CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 move was not caused by Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt Red’s switch from its proprietary REDEngine to Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4 has invited an obvious interpretation: that the difficult launch of Cyberpunk 2077 convinced the studio to abandon its own technology. Michał Nowakowski, the company’s joint CEO, has pushed back on that reading.

His central point is straightforward. The problems surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 were not, in his view, fundamentally an REDEngine problem. That distinction matters because “the engine” is often treated as a catch-all explanation for any game’s bugs, performance issues, or production challenges. In reality, an engine is the underlying software framework used to build a game; it is essential, but it is only one part of a large project involving game systems, content, tools, teams, testing, schedules, and release decisions.

For CD Projekt Red, the move to Unreal Engine 5 is being described as a strategic shift in how it supports its games rather than a simple escape from its past. The studio has made games with its own technology for years, but Nowakowski said creating an engine was not the company’s ultimate ambition. Its priority, he said, has been to make technically and visually ambitious games while telling immersive stories.

Not every launch problem is an engine problem

Cyberpunk 2077 arrived after a long period of anticipation and faced significant problems at launch, followed by patches and updates intended to improve the experience. It was also CD Projekt Red’s last major release built with REDEngine. Those two facts naturally make the subsequent Unreal Engine 5 decision look connected.

Nowakowski’s argument is that correlation should not be mistaken for a direct technical diagnosis. REDEngine was the technology used to create Cyberpunk 2077, but he does not characterize it as the root cause of that game’s troubled debut. The company’s engine change, therefore, should not automatically be read as an admission that its prior engine was incapable of supporting the scale of its games.

That does not erase the significance of the transition. Moving an established studio from a proprietary engine to a widely used commercial one is a major operational decision. It changes the tools developers use, the expertise a studio needs to maintain internally, and the relationship between the game maker and the company that develops the engine. But the explanation supplied here is forward-looking: CD Projekt Red saw a potentially powerful platform and believed a close working relationship could make it suitable for the specific demands of its projects.

Why The Matrix Awakens mattered

Nowakowski traced the spark for the decision to The Matrix Awakens, a demonstration of Unreal Engine 5. At the time, he said, the technology was not yet exactly where CD Projekt Red needed it to be. The important takeaway was not that the engine was already a complete off-the-shelf answer for every requirement. Rather, the leadership saw what Unreal Engine 5 could become.

This is an important nuance in the studio’s description of its strategy. Adopting Unreal Engine 5 does not appear to mean simply installing a standardized package and building The Witcher 4 with no major engine work. CD Projekt Red approached Epic about a strategic collaboration, with the goal of working on capabilities needed for games of the studio’s size, scope, and particular technical requirements.

In practical terms, that means an engine can be both shared technology and a tailored foundation. Unreal Engine 5 provides a common base, while CD Projekt Red and Epic can collaborate on the pieces necessary for the kinds of large role-playing games CD Projekt Red intends to make. The company’s stated aim is not to become a technology business for its own sake; it is to devote more attention to the games while still having a hand in the technology that enables them.

What “inside the black box” means

Nowakowski described CD Projekt Red as working on the inside of Unreal Engine 5’s “black box” alongside Epic. A black box, in this context, is a shorthand way to describe complex underlying systems whose internal workings are normally hidden from most users. Developers can use an engine’s supplied tools and features without having to alter its deepest components.

CD Projekt Red’s collaboration is presented as going beyond that normal relationship. The studio says it is one of the few developers involved in the engine at that deeper level with Epic. That is different from merely licensing a game engine. It suggests that the company is contributing to, or jointly addressing, low-level engine needs tied to its projects.

The precise improvements, features, and performance results that may come from the arrangement have not been detailed here, so it would be premature to promise any particular visual or technical outcome for The Witcher 4. The meaningful confirmed point is the degree of collaboration: CD Projekt Red is not portraying itself as a passive Unreal user.

For players, the eventual value of that relationship will be measured in the finished games rather than in the engine branding. A game engine is the machinery beneath the surface; players encounter its consequences through how a world looks, how it runs, how reliably systems behave, and how seamlessly the game supports the intended experience. The company’s comments establish the strategy, not a guarantee of any of those results.

The Witcher projects are part of the same transition

The Witcher 4 is the headline project attached to Unreal Engine 5, but it is not the only Witcher work mentioned in connection with the technology. CD Projekt Red is also using Unreal Engine 5 for a remaster of The Witcher 3. That places the engine change across both a new installment and a return to an existing game.

The remaster is expected in just over a week, making it the nearer opportunity to see the collaboration’s work in a released Witcher project. Still, the available information does not identify exactly which technical changes players should expect from the remaster, nor does it establish a one-to-one test of Unreal Engine 5’s potential for The Witcher 4. A remaster and a new game can have very different development goals.

There is also a separate indication that the Witcher series is being approached as an evolving body of work rather than something that must remain untouched. The lead writer has said The Witcher 3 is “not a monument” in discussing Songs of the Past, arguing that an added expansion is not an especially radical idea. Alongside the engine transition, that view points to a studio willing to revisit a defining game while it prepares the next major chapter.

A partnership, not a clean break from technical responsibility

It would be easy to frame the Unreal Engine 5 deal as CD Projekt Red handing responsibility for technology to Epic. Nowakowski’s description instead points to a division of labor. Epic provides and develops Unreal Engine 5, while CD Projekt Red is collaborating on engine-level work connected to the demands of its games. The studio may no longer be centering its strategy on a wholly in-house engine, but it is still deeply engaged with the technical foundation.

That distinction is useful for understanding the company’s stated rationale. A proprietary engine can give a studio control, but it also requires sustained investment in tools and technology alongside game development. A strategic collaboration around Unreal Engine 5 offers a different route: CD Projekt Red can pursue its game-specific needs with Epic while keeping its primary mission focused on making games and telling stories.

It is also a reminder that engine decisions are not necessarily votes of no confidence in prior tools. Studios choose technology based on what they expect future projects to require, what partnerships are available, and where they believe their teams can best spend their effort. In CD Projekt Red’s account, the compelling factor was seeing Unreal Engine 5’s direction and deciding that a tailored partnership could serve its ambitions.

Technical shifts remain a major part of the broader games business conversation, whether they involve a studio’s internal foundations or player-facing experiments such as this VR mod for Metal Gear Solid 2’s Tanker chapter. But CD Projekt Red’s situation is specifically about long-term production technology, not a claim that changing engines alone resolves every challenge involved in making a massive RPG.

For now, the clearest message is one of intent. CD Projekt Red says it left REDEngine behind not because it concluded the technology caused Cyberpunk 2077’s launch issues, but because it saw Unreal Engine 5—and an unusually close collaboration with Epic—as a stronger path for the projects ahead. The first nearer signal will come from the upcoming The Witcher 3 remaster; the larger test will be how that strategy ultimately serves The Witcher 4.