' senior director of product strategy, Wyeth Johnson, dives i꧑nto this hyper-realism in depth: "We're introducing multi-character Motion Matching in Unreal, so Ciri and Kelpie, they're perfectly synchronized when mounting from any angle and speed," he describes, going on to detail some of the Unreal Engine tech used. "We also support Root Motion movement on Kelpie, so controlling her feels realistic and grounded."

Kelpie's realism doesn't end with the immersive Root Motion tech, though. "There are also some really nice improvements to our Unreal Chaos Flesh solver and these machine-learned deformations," Johnson concludes alongside a mind-boggling visual of everything in action aಌs an unsaddled Kelpie gallops across the screen. "So you've got realistic muscles moving and stretching under Kelpie's skin without compꦰromising the performance there."

The Witcher 4 is shaping up to be a breathtaking entry in CD Projekt Red's beloved series of RPGs, from its ultra-realistic horseback riding, to its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询𒁏:setting in the never𓆏-before-seen kingdom of Kovir – and as a longtime fan myself, I can't wait to experience it all firsthand whenever the game releases. For now, however, I'll have to remain content with shuffling through the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new Witcher 4 screenshots shared today and rewinding the tech demo.

Need even more to look forward to? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

While this was jﷺust a PS5 tech demo, it showed "in-engine capabilities," and developer CD Projekt Red said in a press release that "the features and technology will be supported a🍎cross all platforms the game will launch on."

"This will help other studios create believable and immersive open-world environ🌳ments that deliver performance at 60 FPS wit🔜hout compromising on quality — even at vast scales," CDPR said.

Ka꧙lemba reiterates that The Witcher 4 is "the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game ever." The showcase runs through everything from NPC behavior and crowd density to foliage rendering and rea🍸listic horse muscles.

"No compromise means how ambitious we are when it comes to bringing our vision to life with incredible visuals," Kalemba says during the Unreal Fest presentation. "But෴ more than that, together with Epic we've created faster ways to lꦿoad the world. We can now bring in more content, more quickly for the smoothest possible experience as we fly down to catch up with Ciri."

Building on crowd density and frame rate, Epic Games' Wyeth Johnson, senior director of product strategy, adds: "An e♉ntirely new Unreal animation framework, allowing us to fit easily in our 60 FPS budget – not just in rendering, but also with room to spare on the game thread. Over 300 animated, skeletal mesh agents, all going about their business. And the whole point is to leave breathing room for developers like you to introduce the gameplay and the systems that your peers expect, empowering you to make your worlds come to life without Unreal standing in your way."

Kalemba responds, "thℱat's the open-world RPG that we are making." Moreover, he reckons that the fruit of CDRP and Epic's𝕴 partnership "is going to bring in a new generation of open-world RPGs, and I'm so proud of what we've accomplished so far."

Accompanying 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 screenshots show Ciri in a beautiꦦful, bustling location, and a truly horrible mꦉonster.

The Witcher 4 setting could be the never-before-seen region of Kovir, as Ciri journeys to the far north in CD Projekt's new tech demo.

In a brief introductory cutscene, we see a cart carrying a merchant attacked by what looks to be a manticore. As the merchant meets his death at the hands of the creature, a coin out of his treasury gets tossed aside. We see Ciri picking up that coin some time later, and the camera then pulls out to reveal that this scene is overlooking a beautiful, forested valley. We even visit a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:nearby town enjoying bustling trade in case the 'of plenty' part wasn't clear.

Coins 🧸were a big part of the early Witcher 4 teasers, so CD Projekt Red may just be keeping up the the𒉰me, but this specific chain of events is so on the nose I can't help but wonder if it's a specific reference. Oﷺne thing's for sure, though – I'm about to have this song stuck in my head for another six months.

Of course, the big takeaway from today's showcase is the gorgeous open world, which will apparently see us follow Ciri far north to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:never-before-seen region of Kovir. It looks incredible, and even more impressively, it seems the devs are targeting 60 F𒊎PS on current-gen base console🧔s. That's a downright delicious promise.

Here are all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games on the horizon.

CDPR and Epic shared just over a dozen new images, as they collaborated to show off the latest state of the latter's Unreal Engine - which 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4 is made in (and which its reveal trailer from 2024 was pre-rendered in). Frankly, they look astounding - Ciri looks better than ever, but the world around 🐠her is also huge, incred💝ibly detailed, and filled with NPCs.

There are plenty of things to pick up on there, but that final picture really blow✨s me away. The draw distance aಞnd terrain detailing are both astounding, but so is the foliage quality in that forest image. My real highlight, however, was the sheer volume of NPCs in that village scene - a density, if not quantity, that blows anything The Witcher 3 managed out of the water.

The other notable part of this demo was a look at Ciri herself. We got a good look at her in the original trailer, of course, but CDPR has offered a little extra here. Nothing much has changed, buꦬt I do enjoy the picture of her facing down a distant draconid - at this distance, it's hard to tell exactly what it is, but it has thrown me. Witchers don't hunt true dragons, of course, but it's also not obviousl▨y a Wyvern or Forktail. Perhaps it's a previously unseen type of massive, flying lizard?

Actually, I might be wrong about those lizard allegations. Some of the official images from the trailer are pretty dark, but they revolve around some unfortunate NPCs appearing to come up against a nighttime threat. In those pictures, we get up-close-and-personal with some kind of bat-like monster with big 💙wings - that could be the flying creature from earlier, but even if it is, I can't tell what we're coming up against.

Finally, there's a closer look at Ciri's horse. One of these images is an out-of-game render, but the other seems▨ to be an in-game shot. Sure, it's not Roach - but actually, maybe it is, who knows what Ciri's horse-naming conventions will be? Why wouldn't she borrow them from Geralt?

That's a full run-down of all the new official screens🅠hots, but wﷺe'll have plenty more breakdowns of the new Witcher 4 information as the day goes on.

CDPR devs are so locked into The Witcher 4 that they're apparently using its new control scheme by accident while playing other games.

Alongside a deeper dive into 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Ciri's new role as protagonist, CD Projekt Red's showcase gives fans a glance at where they'll be adventuring as the younger Witcher: the kingdom of Kovir and Poviss, a region players weren't able to explore in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 as Geralt. Standing as the largest exporter of mineral resources, rich in mountains and mines, Kovir is situa𒀰ted north of Redania on the Gulf of Praxeda.

If the name of the mountainous Northern Realm doesn't ring a bell, don't be surprised – it's never actively visited by Geralt in CD Projekt Red's other games, an♎d only briefly comes up in narration depending on who players choose to romance in The Witcher 3. Should fans opt to romanceꦏ Triss Merigold, they're advised that she and Geralt have moved to Kovir. There, Triss acts as court advisor to King Tankred Thyssen.

In The Witcher 4, it seems that, as Ciri, players will finally be able to traverse the kingdom themselves. There's no telling what the new setting could mean in terms of which of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 endings qualify as the "canon" fina⛎le for Geralt, but it's exciting to see Kovir take on a more central role in-game than ever before. Judging by the tech demo, it's also set to be downright stunning – looming p🐠ine trees, snow-capped mountains, and all.

The new game looks massive, and there's more to come than just The Witcher 4, too - there are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games like the mysterious codenamed 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Project Sirius, another Witcher title that developers say will "differ from past productions" at CDPR. A new story from 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher books' author Andrzej Sapkowski is also out now, having arrived over a decade after the series' last title.

Need even more to look forward to? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

As CD Projekt Red continues to celebrate The Witcher 3's tenth anniversary, the studio revealed an idea that seem⭕s to have ended up on the cutting room floor pretty early in development. "We toyed with the idea of a mechanic where Geralt would drown if he entered the water fully geared up," the studio said in a tweet.

If you did want to swim, Geralt would "have to strip down and leave his 🤪armor and weapons on the shore." Finishing up by pondering what the community might have thought of the idea, CDPR asked, "Immersive or just a bit too realistic?"

I'd say the answer is almost certainly t💮he latter - if this concept didn't make it past the team 'toying with the idea of' it, then I'd posit that the devs themselves didn't particularly like the mechanic. While I can see it worki💙ng for quick dips to fetch a cache in a shallow river, it would quickly become tedious when going any further afield. And how would it work for deep-sea exploration, or quests that involved Geralt disappearing underwater for minutes at a time?

Amusingly, there's some degree of historical precedent for this partic🀅ular idea. Some accounts of the death of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa at the end of the 12th century AD claim that, exhausted from a long ride, 💯he stepped into a river to cool off - in full armor. Weighed down, he's said to have drowned, in a pretty ignominious fate for an Emperor.

Whether or not Barbarossa's death actually went down exactly like that is lost to history, but suffice to say that it doesn't seem like the world's most entertaining gameplay mechanic, and I think I'm glad CDPR dropped it when they did - if only so it doesn't show up in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4.

CDPR devs are so locked into The Witcher 4 that they're apparently using its new control scheme by accident while playing other games.

CDPR's Co-CEO Adam Badowski talked about how the company's business strategy is "coherent" with what its developers are making in a celebrating a decade of The Witcher 3. He basically reckons that gamers want good experiences, and having multiple 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games in development in🔯creases the oཧdds of that happening.

"With one🐭 game in a chain, one by one, it takes so much time," Badowski said. "So having multiple projects, which is a big change in our strategy, gives us more opportunities to be more creative and to achieve way, way more."

"I don't want to brag but as a company we are pretty good at creating new IPs, new worlds, and new universes," he continued, humbly, of course. "This is the mostᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ exciting part of our business."

It's no secret that 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher are adaptations of existing source material (a TTRPG in the former's case and a series ✱of novels for 🍌the latter), but the studio were definitely able to add nuances and put its own stamp on both worlds.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Project Hadar is the name of the studio's original IP, though as of 2022 it was in "the earliest stages of the creative process, which means we are not devel꧙oping any game yet, but working exclusively on the foundation for this new setting."

Check out some of the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming in 2025 and beyond.

Celebrating the third Witcher enꦬtry's 10th birthday in a recent , Iwi💖ński explains that CD Projekt Red has learned over time that its focus should remain on the games that made it great – AAA, open-world RPGs.

"In all that we're doiꦓng, we've learned that we have to be razor-sharp, focused," states the studio lead. "We cannot do so many things we would love to do, we are tempted to do. We tried, and it didn't work out."

He concludes that CD Projekt Red has "to focus on what we are good at and really put 100% into it." Badowski agrees, describing how this philosophy is why the studio previously shifted to more of a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:multi-project approach, with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:separate🐟 teams wor⛦king on different games.

"That's why we switched from a single project company to a multiple project company," the head says. "But everyth🌟ing is in our strategy."

As Badowski puts it, these projects all fall into CD Projekt Red's "niche" – from The Witcher series to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 – and developers are goi🎃ng to stick with said niche. "We're gonna develop AAA RPG, open-world narrative-driven games, and this is 🌳our – let's say – niche," the CEO concludes. "So the focus is there."

Marcin chimes in that, while "it sounds so simple" to stay in that niche, it's not all that easy t🀅o actually do.

"When you're growing," Marcin admits, "it's hard, because there are all these temptations and these people are doing this stuff online, and it's so cool, and we love to play it, and – you think, 'Okay, no let's take a deep breath and come back to what we're doing,' because if we spread ourselves too thin, we'll not deliver." If there's one thing I'd be willing to bet on as a longtime fan of CD Projekt Red's games, however, it's th💮at they'll definitely deliver.

But if staying within the open-world RPG niche is how the studio does so, then all the power to its developers – after all, there are plenty of projects to look forward to thanks to their approach. From Cyberpunk 2 to The Witcher 4 and the mysterious codenamed 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Project Sirius, there are various 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games to anticipate – and I'll personally be waiting patiently for them all.

Need even more to look forward to? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

Joi💎nt CEO Adam Badowski said as much in a looking back on a decade of the generational RPG. "At the very beginning of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, we decided to combine those two things: water and fire," Badowski said. "We would like to continue with this approach with all our next games."

Speaking on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CDPR games, the co-studio head explained🐼 they "have to add something" in every new release. "We have to add something that changes the consensus. We don't want to copy 𓂃our own tricks all over again and again. So every game should consist [of] something new."

Badowski acknowledges that CDPR games do tendᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ to follow a loose formula, sure - they're usually "open world, story-driven, quality" RPGs - but, still, "every new game has to bring something n💯ew. So this is the general rule for the company."

That should bode well for 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4, which has had 澳洲幸运5🔥开奖号码历史ꦿ查询:Ciri in the driver's seat ever since 2014, and Cyberpunk 2, which will apparently go beyond Night City with a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:second area that✅'s like "Chicago gone wrong,🍌" according to the original TTRPG's creator.

Elsewhere in the interview, the developers revealed one of the biggest arguments they had while making The Witcher 3 was about just how naked Geralt sho🎐uld be in that inf🐈amous bath tub scene.

CDPR devs are so locked into The Witcher 4 that they're apparently using its new control scheme by accident while playing other games

As part of The Witcher 3's 10-year anniversary celebrations, various groups of veteran CDPR developers sat down to discuss the game and play parts of it while adding insightful commentary. At one point, narrative director Philipp Weber was in a struggle with a giant and realized he wasn't using the right button to dodge-roll. And thꦗen this mildly amusing conversation took place:

"How do I do a proꦰper roll a🐬gain, it's just jump?" Weber asked.

"It's A," advised level design lead Miles Tost.

"Since when?"

"Since always."

"Noooo!"

"Yes."

"I💯'm actually using Witcher 4 controls...spoiler."

Indeed, with The Witcher 4 being in full𓄧-scaleꩲ production since November, the developers are officially beyond the conceptual phase and are actually building out the world, mechanics, characters, story, and systems. That means there's likely a lot of hands-on time with the dev kit happening right now, and apparently ther🉐e's a new control scheme▨ the developers are using that's a little out of sync with The Witcher 3.

Speaking of The Witcher 4, don't get too excited about CDPR's recently revealed partnership with Summer Game Fest, as the studio's co-CEO, Michał Nowakowski, recently appeared to shut down speculation about the sequel showing up at the big s꧑ummer games show. He also seemed to imply that the main focus will be Cyberpunk 2077: Definitive Edition's imminent launch on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2.

Witcher 3 devs "knew it from the get go" that they wanted Ciri as protagonist for Witcher 4 back in 2014

In a new video continuing The Witcher 3's 𒀰10th anniversary celebrations, narrative director Philip Weber says "I don't know if it's appropriate to talk about it, but one of the longest email threads in our company history was about the question [of] how naked Geralt should be in his bath scene? 'When he gets up, how much butt should we show?'"

It might seem puerile, but it's actually a more important question than you might think. This is the scene that The Witcher 3 opens on, after all, and CD Projekt had grand ambitions for its game. Literally everyone who loads up the RPG sees the cutscene, so they couldn't be offering up gratuitous Witcher-ch♕eeks.

"In the end," Weber says, "I think we chose a good middle-point," which I'm not going𒁃 to make the obvious joke about. "We showed nudity in a kind of European way," he explains - something that would appear later on in the game, during Ciri's time in the sauna.

That bathtub scene gives way to the game's first roman♛tic moment, w🌳hich animation director Maciej Pietras pointed to as "the most difficult thing you can do," partly because there had not been "much kissing in video games" before The Witcher series came along.

Whether you're personally in favor of the Yennefer-centric kiss or not, it's undeniable that Bathtub Geralt has become one of the most iconic scenes in one of the world's most iconic RPGs - so iconic, in fact, that Netflix's The Witcher series was perfectly happy to repeat it multiple times. Though maybe that's just what you do when you've got Henry Cavill in a leading role - and maybe we'll get to see it in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4, too.

"You can't just have Geralt for every single game" says his voice actor, and if you think The Witcher 4 making Ciri the protagonist is "woke," then "read the damn books."

"We will introduce cross-platform mod support for PC, PlaySta✨tion 5, and Xbox Series X|S later this year," the developer announces on . "For th♕e first time, creating, sharing, and enjoying mods for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be easier and more accessible than ever."

Essentially, console folks will soon have the option to slap Henryౠ Cavill's face onto Geralt's body, download all sorts of cosmetics, or have all quest markers on t🐻he map from the get-go, as long as all existing mods are approved on consoles.

The update's explains that existing mod platforms, such as NexusMods a๊nd Steam Workshop, can still be used after the upcoming patch, which doesn't currently have a release date. One thing to note is that modders won't actually be able to create anything newꦅ on Xbox or PlayStation - all console mods need to be made on PC with the CDPR's modding tool REDkit.

CDPR's dedication to the evergreen open world is really nice to see, regardless. Even after countless updates and a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:historic 60 million copies sold, the studio is still working on "one more patch," which has a slight finality to it, while still leaving the door open for another "one more patch" further down the road. (For its 20th, maybe?)

The Witcher 3's big boy birthday is also being ushered in with these lovely-looking inspired by Geralt's silver and steel swords. Plus, CDPR developers recently took a trip down memory lane to share how difficult it was to manage Th🅠e Witcher 3's, err, difficulty.

Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Witcher 3 mods to see what you could be downloading on consoles later this year.

"I almost forgot that we were struggling with two more challenges," Adam Badowski, joint CEO remembers in a new episode✃ of the AnsweRED podcast. "One of them was that we have to plan how the open world works. Wha⛦t are the basic rules? Basic rules are always the most challenging."

In Ubisoft games, you climb towers to reveal the map; that's a basic rule of its open worlds, one that people haꦜve gotten quite sick of over the yea♍rs. Each company, series, and game will have different rules, and not all work in other franchises.

"Do we want to have gating?" Badowski asks. "There is a monster. The monster has this ultimate level 100 or something. You cannot go further without defeating this monster. It was a bad idea for our game. It works for all 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:FromSoftware games,🅷 it's natural, it's one of the pillars of those wonderful games. But in The Witcher, it doesn't work. So you have to plan it differently."

While FromSoftware games are all about the challenge, The Witcher 𒉰is more about enjoying the story and roleplaying as a monster-slaying witcher.

I actually prefer playing on the hardest difficulty because it makes me engage with the systems of the world a lot more than I otherwise wꦯould. I n🤪eed to make oils and potions and learn a foe's weaknesses.

But if that were how the game had to be played by everyone, it would be a 🍒completely different ﷽game, not The Witcher 3 as we know it today.

Another aspect of The Witcher 3 that Badowski says is obvious 🐼with hindsight is that "we don't have quests that you can cancel and replay if you failed. If you failed, we have to create another constellation of consequences because the story stops when your character dies, not when your character failed the quest.

"So it makes🌞 it super, super diff✱icult. Usually, the mission fails, so you can restart it. And here we have, 'No, no, it's a starting point for what's next in The Witcher.'"

The developers have to consider, "What are the consequences? I failed, so there are different choices, di🎶fferent consequences, there are different reactions. It changes relations with my characters."

They had to learn "how to make it and not to force players to save and load all the time and make gamers frustrated. Now w𝕴e kind of know how to deal with it, but back then it was really challenging."

It's not something I'd ever noticed before, but it's a fascinating detail that must make the world feel so much more real🦹. Things don't always go to plan, and often, playing through your mistakes can be more fun than simply save scumming them away.

If you've already played The Witcher 3 more times than you can remember, why not check out the best 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:games like The Witcher 3 instead?

This week, Summer Game Fest host Geoff Keighley took to Twitter to reveal a roster of 60+ partners supporting the 2025 event, and people were quick to spot CDPR among them, prompting a fair bit of speculation in the commeꦑnts that The Witcher 4 might make an appearance.

And while CDPR co-CEO Michał Nowakowski doesn't mention The Witcher 4 specifically and thus doesn't completely rule out the idea, he does strongly suggest in a quote tweet that the imminent release of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on Nintendo Sw🌱itch 2 will be the star of the show on CDPR's side.

"I see a bit of creative speculation in the comments section :),"🐻 says Nowakow🌜ski. "Please remember that next week we are launching Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on Nintendo Switch 2. So keep calm, etc ;)"

As someone who shamefully, time and time again gets worked up agai𒐪nst my best judgment about apparent teases, only to inevitably be disappointed when nothing happe𓆏ns, I think it's admirable that Nowakowski is stamping out that particular fire before it gets out of hand.

With The Witcher 4 having entered full-scale production back, it's not unreasonable to expect a new trailer sometime in the near-ish future, but sadly it seems this year's Summer Game Fest will not be that day. Or, maybe, Nowakowski sent that tweet precisely because he wants the new🍰 t🌺railer to be a surp— Jordan, you're doing it again, you old fool.

Asked about Cyberpunk 2 release date, CDPR boss reiterates "our journey from the pre-production to the final release takes 4 to 5 years on average" but "each project is unique."

In an interview featured in , the team behind reveals that plans to ඣplace Ciri at the forefront of the next saga were in motion as early as 2014. “It was pretty early on we realised that [Blood & Wine] is where it ends, 🃏and also pretty early on, we knew that we wanted to work with Ciri later on…even like 2014, it was already an idea floating around the studio that she’s next. In Witcher 3, Geralt is just helping out…he is there for her. So it was pretty clear we want her as the next main person, main character.”

In a recent behind-the-scenes video published on the GameStar YouTube channel, The 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Witcher 4 game director Sebastian Kalembaꦯ doubles down on this lo🍒ngstanding vision.

“We knew it from the get-go,” Kalemba says. “I remember a discussion ꦚwith Badowski. During Blood and Wine, we’d been talking about Ciri, and why it’s a good choice. Eight years, nine years ago, we already had a very solid motivat♏ion for why this is important and why this should be the next step for us. We knew it already there. Of course it wasn’t that crystallised, but the big idea was already there, and set in stone.”

Also appearing in the video were global community p🌸roject director, Marcin Momot, 💖and Pawel Mielniczuk, the art director. They discussed the studio’s excitement to return to the Continent and explore it from Ciri’s perspective.

While the next Witcher 🔯game, often referred to as Polaris, is still deep in development, the creative team’s early clarity about Ciri’s role suggests the studio is building her arc as a centrepiece of a new saga, not just a continuation.

The Witcher’s future, it seems, was decided long before Geralt ever hung up his swo♛rds.

First look at The Witcher 4 shows Ciri is the star, but that sure sounds like Geralt at the end to me.

While reflecting on The Witcher 3's 10th anniversary in an interview with PC Gamer magazine, Michal Nowakowski, joint-CEO of CD Projekt Red, revealed that things weren't always so good for the studio. Thanks to the 2008 fin🤡an🙈cial crisis, some within CD Projekt Red were worried they would have to shut its doors after the release of the first game in The Witcher series. Nowakowski said it "was a very tricky period for the company."

Between the release of The Witcher in 2007 and The Witcher 2 in 2011, Nowakowski says the priority was "making sure we have the money to pay people their salaries, and making sure we make good with everybody we owe money to." He recalled "The early days were quite - for🐻 me - focused on 'how do we escape annihilation?'"

Thankfully, CD Projekt Red persevered, and since then the studio has reached the level of the likes of 𝔉Rockstar, Bethesda Game Studio, and Kojima Productions, where whatever they're working ൲on will instantly become the most anticipated game for many people – even if we know next to nothing about them.

Before The Witcher 3 smashed its "super ambitious" lifetime sales goals in just 3 months, CDPR's CEO was convinced Batman: Arkham Knight was going to "roll over us."

Speaking to , art director on the unannounced Project Hadar Pawel Mielniczuk said "after years of making this medieval universe of The Witcher, switching to Cyb🌼erpunk was reall♏y hard."

The Witcher 4 game director Sebastian Kalemba added that "the moment of recalibrating, ♛it's tough - it requires some time to rewire the brain and really get into the IP, the genre, the characters, all thꦚat required some time to really fully recalibrate."

And going back to The🤡 ꦜWitcher 4 after a tour of Night City was just as difficult. "It's never easy. It's really nice to get back to the IP. I think people love it, and we have something great to cook," Kalemba said, but pivoting to an entirely different genre, inspired by a different historical period, where people speak completely differently, "is challenging, but super cool at the same time."

"You're kinda reinventing - and at the s𝓀ame time we're thinking about how we can improve it," he added.

The pair also said the studio is more ready to tack🌃le two very different franchises at the same time now. It's apparently always been CD Projek♏t Red's intention, though the studio was too small and inexperienced to pull it off 10 years ago. It now has two massive RPG hits under its belt (and probably way more developers under its umbrella.)

"You can't just have Geralt for every single game" says his voice actor, and if you think The Witcher 4 making Ciri the protagonist is "woke," then "read the damn books"

In an interview with to celebrate The Witcher 3's 10th anniversary, Michal Nowakowski, joint-CEO at CD Projekt Red, explains that the studio had "super ambitious goals" for the game's sales. Those goals amounte🔜d to "maybe six million units," Nowakowski says, a figure that the game didn't take very long to hit.

In fact, that number is one "which we ended up achieving in, I think, about a quarter," Nowakow🐼ski says, outlining that CDPR's lifetime sales projections for their game were hit within three months. In reality, those lifetime figures have exceeded 50 million copies, placing The Witcher 3 inside the top 20 best-selling games of all time. And with the series' ongoing popularity and the relatively recent release of its new-gen edition, that number is still likely to be slowly growing.

But Nowakowsꦬki and his team had no idea that would be how things panned out back in 2015. In fact, he says he was deeply concerned that another game would eat The Witcher 3's lunch. The highly anticipated release of Batman: Arkham Knight, the latest iteration of the acclaimed Arkhamverse series, was due just over a month after The Witcher 3. Nowakowski feared Rocksteady's sequel would "roll over us," but in reality, Geralt came out on top of Batman - a tricky PC port meant that while Arkham Knight was generally well-received, it didn't make the same splash Nowakowski was worried about, eventually selling 5 million copies in its own first q🌟uarter.

Geralt won that particular battle, and it seems he probably won the war too. While CD Projekt pushed out the eventually-good 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 and is now well into production on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4, Rocksteady spent nearly a decade creating its own follow-up, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which is said to have 澳洲幸运5开奖𒉰号码历史查询:flopped to the tune of nea💦rly $200 million, and has become something of a scapegoat for Warne💧r Bros' recent suite of financial failures. I know which horse I would have preferred to 🧸have backed 9 y𝐆ears ago.

"You can't just have Geralt for every single game" says his voice actor, and if you think The Witcher 4 making Ciri the protagonist is "woke," then "read the damn books."

CDPR's Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, the English director for the RPG now celebrating its 10th anniversary, recently told that the ꦿstudio decided to nix the big reveal that was i🐎nitially planned at the end of the countdown.

"I don't remember, actually, the nature of the announcement we were going꧋ to make," Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz recalled, "but ༒we had the countdown on the website and then we decided not to make the announcement."

Unfortunately, there was no going back from having put the countdown on their site, and the team had to quickly come up with another announcement for ༺fans lest they reach zero with🦩 nothing to show for it.

As the studio scrambled for something to live up to the expectations the countdown had set, the idea was floated to just "enlist a top ac🍒tor and, when the clock runs down, announce them as the big reveal," according to Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz. Soon after, a member of CD Projekt Red’s business development team’s contacts were raided in order to find a big name talent to tag onto the upcoming title.

This resulted in the quick recruitment of Charles Dance, who at the time was playing Tywin Lannister on the smash-hit show Game of Thrones. With Dance now committed to play the Emperor of Nilfgaard in The Witcher 3, the studio narrowly avoided any possible embarrassment♍ for the countdown to nothing.

The Witcher 3's deadliest foe might just be The Bloody Baron's Gwent deck, which has spent 10 years kicking our collective butts across 458 million matches

"It's a cool character from the Witcher, and they're gonna focus on that character," he says during a Fall Damage video, responding to a post regarding people calling Ciri's newfound spotlight "woke."

"I think th🌳at's awesome. You can't just have Geralt for every single game for The Witcher ad nauseam through eternity."

For as much as we all love Geralt, he's got a point. Sometimes, you just need to retire a character when there's nothing left꧋ to do with them. Uncharted put Nathan Drake into retirement so we could focus on Chloe and Nadine in The Lost Legacy, and they were a breath of fresh air.

"We've seen the end of Geralt's journey," Cockle continues. "澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Blood and Wine was supposed to wrap up Geralt's journey."

To avoid any doubt on where he stands, he continues: "Celebrate Ciri, I celebrate her being the protagonist. So all you people who think it's 'woke' [blows raspberry]... If you read the books, then you understand why 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:CD Projekt went down this avenue.

"There's a whole rich world of stuff to explore with Ciri, that they didn't do when they put her into Witcher 3, because the story was about Geralt. But she hints at it. If you think it's woke, read the damn books – they're good, first of all. And secondly, you won't think it's so w🎐oke anymore."

A lot of people – myself included, when I first played 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 – didn't know the games were based on a pop🥃ular series of books. Everything CD Projekt Red does is rooted in it.

As the years have gone by, 澳洲幸♏𒐪运5开奖号码历史查询:the books have become more about Ciri. Geralt may be a witcher, but he's getting old, so passing the torch was inevitable. It's either that, oﷺr no more Wit🌟cher.

There's no release date for 4 just yet, so for now, try some of the best 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:games like The Witcher 3 to satiate all your monster-slaying RPG needs.

Both The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 are packed with impactful choices, which will affect how a questline branches, your relationship with, or even the fates of certain characters, with some even transferring throughout the series (well, in The Witcher's case, there's no Cyberpunk sequel yet). The Wꦯitcher 2's second chapter was massively different depending on who you decided to ally with.

However, Sebastian Kalemba, game director on The Witcher 4 explained his approach to decision making in RPGs, saying, "Whatever the choice is and whatever the consequence is, we want players to feel rewarded, ๊even if the emotion in the end is sadness." Kalemba adds, "If this is coherent with the emotional journey we're delivering, [it will allow] the player to feel [that they are] okay with this consequence." So if you were hoping you wouldn't have to make any tough choices in The Witcher 4, I think you're out of luck.

Kalemba also talked about the team's goals for The Witcher 4, saying, "We want to put player agency in the center... We want players to be able to really sense these opportunities and t൩o go in-depth when it comes to choice and consequences." He added, "We want to give players more tools, more opportunities, to be able to feel that 'I am the player and๊ I define my experience.'"

CD Projekt quest designer Paweł Gąska chimed in on this, saying, "We want the player to see that even a good choice can have bad consequences, and that a🔴 bad choice can still be justified because of something else you focused on." Gąska also gave major praise to the narrative team, saying “As quest designers, we can think of good choices, good dilemmas, good themes, but it's the writers who have to deliver the dialogues t🌄hat will actually elicit emotions in the players,” adding, “It's the cinematics [team] and the animators who have to give [the story] to you in a way that you will actually feel it.”

The Witcher 4 lead is "pretty confident" about the series' new saga: "We know how to handle it [...] we made it popular."

In an interview with , 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3 lead writer Marcin Blacha, who's returning to his role on The Witcher 4, explained that that confidence stems from CDPR's history with all things The Witcher: "It's a very well-established franchise. People love it, we know ho♊w to handle it. I'm pretty confident about The Witcher 4."

While Blacha acknowledges that CDPR didn't create Geralt and the world he inhabits, he does claim that "we made [the franchiౠse] popular through th🔥e games."

In the past, he says, the company didn't have that same popularity to coast on, but now, he says that the series has "shaped me in a way th𝓰at I became confident about it…and it doesn't make me anxious anymore. It just goes on."

"And it's a nicಞe feeling because I know that I created someth💞ing big, and probably I will be remembered because of it."

Exactly how the series' actual creator, Witcher author Andrezj Sapkowski, might feel about Blacha's claims around its popularity isn't clear (though historically he's seemed pleased to work w♑ith both CD Projekt on the games and with Netflix on the Witcher TV series). It can't be denied, however, that The Witcher may well have remained a cult hit with little popularity outside 💃of its native Poland were it not for the global success of the game trilogy.

Either way, Blacha's confidence remains reassuring, particularly in the wake of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077's launch. While CD Projekt Red has firmly reversed the narrative about that game, I'd be surprised if 'confident' was a word that described any developers' attitude in the weeks leading 💙🥀up to the studio's last major release. But with lessons apparently learned from last time, it seems that we won't see a similar nightmare with The Witcher 4.

CD Projekt Red exec says Ciri is a great choice for The Witcher 4, and she opens up new possibilities for the series after more than a decade of RPGs.

Discussing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Ciri's new role as protagonist in The Witcher 4 in a recenꦇt interview with (translated by Google and DeಌepL), Nielubowicz recalls the reveal trailer that debuted during last year's Game Awards. While it didn't show any gameplay, the cinematic peek into the new game's world, stunning Unreal Engine 5-adjacent visuals, and Ciri as the series' next central character understandably made waves.

While Nielubowicz can't reveal too much, he does explain that CD Proj👍ekt Red believes Ciri is a "great choice" for the series' new saga as she paves the way for various possibilities, both in an artistic and narrative sense. Having Geralt's adopte﷽d daughter take over as protagonist also allows developers to tell their upcoming game's story from a fresh perspective, in ways that they previously haven't been able to.

Nielubowicz describes that, although he isn't able to unveil more of the new RPG's details, it's set to reach higher expectations than The Witcher series' previous entries – a goal he says CD Projekt Red has for all of its future follow-ups. The Witcher 4, which the studio stated would be the "most immersive and ambitious op🐷en-world Witcher game to date" in the past, wi෴ll hopefully stand as a "proud successor" to i🤡ts predecessors.

The new game sounds massive, and there's more to come than just The Witcher 4, too – there are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games like the mysterious codenamed 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Project Sirius, another Witcher title that developers say will "differ from past productions" at CDPR. A new story from 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher books' author Andrzej Sapkowski is also out now, having arrived over a decade after the series' last title.

Need even more to look forward to? Here are other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

In a tweet celebrating ten years of The Witcher 3, the studio rܫevealed that over the past decade, Geralt has partaken in more than 458 million rounds of Gwent. You might wonder how he had time for quite so many games of cards when Ciri's fate hung in the bal🐬ance, but that's a question that's probably better not to ask out loud.

In fact, that 458 million figure isn't even close to the total - CDPR says that it's only counting matches played since the launch of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 3's next-gen update♑ in 2022. Over the past ten years, then, we could be talking abou𝐆t billions of rounds played.

One thing we know for sure, however, is just how effective a Gwent play꧃er one particular NPC is. CDPR says that The Bloody Baron is the community's "most dreaded opponent," claiming a win-ratio over players of 61% - far in excess of the 50/50 you might guess at. Happy to kick Baron Strenger while he's up, however, CDPR says that "the old man might be a wreck of a human being, but he sure can hustle."

The Bloody Baron certainly is a Gwent skill check in the early game, but if you can beat him, he'll give you a useful card in the form of spymaster Djikstra, and point you towards several other players you might want to face off against. Personally, I didn't find him that hard to beat, but that's because I mostly skipped Gwent during my first playthrough until I was forced to repeatedly save-scum to beat Shani's one-time match late in the Hearts of Stone expansion.

Without any decen🦩t cards to pad out my dec𒁏k, I spent many attempts over several hours, playing Gwent late into the night to ensure I didn't miss out on that one reward card - though in doing some research for this story, I've just found out that you can pick her Olgierd card up from her clinic in Oxenfurt if you don't win it off her, so apparently all that was a complete waste of time.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Gwent will be back in The Witcher 4, so maybe I'll be able to redeem myself.

When posed with the question of a Switch 2 port of Witcher 3 by , gameplay design lead Filip 𝐆Downar simply said that the studio is "all in on Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition" for the sys♏tem.

"Our relationship with Nintendo goes back to the original Nintendo Switch, where we released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," Downar 🉐added. "We were happy with how that game was received by players so, when we heard about the more powerful Nintendo Switch 2, we immediately thought it would be the perfect platform fo🍎r Cyberpunk 2077."

The Switch version of The Witcher 3 is certainly not the ideal platform on which to play the game, but it's a minor miracle the portable console can han🌱dle the massive open-world RPG at all, and it did bring the game to a whole new audience.

It looks like Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 is going to prov🌜ideಌ a far more impressive experience, and by♏ all accounts the new console should be able to deliver a not just solid, but excellent version of a game like The Witcher 3, which is nearly a full decade old. I'm sure CD Projekt will be more than happen to lay a claim to the re-release crown that keeps being traded back and forth between Skyrim and The Last of Us if it means making a few more Witcher fans in th🦩e process.

For more 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games, you know where to click.

The official Witcher Twitter account shared a rare PSA alerting followers to reports of sham communications from people claiming to be CDPR representatives inviting them to beta test The Witcher 4. "This is a scam!" CDPR sai🐷d.

"We've been taking the necessary steps to take this fraudulent messaging dowಌn," reads the tweet. "That said, if you receive any invites to or stumble upon news of one, we kindly ask you to report the scam using the tools available to you in your email client or the social media platform you are using. Remember: professional monster slayers don't fall for scams; they see right through them and slay them!"

The Witcher 4 was only just recently fully unveiled at the 2024 Game Awards, and even if it was in an advanced enough development state to be ready for beta testing (which it almost certainly isn't), there'd still be no guarantees that CDPR would hold beta tests for it. That said, the developer assured fans that, should it decide to run Witcher 4 beta tests in the future, you'll hear about it on their official social channel༺s first.

The Witcher 4 is just one of several 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games in development, including a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new AAA RPG trilogy, a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Witcher remake, and a full-blown 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cyberpunk 2077 sequel.

The Witcher 4 has "a huge team" focused on the believability of the RPG's world, because even things like trees and foliage always need to belong.

The conversation around AI in gaming isn’t exactly new. For a while now, people have been wondering if artificial intelligence might eventually replace human actors. But if you ask Kate Saxon - the acclaimed performance director behind the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - she’s not convi🌳nced.

“I just don’t see it ever fully replacing actors” she tells Edge in issue 409, which is . “At💫 least not in the kinds of gams that truly care about strong storytelling, rich characters, and meaningful dialogue.”

It’s noꦉt just about delivering lines or syncing up facial animations. For Saxon, it goes much deeper. “There’s something missing - something you can’t quite quantify - that lifts a performance from decent to genuinely moving.”

And it𓃲’s that ‘something’ that brings characters to life.

Saxon has witnessed the impact firsthand with over two decades of experience that have seen her name attached to games such as Fable II and Alien: Isolation. One of her favourite moments? When voice actors finally join a project. “It’s🌳 the point where characters stop being just drawings or words on a page,” she explains. “That’s when they start to breathe. They get a pulse.”

She describes how the energy in a dev team shifts when actors come onboard. Those scripted lines and concept designs suddenly start feeling re🐼al, like living, feeling people.

Yes, AI𒈔 tools are evolving quickly. I can understand why some studios might explore automation for certain jobs, like generating background chatter or giving a minor NPC a voice. It can save time and resources.

But when it comes to the main characters, th🦹e emotional heart of a game? That’s where Saxon believes AI still falls short. “Actors bring more🌠 than just their voices,” she says. “They bring life experience, their instincts, their emotional intelligence.”

Those little moments of vulnerability or surprise, those micro expressions that land just right, come from a place AI can’t reach.🌊 Not yet, at lea💟st.

Here's everything we know about 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Witcher 4, which we imagine won't feature AI.

As of April 1, The Molasses Flood has ceased operations as "a se♔parate legal entity," as noted on the studio's (via ). This doesn't mean that the studio is gone or the developers are being laid off – at least,♏ there have been no layoff announcements alongside this news – but rather that the studio is now straight-up a part of CD Projekt proper.

The move was quietly announced in March as part of CD🐠 Projekt's , where joint CDPR CEO Michał Nowakowski noted that "we have decided to integrate Th♋e Molasses Flood team into our studio's structure by merging the company with CD PROJEKT RED Inc." in order to "ensure even better alignment in the scope and direction of the project."

Nowakowski added that while this move "naturally entails some changes in the project leadership," Project Sirius "itself is proceeding." The exact details of those leadership changes have not yet been disclosed, but it seems at least one of the studio's co-founders has decided to make this his exit point fro♋m the company.

"I've decided not to follow TMF on this transition," Damian Isla, who served in various leadership roles on Project Sirius, said ✨in a. "So ꧑last Monday – the last day of TMF's legal existence! – was also my last day at the studio."

Isla also said that "this is a GOOD AND HEALTHY thing for the studio, and it was long-expected. It breaks down some organizational barriers and better integrates the TMF team with the rest of the amazing 🧸CDPR org.

"Overall, it shows a very bright future for Project Siꦺrius (aka 'the multiplayer Witcher game,' of which I was the Design Director for three years). It's going to be an amazing game, one for the books, and I cannot wait until the rest of the world learns about what we've been working on."

Before its acquisition by CDPR, The Molasses Flood developed two indie games, The Flame in the Flood and Drake Hollow, both of which launched to generally positive sentiment but were not breakout success stories. After the buyout, Project Sirius was one of many announcements about 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming CD Projekt Red games back in 2022.

While we don't know much about the game beyond its multiplayer focus, we do know that there's been some struggle in its development, which 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:was rebooted in 2023. Here's hoping this absorption works out well for both the game its💧elf and the devs who are buil꧟ding it.

The Witcher 4 has "a huge team" focused on the believability of the RPG's world, because even things like trees and foliage always need to belong.