At the State of Unreal 2025 event, CDProjekt Red revealed the first real look at The Witcher 4 gameplay. While it was a limited demo primarily focused on the improvements to Unreal Engine 5, we did get a solid look at how the game runs, even on a base PlayStation 5, and all the small ways tweaks and optimizations have been applied to make the game look as good as it does.
And that’s the biggest takeaway from the demo: it looks really good. The presentation opened with a new trailer for the game, showing a rather grumpy merchant in a wagon traveling down a bumpy road, only to have his journey cut short by the appearance of a Manticore. Ciri later finds the remnants of the attack, and then we see a smooth transition from cutscene to gameplay.
The demo shows several things of note. First, The Witcher 4 is running at 60 frames per second on the base PlayStation 5. Second, it has raytracing elements. The team said this is made possible because of all the optimizations coming to Unreal Engine, allowing small graphical elements to render without placing a massive strain on the hardware.
The trailer also introduces Kelpie, Ciri’s horse. A technique called motion matching means that Ciri and Kelpie are perfectly synchronized in movement, regardless of the angle or speed players mount from. Perhaps even more impressive is that you can see the movement of Kelpie’s muscles as the horse runs, creating much more realistic visuals that have little impact on performance.
The demo also introduced “Nanite Foliage,” a technique that provides a more memory-efficient method for rendering both high-density and high-fidelity foliage. Trees, undergrowth, and other plants look sharper. As Ciri enters the village, players see how lifelike the citizens are. Each seems to follow their own path, and events are happening around town unrelated to Ciri herself; for example, at one point an innkeeper throws a man out of a tavern for cheating at Gwent.
If you’re interested, the full presentation is included above. It’s an in-depth look at the graphics and covers some pretty technical subjects, but it’s the best look we’ve had so far at actual gameplay. As of now, The Witcher 4 doesn’t have a release window, and we don’t expect to see it before 2027 at the absolute earliest. CDProjekt Red describes the game as its “biggest and most ambitious open world yet,” and that will take time to develop. The company is eager to avoid another launch like Cyberpunk 2077, so it might be quite a while before you get the chance to go monster hunting with Ciri.
