The history of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt RED suggests that the recently shown demo for its upcoming action role-playing game, The Witcher 4, may be more marketing than an actual representation of gameplay.
During the recent State of Unreal presentation at Unreal Fest in Orlando, CD Projekt RED showed off an early development Unreal Engine 5 tech demo for The Witcher 4, with the aim of highlighting some of the technology and features that will help bring its open world to life. While the developer attempted to temper expectations by highlighting that the presentation mainly showcases the in-engine capabilities set in the game’s world and isn’t representative of actual gameplay, it also heightened them by revealing that the demo ran on a base PS5 at 60 fps with ray tracing using Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen technology.
CD Projekt RED’s Track Record
CD Projekt has a track record of over-promising and under-delivering, whether it be due to The Witcher 3’s downgraded visuals from initial trailers to the final build or Cyberpunk 2077’s gameplay features that were showcased in initial footage but never made it into the final game. Despite being a studio made up of talented developers who have inspired others with their work, CD Projekt has had the tendency to bite off more than it can chew.
One hopes that the company has learned from its prior errors. After the Cyberpunk 2077 debacle, having the console builds of The Wither 4 working alongside the PC version is now a part of the studio’s process. The development team frequently performs internal reviews on console, so that it knows exactly where it stands on all platforms. The mindset of wanting to move forward as long as the PC version runs fine has been altered in order to have broader visibility on the other platforms.
Is The Witcher 4 Realistically Achievable At 60 FPS?
Fans of the series who plan on playing The Witcher 4 on consoles would undoubtedly want to know whether the demo sets a realistic expectation regarding the game’s performance on their platform of choice. The answer is both yes and no.
Yes, the demo does indeed appear to run at 60 fps, even if it does so at a visibly lower resolution compared to what is often seen in other PS5. If we’re to guess, the footage likely runs at a dynamic resolution that commonly hovers between the range of 720p and 900p, and is possibly upscaled to a higher resolution using AMD’s FSR. No, this is not representative of the final version of The Witcher 4. The demo is set in a small area, and doesn’t appear to have various game systems and world simulation components in place. Its purpose was to showcase various Unreal Engine 5 technologies that are being used to build The Witcher 4, including Unreal Animation Framework, Nanite Foliage rendering, and MetaHuman technology with Mass AI crowd scaling. As such, the demo is not as resource-intensive as a full-fledged game. The same was true for The Matrix Awakens tech demo, and it’s not surprising that we have yet to play an Unreal Engine 5 game that matches its graphical quality.
Ultimately, The Witcher 4 demo served as marketing for Unreal Engine 5 and its technologies. The purpose was to make a statement to investors and other game companies regarding the benefits of licensing the engine for the development of their titles. As a representation of the final game, the demo should probably be taken with a grain of salt until and unless proven otherwise by the developer.
