The Witcher 4 Targets 2028 With Ciri Leading & Geralt's Unclear Role

A lot has happened around The Witcher 4 over the past few weeks, and it's all worth covering. Doug Cockle, the actor voicing Geralt of Rivia, has given a new interview; CD Projekt RED has shared details about how development is going; and there is finally a target release year. The main open question remains what role Geralt will play in Ciri's story once he returns.

And with the rocky launch of Cyberpunk 2077 still fresh in people's minds, it's hard not to wonder whether the studio has learned from it. In an interview on October 28, Doug Cockle said he hasn't recorded any lines for Geralt yet and doesn't know how big the role will be. That doesn't mean the character has been cut, since his return is already known.

What isn't clear is whether you'll see him in a handful of scenes or whether he'll be a real part of Ciri's journey.

The actor's expectations make sense. He believes the older Witcher could take on more of a supportive father-figure role, rather than being the monster hunter at the center of the story. Across The Witcher 3, one of his biggest goals was finding his adopted daughter and keeping her safe. She has since grown up and makes her own decisions.

Keep in mind that this is Doug Cockle's personal take. The studio hasn't confirmed what his quests will involve or how much screen time he gets. Ciri taking over as the lead changes a lot. In the first reveal trailer, she shows up as a fully fledged monster hunter.

Her eyes, the potions she uses, and the signs of her transformation all point to someone in a very different place than the character you knew before. In The Witcher 3, you only controlled her in short sections, but this time the whole story is hers.

Unlike Geralt, she doesn't have decades of experience behind her, so she'll have to find her own path as a witcher and work out where she stands on hard moral choices. The trailer's combat details back that up. You can see her using a chain alongside her sword, attacking with magic and moving around fast during fights with monsters, which hints at a much more fluid system than the fighting style you know from the older games.

One thing to remember, though: not every move in a cinematic trailer is a confirmed playable ability.

There's been no detailed skill tree and no real combat footage from an in-game quest. If you see people online saying specific new mechanics are locked in, take it with a grain of salt. The bigger story question is how The Witcher 4 handles the choices you made in the third game. The Witcher 3 had several endings, so the heroine's fate could look different depending on what each player did.

Since the new game is built around her, it has to deal with those events somehow. It still isn't known whether old save files will carry over, which decisions will count, or how the different endings tie into the new story. What matters most is that your choices from the previous game aren't ignored, since the series became known for never handing out easy answers.

Think back to the Bloody Baron questline. It stuck with people not because of the quest markers spread across the map, but because one decision could change other people's lives. The new game needs stories like that. That's why news from late September stands out: Karolina Stachyra, a writer behind some of the best-loved quests in The Witcher 3, has returned to CD Projekt RED after a long absence.

The company hasn't said which project she's working on, so you can't assume she's writing the story for the new game. On the open world, the studio is aiming high. CD Projekt RED has called The Witcher 4 its most ambitious game yet, and co-CEO Michał Nowakowski said the goal is a massive world, intense action, and a story players won't forget.

Still, hearing "bigger world" doesn't mean much on its own, since huge maps full of repetitive activities wear you out fast.

The series worked because an ordinary quest in a tiny village could turn dark and complicated without warning. That's where the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo matters. It followed the new lead as she traveled with her horse, Kelpie, and explored Valdrest, a crowded city in Kovir.

Even a small detail, like a collision in a busy market affecting nearby people, hinted at a more alive world. The studio did warn that this wasn't gameplay footage from the finished game. It was a technology demo of systems being built in collaboration with Epic Games.

There's also a big decision behind that shift: the studio is using Unreal Engine 5 instead of its own REDengine. That means more than nicer forests or lighting, since Unreal Engine 5 gives access to new tools for building huge worlds and running them across platforms.

CD Projekt RED and Epic Games are continuing to work together on the technical side. The hope is that the partnership with Epic Games leads to better world interactions and stronger performance, but switching engines doesn't guarantee a clean launch. What will matter is how thoroughly the game gets tested. That brings things back to what was learned from Cyberpunk 2077.

Back in August, Nowakowski explained that the current development build of The Witcher 4 already runs on PC, PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series X.

The studio doesn't want to repeat the mistake of focusing on the PC version first and leaving console optimization until much later. That doesn't mean the whole game is playable on consoles, only the build the developers are working with. Even so, testing on consoles early is the right call.

The project is also large. The company has said more than 500 developers are working on The Witcher 4. A team that size makes room for a richer game with more content, but it also raises the risks around cost and quality control. After what happened with Cyberpunk 2077, players will be testing their trust in the studio again. That's why real gameplay and technical performance matter more than another flashy trailer.

Now for the release date. In August, the co-CEO said the company is targeting 2028 for The Witcher 4, and the same timeline was repeated in the September report. So there's a target year now, but no confirmed day or month. That matters, because aiming for 2028 isn't a promise that the game can't be delayed. If scope, performance, or quality issues come up, the timeline could still shift.

The Witcher 4 isn't meant to be a one-time return to this universe. The company wants it to start a new trilogy built around its young lead. The studio has said before that it wants to finish the new trilogy within roughly six years of the first game's launch. That's an ambitious schedule, and no release dates have been confirmed for the second or third games. It's good to know the story isn't meant to end after one adventure.

The challenge will be making sure that releasing games more often doesn't cost you character development or quest quality.

You don’t have to stay out of this world until 2028. A new expansion for The Witcher 3, called Songs of the Past, is planned for 2027. Songs of the Past puts the older Witcher back in the lead, this time looking into a dark mystery hidden behind the scenic landscapes of a region called Letten.

Fool's Theory is developing the expansion, and it got its first look at Gamescom. Some theories suggest Songs of the Past could connect to The Witcher 4, but no direct story link has been confirmed. Put together, the picture for The Witcher 4 is mixed.

The older Witcher is coming back, but nobody knows how big his role will be. The studio is testing console performance much earlier, yet there's still no gameplay, no look at the quest systems, and no word on how your decisions will affect the story. In the end, The Witcher 4's success will depend less on the size of its map than on how strong its stories are.