Summary
CD Projekt Red says the Witcher 4 engine switch to Epic’s Unresl Engine 5 wasn’t about Cyberpunk 2077. I’m not so sure — and I think REDengine could’ve been optimised further. A look at the CDPR/Unreal decision.
RED Engine
CDPR has switched from REDengine for Unreal Engine 5 on The Witcher 4. But it may be more nuanced that just a failed game that pushed the studio to UE5 away from in House Tech.
Similar to Halo AAA studios are pivoting from in house tech to a more standardised platform editor. (Mostly likely to hire contractors easily)
Fans blame Cyberpunk’s rough launch. CDPR says no. The recent Interview with Deconstructor of Fun reveals about Cyberpunk 2077 Launch, and CD Projekt Red Game Biz and the pivot to Unreal Engine.
Only time will tell when the Witcher 4 launches, if this move would work well.
2. What CDPR views on Unreal
In an Interview with Deconstructor fo Fun that went in depth on CD Projekt Red and the Tech decision for the switch
Clip
The Matrix Awakens demo, not the Cyberpunk launch, triggered the switch, per Nowakowski. I do think that switching to Unreal can benefit CD Projekt Red if they get more closer access to Epic Games Tech Team, This is similar to The Coalition (Gears of War) Developer they have more access with Epic Engineers I think, they can make the game using a more customised UE5 engine for CDPR RPG Games.
And that is what they did, while UE5 was not ready at the time of the switch I do think we might see the collaborations effort of the work going into Witcher 4 for Unreal Engine 5 running Open world games.
3. In-house engine vs licensed engine
Now I have used custom software over the course of my work in SaaS and IT projects here is some pros and cons to switching away from In House Software to a Vendor.
In-house pros: tuned for your exact game, and you fix bottlenecks yourself. Just look at the recent Crimson Desert It runs buttery smooth. Everything can be optimised well why cause you know the code inside out.
In-house cons: you pay for engine tools, staff and upkeep on every project. That means every bug is your problem now. Can’t call anyone else to fix.
The tradeoff: tech developer or game developer? There’s no easy choice.
CDPR chose to be a game developer.
4. The KCD2 Cryengine counterexample for Open World Games
Now I don’t have much info on these games but having experience but as a thought exercise going with an alternative tech than unreal in 2023-2024 was better for Open world games.
But with a BIG Caveat: You need to customise your engine for the project. And KCD2 proves that. This proves the upside of customising an existing engine, not that building one is easy.
- Digital Foundry noted no visible shader precompilation and no traversal or shader stutters.
- Warhorse heavily modified CryEngine, including better CPU multi-threading for streaming.
- Warhorse had the engineers and Crytek’s help. CDPR had the resources too and still moved on.
5. The UE5 performance debate
Sweeney’s position: studios build for top-end hardware first and leave optimisation to the end. (Source)
Critics’ position: the same stutter problems appear across many studios, which points at the engine.
Vávra’s take (Feb 2024 interview): “Unreal couldn’t run it even today,” about KCD2’s open world.
Note that he spoke before the Witcher 4 tech demo, and he’s no longer Warhorse’s creative director.
Open World Counterpoint: STALKER 2 is a UE5 open-world game with a rough launch. Now they adopted Unreal 4 earlier in development then later switched to Unreal 5. Despite But after updating Unreal Engine 5 to the latest patches the game software stabilised.
So same as the Coalition Gears looks optimised well but also feel that the Coalition has direct access to Epic Games Engineers.
6. What this means for a solo dev
- My stance: UE5 is the practical choice for shipping right now.
- I’m investigating CryEngine as a hedge, partly because of UE5 optimisation issues.
- I’m also choosing to learn C++.
- CryEngine caveats from my own post: limited docs, infrequent updates, steep learning curve.
7. UE6: we don’t know yet
Unreal is already getting devs ready for Unreal Engine 6 but there is some controversy using AI and Verse and deprecating blueprint
- Early access is planned for the end of 2027, with full release 12 to 18 months later.
- Epic says gameplay programming is moving to Verse, which “transactionalizes C++”.
- Blueprints and Actors stay fully supported in early UE6 access, with deprecation only once Scene Graph matures.
- Community sentiment (Reddit): worry about feature bloat and a “metaverse” direction. That is a community view, not evidence.
- My take: I’m not confident about Verse, so C++ is my hedge.
- Closing line: wait and see. Don’t bet a project on UE6 yet.
Sources
https://www.deconstructoroffun.com/blog/why-none-of-us-saw-cyberpunk-coming-apart
Leave a Reply