Witcher 4 Release Date - Let's Speculate!

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When will TW4 be released?

  • 2025

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2026

    Votes: 8 53.3%
  • 2027

    Votes: 6 40.0%
  • 2028 & beyond

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Total voters
    15

Toyen

Forum veteran
Here are some lessons from the past.

- 2011 - TW3 began development
- 2013 - TW3 was formally announced
- 2015 - TW3 was released after a small delay

So the game was announced after 2 years of being in development and released 2 years after the announcement.

So it took CDPR roughly 4 years to deliver TW3.

Here's our current timeline for TW4.

- 2022 - it is revealed that a new Witcher game is being worked on (then known as Project Polaris)
- 2022 to 2024 - the game is in pre-production for 2 years
- 2024 - the game entered full production in November 2024
- 2024 - TW4 formally revealed in December 2024

So far, we are following the same pattern. TW4 was formally announced after being in development (albeit pre-production) for at least 2 years now.

So in my opinion, we are at least 2 years away from release.

The most optimistic release date is the end of 2026. More realistic release is sometime in 2027.

I expect more smaller teasers (such as another cinematic trailer, screenshots etc.) throughout 2025 with the full blown marketing campaign starting in 2026.

Another thing we must take into account are next gen consoles which are at least 2-3 years away maybe even more.

If CDPR wants TW4 to be one of the flagship games for PS6, they might want to sync the release date of the game with the release of PS6. That might cause further delays.

What do you guys think? Vote in the poll or let me know in the comments!

I will be personally voting for 2026 cause I prefer to be optimistic! :D

Note: I know there's been a recent 'leak' of 2025 release date but to me that hardly means anything. I'd be extremely surprised if we got the game next year.
 
Hard to say honestly :)
Working on Unreal Engine might allow them to work quicker, but still... they started really working (full production) on the game not long ago. Then I expect The Witcher 4 to be at bare minimum on the same scale than The Witcher 3, so a pretty big game.
So at the end, if I have to make a guess, I would say around 2027 at best... I would be blaffed if the game is released sooner.
 
This is difficult to find an answer, you know. :p
IMO if a game cannot be released within at least two years, then an announcement like this shouldn't be made in the first place. I don't like the way they bring to light a product that they don't even have a plan when it will be released, just to attract gamers or just to create a buzz. I said two years above because waiting longer would be quite exhausting; if I have to wait three or four years, it would be much better that they kept silent from the start.
 
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IMO if a game that cannot be released within at least two years, then an announcement like this shouldn't be made in the first place.
About the "purpose" of this trailer :)
Sebatian Kalemba said "this reveal was not the beginning of the marketing campaign". Rather, he said, the goal was to "share with the world what we've been cooking so far with this franchise", as they build the game in the coming years.
Article on Bloomberg UK :
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...-game-maker-cd-projekt-has-transformed-itself
I also remember they said that like for Phantom Liberty, they will launch the full blown marketing campaign closer to the release date, no more than 1-2 years.
So I hardly believe we will see the game released sooner than 2 years from now, 2026 is a bit too optimistic in my opinion.
 
About the "purpose" of this trailer :)
Sebatian Kalemba said "this reveal was not the beginning of the marketing campaign". Rather, he said, the goal was to "share with the world what we've been cooking so far with this franchise", as they build the game in the coming years.
Article on Bloomberg UK :
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/news...-game-maker-cd-projekt-has-transformed-itself
I also remember they said that like for Phantom Liberty, they will launch the full blown marketing campaign closer to the release date, no more than 1-2 years.
So I hardly believe we will see the game released sooner than 2 years from now, 2026 is a bit too optimistic in my opinion.
Yeah, I don't think this is the start of the marketing campaign of TW4 either. But this trailer is not "the" teaser like Cyberpunk 2013 (I mean Cyberpunk2077 teaser trailer released in 2013), right? I completely agree on releasing 2026 is quite optimistic, but I’m not confident that I can wait five or six more years, as I did with cyberpunk. :p
 
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I was going to say 2026 because I remembered CDPR saying their markering campaign would be shorter and closer to release after CP2077.

Then I saw @LeKill3rFou's post about Kalemba saying it's not the begining of the markering campaign.

Damn. I was blissfully unaware. I was perfectly fine with waiting til 2026. I'm not sure I'm fine with waiting til 2027+.

I blame you for all of this @LeKill3rFou!!
 
Hey,
I guess the situation is different. Now there are supposedly about 400 developers working on it. I guess there were much less working on The Witcher 3.

Based on a few interviews I watched I took in that UE5 is mature and the development is going well.
Also, I heard about CDPR outsourcing assets to 3rd party companies, as well as engineers from epic working with them. So, I guess the workforce is even greater.

Anyway, the game is gonna be big and heavy on content, and some things can't be made faster by allocating more people to them.

I find it not a coincidence the trailer was shown at the end of a year because if the game is also released at the end of a year, it will make the development feel shorter. (same with prices in markets - 5$ compared to 4,99$ :D).

If this trailer is not a part of a marketing campaign, I can imagine the game coming out at the end of 2027. But that's just a shot in the dark...
 

Toyen

Forum veteran
People keep pointing at Cyberpunk's long wait but I think the long wait on Cyberpunk was caused by the 'need' to release TW3 first in order to finish the trilogy in a reasonable timeframe so CDPR could not fully focus on Cyberpunk when TW3 still needed to get done.

But right now with cyberpunk being done and since TW1 remake is sorta being outsourced, I feel TW4 should have their full attention?

And although the technology keeps getting better and the studio is more experienced, I still feel like the 2025 release date leak is very unlikely and we're looking at 2026 or 2027 most likely.

But yeah I agree. What's the point of teasing a game that won't be released within the next 2-3 years max?

Especially nowadays with everyone's short attention span. The buzz is gonna die down, fans will get tired, another big title is gonna steal their thunder etc.

Look at Kingdom Hearts 4. I for one am super tired and not as excited anymore with how long it's been taking. Like I'll still probably gonna play it when it comes out but I'm definitely not preordering or playing on day one. Most likely waiting for when it's eventually gonna go on sale cause yeah, after all those years I just don't care that much anymore unfortunately.
 
I'm gonna say 2026.

Why? First of all, like @Toyen said, Witcher 3's full production took 2 years. We know that the game is in full production "for a couple of weeks" now, so it's fair to say that the work hasn't just started. Cyberpunk took around 3 years of full production, but that was a completely different setting with completely different technology with, most importantly, completely different engine.

Which leads us to point 2 - Unreal Engine 5. This time, they don't have to patch the engine bugs and try to make their own engine workable for a massive open world game, Epic Games takes part of this load from their shoulders and usage of UE 5 also gives them accesses not only to a massive library of ready-to-use assets, but most importantly - people. There are way more people, who know how to work on Unreal Engine 5, than there are those who would know how to work on their own creation. On Witcher 3, they started with 150 people, gradually growing up to 250 people of in-house staff. For Witcher 4, they already have 400.

And finally, third point - I can't find the source for this, but I remember reading somewhere that CDPR is preparing "something big" for 2025. What could that be? Not Witcher 1 remake, because that game will only come out after Witcher 4. Not new Cyberpunk game and definitely not that new IP they have been working on. That leaves us with Witcher 4 marketing campaign. They did say that they will start marketing way closer to release now, so I think that at the second half of 2025 they will start promoting Witcher 4 - one year before the full release.
 
2026 seems the most realistic option to me.

We're almost in 2025 already, and they only just released a first trailer.

I don't think we're looking at a really long wait, unless delays happen, either.

But as long as the release doesn't happen next decade, I'll be happy. :D
 
I’m guessing late 2026 or early 2027. But the sooner the better :D.

I just hope no one dares to release the TW remake before TW4, because that would delay things quite a bit …
 
I’m guessing late 2026 or early 2027. But the sooner the better :D.

I just hope no one dares to release the TW remake before TW4, because that would delay things quite a bit …

No need to worry about that, CDPR already confirmed TW4 is happening before the remake!


"[The Witcher remake] will come after Polaris, which is a consequence of how we think about this project," said CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński said in the company's latest financial call.
 
Which makes sense, in Witcher 4 they will probably introduce a lot of new mechanics, not to mention new engine, so there is no point for Fools Theory to reinvent the wheel.

I am actually surprised at this.

I thought they would release at around the same time and TW1 remake would help market TW4.
 
I thought they would release at around the same time and TW1 remake would help market TW4.

Usually, developers will leave a year or longer between two very similar games. Otherwise it will just split the audience which would not be great for visibility in stores.

Also, you would lose money: if two similar games are released in a similar time frame. For example, I get one game first and take my time. Once I am done chances are the other game is half the price already...
 
So from this article that @AvarageEnjoyer shared in the articles and interviews thread there is this little tidbit:

Kalemba: You know, first of all, this is good to say: this is not a kind of 'beginning of marketing' campaign. We firstly wanted to showcase and share with the entire world that Ciri is the main protagonist; it's The Witcher 4; and she's mutated; and she's on The Path, definitely, right?

The second thing is that, yes, we are working on a new engine right now, together with Epic's engineers, and there is a great synergy and a great collaboration between us. And currently we're working on Unreal Engine 5 and our custom build.

I highly doubt we can expect a 2026 release if they're still mainly working on the engine at this point in time.
 
my head says 2026 but my heart hopes for 2025.

I think it would be weird to release a trailer and give interviews about the game if it's still more than 2 years away from release.

Then again I remember the Cyberpunk trailer coming out like 6 (or was it 8?) years before Cyberpunk came out :giveup: if i have to wait 6-8 more years for the witcher 4.............. ill not be happy :cry:
 
mber the Cyberpunk trailer coming out like 6 (or was it 8?) years before Cyberpunk came out :giveup: if i have to wait 6-8 more years for the witcher 4.............. ill not be happy :cry:
To be fair, they did say that they've learned their lesson and won't start marketing game long before the release. Mind you, this trailer isn't start of marketing yet - but with Cyberpunk, the game was on a concept stage when announced, Witcher 4 is already in full production.
 
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