The Witcher 4 developer CD Projekt Red has high aspirations for the game’s performance on consoles, but believes it will be “extremely challenging” to achieve on Xbox Series S. This has been an extremely weird console generation that feels oddly restrained. The first year or two of the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S was hindered by the fact that COVID destroyed supply chains and then scalpers were eating into the limited supply as well. Now, five years into the generation, PS4 and Xbox One are still supported by some big franchises like Call of Duty, which means the games have to be developed with those platforms in mind.
However, one really divisive item is the Xbox Series S. When launching this new generation, Xbox wanted an affordable entry point into this generation, one that doesn’t utilize as much power for those who are more casual gamers or are on a budget. However, every game on Xbox Series X also has to work on Series S, meaning every game is sort of chained to the limitations of that console to a degree. With that said, some developers have voiced frustrations with developing for the Xbox Series S and it was even reportedly an issue when bringing Black Myth: Wukong to Xbox.
With all of that said, The Witcher 4 has been a hot topic of conversation lately thanks to its very impressive tech demo. During an Unreal Engine presentation, CD Projekt showed off a tech demo for its new RPG, though it’s not the actual game. It’s more of a showcase of what they hope to achieve in the game on a technical level. Still, it ran at 60FPS on PS5 and that’s the goal for the final release.
When speaking with Digital Foundry, the team behind the game noted that they are aiming to have the game running at 60FPS on consoles and are taking greater care with these versions of the game after what happened on Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red has historically been seen as a PC-first developer, but consoles are becoming a more important piece of the puzzle for the studio.
However, Charles Tremblay, CD Projekt Red‘s vice president of technology noted that they believe it will be “extremely challenging” to get the Xbox Series S to the same place. That’s a reasonable thing to say when Xbox Series X and PS5 are targeting this despite being much more powerful machines. It’s unclear what compromises would have to be made in order to achieve that or if CD Projekt Red is willing to bend a bit and not have the Series S run at 60 FPS. Series S owners have become used to getting weaker versions of games that don’t have the same frame rates and resolutions as other consoles, so it wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented or shocking.
The Witcher 4 currently has no release date, but likely won’t release until 2027 or 2028 at the earliest. CD Projekt Red is also developing a sequel to Cyberpunk, which is likely even further out. There are also rumors of new story DLCs for both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 being developed by teams outside of CDPR.
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