You’ll Probably Need a New Console to Play The Witcher 4

The Witcher 4 was unveiled during The Game Awards 2024 in December. While the reveal trailer was pre-rendered, it used in-game assets, and was rendered on an unannounced NVIDIA GPU. So is this the first next-gen game we’ve seen?

The Witcher 4 Trailer was Rendered on a Mystery NVIDIA GPU

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. The Witcher 4 trailer was pre-rendered, which meanings that the visuals you saw didn’t run in real-time. Real-time visuals are far more demanding since the computer of console needs to produce the image on-the-fly. Pre-rendering makes the trailer closer to a movie than a video game, so that caveat is worth keeping in mind.

That said, the small print during the beginning of the trailer read that it was rendered on a yet-unannounced NVIDIA GPU. Further, over on CD Projekt Red’s official blog, The Witcher 4 announcement included a blurb reading that the game is “Powered by the same tech that The Witcher IV is built on, using assets and models from the game itself.”

Why would a game studio provide multiple pieces of information disclosing that their cinematic trailer was rendered on a next-gen GPU, using the same assets that will be present in the final game? Could it be because CD Projekt Red was trying to hint that The Witcher 4 is being made for future consoles and GPUs?

The mystery GPU mentioned is most likely the NVIDIA RTX 5090, which should provide a substantial upgrade over the already-beastly gaming performance seen in the RTX 4090, the best graphics card you can buy at the moment.

And while this perhaps could be a deal with NVIDIA to hype the company’s RTX 5000 series, slated for reveal during CES 2025, I think it’s more than that. My gut tells me The Witcher 4 will indeed skip Xbox Series X and S and PlayStation 5.

It Could Be Two Years Before the Game Releases

When Eurogamer askedThe Witcher 4’s Game Director, Sebastian Kalemba, whether the game will run on current-gen consoles, more specifically Xbox Series S, he all but answered the question.

He stated that the trailer wasn’t even the start of The Witcher 4 marketing campaign and that “obviously we want to support all the platforms—meaning PC, Xbox and Sony, right?—but I cannot, right now, tell you more specifics regarding that.”

To me, this reads like The Witcher 4 is being built for next-gen consoles and future GPUs. When CD Projekt Red decides to kickstart The Witcher 4 marketing machine, its engine will probably fire on all cylinders for at least a year and a half, at least according to CD Projekt Red CEO, Michał Nowakowski.

During his earlier interview with Eurogamer, which was published in late November, 2024, he stated that we should “expect at least a year—but most likely less than two years—between The Witcher 4‘s proper reveal and its actual launch. Expect, possibly, some light teases or short trailers a little earlier than that.”

It turns out that the debut trailer wasn’t the game’s proper reveal. It was that “light tease” Nowakowski mentioned, which means that we’ll have to wait for the game for at least two more years. How relevant will the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X be in two years? Might we even see NVIDIA’s 6000 series by then?

But there are more reasons why The Witcher 4 might skip current-gen consoles.

The Witcher 4 Probably Won’t Come to Current-Gen Consoles

The Xbox Series S, the weakest link of the current-gen console chain, has already been struggling to run some current-gen games. The console’s underpowered internals led to some games running at much lower resolutions than the advertised 1440p, some going all the way down to 540p, like Marvel Rivals.

Baldur’s Gate 3 arrived late on Xbox Series consoles because Larian Studios needed extra time to optimize the game for the Xbox Series S due to the lack of memory. Ultimately, local co-op, a staple feature on other systems, wasn’t present on Microsoft’s affordable current-gen machine at all.

If the Series S is struggling with current games, imagine how it would struggle running The Witcher 4, a game that could be in development for at least two more years? While CDPR believes it can deliver the game in about 18 months after the proper reveal (which is yet to happen), there’s the issue of long development times and delays marring virtually every recent triple-A game.

Not only do current-gen triple-A games take ages to complete, they are also regularly postponed, even after receiving firm release dates. Starfield was delayed for almost a year, even though the game had a firm release date. Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been delayed for about six months, now set to arrive in February 2025. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 was set to arrive sometime in 2024, but the game is now slated for February 2025.

These are just some of the examples, and I wouldn’t be surprised if CDPR postpones The Witcher 4 after the game gets a firm release date. Let’s not forget that both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 saw multiple delays before they got released.

Remember how poorly Cyberpunk ran on then-current-gen consoles, and how even after patches the performance was far from perfect? I think that CDPR would rather postpone The Witcher 4 to coincide with the release of next-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles than launch it on current-gen machines and end up in another pickle. The company barely survived the Cyberpunk debacle.

We’re now more than four years into the current-gen console cycle, and if the trend we’ve seen with the last couple of generations continues, we should expect next-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles somewhere at the tail end of 2027.

Since third-party developers got their hands on PlayStation 5 development kits in early 2018, late 2024 or early 2025 would make sense for game studios should get access to PlayStation 6 dev kits. This gives CD Projekt Red enough time to finish the game just in time to be a launch title for next-gen consoles.

Having a major title like The Witcher 4 debut alongside their new hardware from Sony and Microsoft could significantly boost initial console sales and also create a compelling reason for gamers to upgrade to the next generation right out of the gate.

Whatever happens, The Witcher 4 has a good chance of becoming a blockbuster hit that redefines the AAA gaming space and set new standards for future action RPGs, the same way Baldur’s Gate 3 upped the ante for future turn-based CRPGs.

The only question is whether you’ll be able to play it on the machine sitting under your TV, or if you’ll have to spend more on a next-gen release to experience Ciri’s adventure. Until then, why not replay some of the best PlayStation 4 games on your PlayStation 5 and marvel at what a generation can do to even older games.