CD Projekt co-chief executive Michał Nowakowski has rejected the suggestion that Cyberpunk 2077’s troubled development pushed the studio off its in-house REDengine and onto Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4. He made the comments on the Deconstructor of Fun podcast, which PC Gamer picked up via GamesRadar+.
The engine change is one of two announced departures for the series, alongside Ciri replacing Geralt as the lead character. PC Gamer reports that fans had speculated Cyberpunk 2077’s compromised launch was a factor in the decision.
A lot of people think like this, but this is a bit of a false assumption. Because the issue with Cyberpunk was not really REDengine itself.
Nowakowski said the company had never wanted to be an engine developer in the first place, telling the podcast that “the dream of the company was actually never to make technology”. He said CD Projekt did want to make visually and technically cutting edge games, and that in-house technology had seemed the best route to them, but that what drives the company is telling stories in the most convincing and immersive way.
Inside the black box
According to Nowakowski, the turn came when CD Projekt’s leadership saw The Matrix Awakens, Epic’s technical demo for Unreal Engine 5, and concluded that third-party technology would serve them better than continuing to build their own.
If we form a relationship with Unreal and if we work on certain things which are specifically required to make games of the size and scope and certain technicalities about it that we need for games, it could actually work.
Rather than simply licensing the engine, PC Gamer reports, CD Projekt pitched Epic a “strategic collaboration” that would let it influence the technology’s direction from the inside. Nowakowski described the arrangement as unique among Epic’s partners.
We’re actually, I think, the only team in the world outside of Epic that deals with the inside of the ‘black box’ that the engine is. Nobody else is doing that except for us and them, which we do through collaborative efforts together.
