The Witcher IV Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo is Impossibly Gorgeous

What comes to mind when you hear Unreal Engine 5 in today’s gaming industry? Beyond its stunning visual fidelity and breathtaking detail, which have become its hallmark, UE5 is still often perceived as somewhat underoptimized. Gamers continue to express concerns about performance issues and massive game file sizes associated with this engine. However, as Epic Games continues to refine it, developers are learning to harness its power more effectively. CD Projekt Red is demonstrating a prime example of this evolution with The Witcher IV.

As previously reported, following the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red has officially moved away from its proprietary REDengine. From now on, all future titles — including The Witcher IV and the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 — will be built using Unreal Engine 5.

In line with this transition, CD Projekt Red showcased a brand-new tech demo during the ongoing State of Unreal 2025 event. The demo highlights a range of cutting-edge technologies that will power the next chapter of the beloved Witcher franchise, which this time will star Ciri in the lead role.

Although the demo does not feature actual gameplay from the final version, everything shown was rendered in real-time within the engine itself. The video highlights the striking visual approach taken for a newly introduced region called Kovir. This northern kingdom has only been mentioned in the lore of previous Witcher games but never explored in-game until now.

CD Projekt Red confirmed that this tech demo, which includes scenes where Ciri visits a nearby village bustling with numerous NPCs, runs on the base model of the PlayStation 5, not the Pro, with ray tracing enabled, 4K resolution, and a smooth 60 frames per second performance.

“We started our partnership with Epic Games to push open-world game technology forward. To show this early look at the work we’ve been doing using Unreal Engine running at 60 [frames per second] on PlayStation 5, is a significant milestone—and a testament of the great cooperation between our teams,” said CD Projekt RED joint CEO Michal Nowakowski in a press release.

“But we’re far from finished. I look forward to seeing more advancements and inspiring technology from this partnership as development of The Witcher IV on Unreal Engine 5 continues.”

As of now, CD Projekt Red has not provided a concrete release window for The Witcher 4, although early projections suggest the game could launch as soon as 2027.