A brand-new Witcher game is currently under development at CD Projekt Red, the renowned studio behind The Witcher trilogy and spin-offs such as Gwent. However, details regarding the next installment of this fantasy video game series are scarce. Nevertheless, we do know that the game, which is being developed under the code name Polaris, will initiate a “new saga” for the Witcher brand.

“We aim to release two additional Witcher games after Polaris, thereby creating a new AAA RPG trilogy,” CD Projekt Red stated in 2022.

CD Projekt Red is now shifting away from its internal REDengine, the technology that powered The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Instead, they will be utilizing Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. CD Projekt and Epic announced a “multi-year strategic partnership” in March 2022. As part of this arrangement, developers from CD Projekt Red will collaborate with Epic, with the primary objective being to tailor [Unreal Engine] for open-world experiences. Based on this information, the next Witcher game is likely to be another open-world adventure.

CD Projekt has not disclosed a final title, gameplay specifics, or a release date for the fourth mainline entry in The Witcher. We have no knowledge of the story or which characters will feature in it. Here’s everything that we do know about the new Witcher saga.

The one highly visible clue that CD Projekt Red has presented regarding its new Witcher saga is an artwork of a medallion buried in snow. Initially misinterpreted by some as a reference to the School of the Cat from The Witcher lore, CD Projekt Red’s global communication director, Robert Malinowski, clarified to Eurogamer after the project’s reveal that the medallion is designed to resemble a lynx. Admittedly, a lynx belongs to the cat family genus, but neither the Witcher book series nor the games canonically feature a School of the Lynx. (Geralt, of course, is a witcher from the School of the Wolf.)

But a considerable amount of speculation has pointed towards Ciri from The Witcher series, who retrieved a cat medallion from the witcher-killing bounty hunter Leo Bonhart (and wore it herself), potentially leading the new Witcher saga, thanks to this entire cat/lynx association.

CD Projekt Red and Epic Games are engaged in a “multi-year strategic partnership,” the companies announced. However, this does not imply that the next Witcher video game will be exclusive to Epic Games’ digital storefront. While Epic has invested millions to secure Epic Games Store-exclusive games, such an arrangement does not seem likely for the next Witcher. Or, at the very least, CD Projekt wants to downplay the possibility of any form of exclusivity. After all, CD Projekt has its own games storefront, GOG.com, and has achieved multiplatform success over the past decade.

CD Projekt Red’s Marcin Iwinski informed Polygon back in 2013 that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (and its two expansions) marked the conclusion of Geralt’s trilogy. And after the new Witcher game was announced, CD Projekt’s global PR director, Radek Grabowski, emphasized on Twitter, “What we have NOT announced today [is a] game called The Witcher 4.”

Fans and members of the media will likely continue to refer to the new game as The Witcher 4 anyway, as that’s a convenient shorthand until CD Projekt Red provides us with a proper title for the project. Even CDPR’s chief strategy officer, Adam Kiciński, casually referred to the game as The Witcher 4 in 2023 during an earnings call, which the developer later described as a “slip of the tongue.”

At least, that’s what CD Projekt Red claims. In March 2024, when the new Witcher game was still in its pre-production stage, CDPR’s joint CEO, Michał Nowakowski, stated during an earnings Q&A that the developer is “attempting to push new boundaries and explore new territories.”

“I guess what I’m saying is that you should not anticipate something like ‘The Witcher 3 in new clothing’,” Nowakowski said. “Of course, we’re building upon what came before and what we’ve learned, but we will be introducing new gameplay elements and new mechanics that you have not witnessed in our previous games. I would say – doing such things always involves risks; it’s not merely repeating what was done previously.”

Given CD Projekt Red’s development history, it is quite safe to predict that we won’t have access to the new Witcher saga anytime soon. The last game in the franchise, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, began development in the summer of 2011, but it was not officially announced until two years later. And the final game was not released until May 2015. The studio’s most recent game, Cyberpunk 2077, was first teased back in 2012, and it took a grueling eight years to finally arrive (and in not such a great condition either).

Suffice it to say, the next Witcher game is likely years away. CD Projekt Red will not only take ample time to build its new saga but will almost certainly spend extra time polishing and eliminating bugs in its follow-up to the Witcher trilogy, as it simply cannot repeat the mistakes it made with Cyberpunk 2077.

CDPR’s joint CEO, Adam Badowski, told Reuters in January 2024 that the company expected to have “around 400 people working on the project by the middle of the year,” indicating that development on the next Witcher game is undoubtedly making progress.

Based on the events of The Witcher 3 and its numerous choice-based endings, both favorable and unfavorable, there is plenty to speculate about the series’ new direction in the aftermath of Geralt’s story. If you wish to read about the possibilities, here’s a glimpse at where The Witcher might proceed after Wild Hunt.