CD PROJEKT RED Prepares a new Witcher Game with Unreal Engine 5

[R-T-B]

Dx12 is has a lot of old baggage with it, surprised that their no looking into Vulkan.

There isn't really any "baggage" in DX12. It's all down to how well devs implement it. Low level languages (Vulkan included) tend to be hard.

 

[ModEl4]

Indeed, too many developers changing to UE5 (or at least it seems so)
That's interesting, there was some rumours if i remember correctly that the Coalition evaluation of UE5 with all the optimizations that they tried they couldn't hit 1080p 60fps on consoles.
Also surprising was that Asobo went with UE5 (if I'm not mistaken) for their sequel: "a plague tale : requiem" since the results they achieved with their engine in "a plague tale : innocence" was excellent!

 

[Cutechri]

They needed to recoup the losses CP 2077 caused and also their reputation.

 

[Upgrayedd]

I'm looking forward to their offline single player gwent game. Never been a fan of Witcher, but that's cool they're using unreal engine 5.

Thronebreaker has been out for a while

 

[bobsled]

Are Epic paying companies to use Unreal Engine? There’s significant cost in licensing otherwise, and the engine is more a jack of all trades than anything opimised for a type of game.

I guess it means less issues across targeted systems (not having to dev your own engine on consoles / pc variants) and perhaps even licensing UE is cheaper in the long run.

 

[konga]

Are Epic paying companies to use Unreal Engine? There’s significant cost in licensing otherwise, and the engine is more a jack of all trades than anything opimised for a type of game.

I guess it means less issues across targeted systems (not having to dev your own engine on consoles / pc variants) and perhaps even licensing UE is cheaper in the long run.

Epic is pitching UE5 as a cost-saving engine. They are touting several big labor-saving features—virtualized geometry for easier asset creation (can use high-detail source primitives, no more LODs) and an easy-to-work-with hybrid RT/raster lighting system are the two big ones, but they've also been talking a lot about character modeling/rigging and world design tools that are supposedly much easier to use than UE4's tools. And Epic sure is talking like UE5 is optimized for open world games. Almost every tech demo and talk they give is about how much easier open world game development will be with their engine.

So Epic won't pay you to use UE5, but if you take their word for it, then you'll save money in the long run by going with them. CDPR specifically has struggled a lot with their in-house engine, so I guess management was ready to pitch the whole thing in the trash and start fresh with what Epic is claiming to be the easiest to use game engine ever. A lot of other studios are probably running the numbers on how much labor they can save by switching, and what that means for their finances and development schedules.

 

[RadeonProVega]

Thronebreaker has been out for a while

I know, talking about something else, Look up Project Golden Nekker.

 

[Gundem]

There is too much hate here for CP2077, really. The game wasn't that bad, and had a good storyline. Also several modes to take on a mission. The NPCs are retarded but that's with every game.

Agreed.
Upon release, I waited a while for patches because that's what most informed people should know to do by now. I played it, finished it and enjoyed it. End of story.
Negativity online is always 10x worse than product in my experience.
Wasn't the best game but it was fun.

 

[Chrispy_]

Forums magnify the negatives 1000 fold. For every single negative nelly, 1000 players are having a good experience with CP2077. It was never poorly rated on PC and patching has greatly improved it.

I intend to play it once the DLC comes out.

My feeling that it was launched in such a botched, unfinished state that it's taken this long to un-botch. Now that the base game is stable CDPR can go some distance towards finishing it.

It'll never be the game that was promised or shown in demos, but it is set in a world I want to explore and has a plot I want to enjoy. I'll probably only play it through once, so I'd rather do that when it's 'ready'.

 

[droopyRO]

I intend to play it once the DLC comes out.

I do too. But is there any word on a DLC ?

 

[Chrispy_]

I do too. But is there any word on a DLC ?

They promised at least one content DLC at some point, I can't remember the specifics.
And by content, they meant more mission/quest content, not just cosmetics.

"As part of an announcement revealing that The Witcher 4 is officially in the works, CD Projekt Red stated that although the new Witcher will run on Unreal Engine 5, the Cyberpunk 2077 DLC is still being developed using the studio's REDengine."
-CDPR Twitter Account, emphasis mine

 

[LabRat 891]

No interest in The Witcher, but if by some fluke, this allows a next-gen Unreal Engine powered Cyberpunk game, I'd be excite. Typically, that implies decent mod-ability.
Thought I'd dislike CP'77 or it'd be unplayable, nope. Ended up getting that 'I wanna see what's next' feeling any good movie or book gives ya.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Pretty excited, hopefully the engine swap helps development. The downside is I'm guessing this is 4-5 years out.

Unlikely. If they're announcing it now, 18 months is the likely release time frame.

 

[konga]

Unlikely. If they're announcing it now, 18 months is the likely release time frame.

CDPR has a history of announcing games during or sometimes even before pre-production. The first Cyberpunk 2077 teaser was released in 2013, while the game reportedly didn't even enter pre-production until 2016, after they released Blood & Wine.

From the phrasing of their statement, it sounds like this is still in the very early stages. It honestly sounds like they're announcing this immediately after signing the licensing deal. It's going to be a while.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The first Cyberpunk 2077 teaser was released in 2013

That was the exception rather than the rule. For example, Witcher 3 was first announced in early 2014. It was released May 2015. Most of their library follows that scheduling scheme. CP2077 was the exception because CDPR wanted it to be beyond anything they had previously envisioned, so it took longer to make and then remake.

 

[trsttte]

Surely it can't be worse than Cyberjunk.

I wonder if the switch to UE5 is because their getting hacked, ransomwared, blackmailed and then having all of their source code sold on the black market means that their engine is compromised for all future use.

That's an interesting take. I was assuming (and probably most people first conclusion) that it was a cost saving measure to save both money and development time. I think their engine was pretty good but as seen with Cyberpunk things maybe weren't scaling as they wanted. It took them more than a year to finally launch next gen versions of Cyberpunk and we're still to see how the supposed remaster of Witcher 3 is going to go down. Maybe this remaster showed that it was not worth it to continue to develop their engine when UE5 was available and cheap to use.

From the infosec angle, they did cancel the Cyberpunk online so there might be something there, it should have been very close to launch (i mean, cyberpunk wasn't ready and launched anyway so who knows) so the hack might have been a major factor.

Either case it will certainly reduce risks (or rather shift) so maybe Witcher 4 will be a comeback for CDproject

 

[oxrufiioxo]

That was the exception rather than the rule. For example, Witcher 3 was first announced in early 2014. It was released May 2015. Most of their library follows that scheduling scheme. CP2077 was the exception because CDPR wanted it to be beyond anything they had previously envisioned, so it took longer to make and then remake.

It was actually announced in 2013 for a late 2014 release before being delayed into 2015.

What has me worried about how far this one is out is it uses an engine CDPR has never used that just recently came out of beta.

 

[ZeppMan217]

What has me worried about how far this one is out is it uses an engine CDPR has never used that just recently came out of beta.

I was under the impression that 77 started out as a UE4 project but then they switched engines at some point during the development?