New details about The Witcher 4 from the State of Unreal 2025 presentation and a full breakdown of the Unreal Engine 5.6 tech demo

At the recent State of Unreal 2025 presentation, something happened that I, the author of this text, had been waiting for a long time — the first glimpse of gameplay from The Witcher 4. Well, not actual gameplay per se, but rather a technical demonstration of the engine’s capabilities. For those who don’t know, CD Projekt RED’s upcoming title has moved from their proprietary REDengine to Unreal Engine 5, which makes their participation in this kind of technical showcase more than justified. So, what exactly did they show, and why does it leave behind some unpleasant Watch Dogs (the first one) vibes? Let’s break it all down.

The presentation opened with a brand-new trailer. In it, a mysterious merchant and his entire caravan are torn to pieces by a manticore. Ciri is tracking the beast and arrives at the scene of the attack. What immediately stands out is the young witcher’s appearance. The developers have already confirmed that the exact same model of the princess was used in both the trailer and the gameplay as in the very first teaser. You remember — the one that triggered a tsunami of outrage from the true heterosexual male demographic, who saw in the heroine’s appearance an agenda, excessive masculinity, and who knows what else. According to them, the sweet girl from the third game had turned into a butch monster.

Now all those arguments should be put to rest because Ciri looks simply wonderful and stunning. It’s all about the lighting, colors, and other cinematic elements. Granted, the developers did clarify that they slightly adjusted the height of her eyebrows and the tension of her eye muscles — but I don’t think that changed the overall picture much. Now the witcher looks exactly like the version everyone remembers and loves. Even if CD Projekt RED is being a bit tactful in spinning the narrative, the fact remains — they listened to the more masculine part of the fanbase, and now nothing stops them from playing 200 hours as the beautiful woman they always wanted.

There’s nothing much else of note in the trailer itself. The only thing worth adding is the manticore. We haven’t seen such a monster in the game series before. It’s somewhat reminiscent of a griffin but should be far more dangerous. Looks like the developers are seriously expanding the bestiary for the fourth installment, which means Ciri will face plenty of new enemies.

Now it’s time for the gameplay. It kicks off immediately after the trailer, so it’s safe to assume the demo cleverly blends pre-rendered CGI with in-engine cutscenes. The first frames make it clear — this isn’t just some RPG. This is a brand-new entry in the main fantasy franchise of our time. In other words — the king has returned.

It’s confirmed that many events in the story take place in Kovir and, likely, Poviss. These two countries, united by a treaty, are located in the far north of The Witcher’s world. We’ve never been to these lands before. Kovir and Poviss are known for their harsh climate, advanced economy, glassmaking, and monopoly on salt extraction. There are also many mountains rich in ore and minerals. Additionally, they are the two wealthiest kingdoms, which will surely influence both the appearance of the local population and the architecture.

The first gameplay shots showcase Kovir in all its majestic glory. Ciri stands on the edge of a high cliff, overlooking a vast forest-covered valley. The mountains have a bronze hue, creating a striking contrast with the greenery and making the visuals rich and distinctive.

Ciri begins to descend through a cave. Right away, you can appreciate the interplay of light and shadow, as well as the moment when the girl doesn’t just crouch — she steadies herself with one hand. In other words, we’re being shown micro-animations that don’t impact gameplay but add a sense of life to the characters. Naughty Dog typically implements similar touches in its projects.

As Ciri makes her way down the mountain, it becomes clear just how much richer the environment has become. The living world is full of diverse details — plants, mosses, trees. Snowflakes blow toward the camera, and the witcher’s cloak reacts realistically to movement and physics. Even at this stage, you can clearly see the power of the Lumen technology responsible for lighting. Reflections are also present. The water glimmers in a way that arguably looks better than the real thing.

Ciri calls her horse by the name Kelpie. That was the name of her mare in the books, so this is clearly another nod to the original novels. Just like all of Geralt’s mounts were named Roach, Ciri’s steed will be Kelpie. It doesn’t sound quite as funny, but it’s completely lore-accurate.

While the witcher descends the mountain on horseback, we’re shown another technology in action. Now, all the movements of Ciri and Kelpie are fully synchronized depending on the situation. That means the horse has its own muscle structure, and Ciri adjusts her posture dynamically based on what’s happening. This feature is called ML Deformer. Additionally, the Unreal Animation Framework will handle realistic character animation in dynamic scenes. Not all animals are likely to receive this level of detail, but horses and monsters definitely will feel alive.

Meanwhile, the developers move on to vegetation. This is now powered by the updated Nanite Foliage technology, which renders every leaf as fully three-dimensional, rather than flat as in the past. The size of foliage elements will scale dynamically, which supposedly boosts performance and allows vast areas to be loaded in real time. That’s where another feature comes in — FastGeo Streaming. No exaggeration: nature in the GTA 6 trailer looked worse. All these trees and bushes significantly enhance the atmosphere and create that familiar feeling of remote wilderness, the kind a witcher often finds himself in — whether by duty or by chance.

Ciri arrives in a settlement — apparently a suburb of the capital of Kovir, Lan Exeter. The first thing that catches the eye is the sheer number of animations and the detail in the environment. First, there’s the horse. Steam rises from its nostrils, Ciri pats its muscular neck, then nimbly jumps to the ground. In the peaceful zone, the witcher automatically pulls back her hood and begins walking slowly down the street. A guard spits on the ground at the sight of her, and a peasant woman hides her son — everyone knows witchers steal children. Up ahead, there’s a crowd gathered around a tame bear. Ciri pushes through them like Altair or Ezio, accidentally bumping into a man carrying a crate of apples. A few fall to the ground, and children rush to grab them — followed by pigs. And the key point here is that, supposedly, none of this is scripted.

To say this is impressive would be an understatement. These whole chains of interconnected events are something entirely new. While the open world in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt once served mostly as set dressing, the environment here feels alive in the same way as something like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 — but far more advanced.

Next, Ciri reaches the market. Someone is buying goods, a barkeeper throws out a drunken patron, and a massive set of scales guarded by two dwarves tilts dynamically depending on the weight of goods placed on it. Every NPC looks distinct. Different faces, children running around, each character occupied with their own task. Here, the Unreal Animation Framework likely kicks in again, alongside the Mass AI system — a new feature managing large crowds of NPCs. Developers demonstrate that people in the market not only behave naturally, but also carry on conversations independently. All animations are on par with what Ciri herself performs. It’s astonishing.

At this point, the witcher reaches her target and talks to the merchant who issued the quest. You can catch a glimpse of the facial animations and how characters move during the dialogue. No more talking heads — only natural poses, a wide range of additional actions, and subtle facial expressions. It’s like a movie. The demo then returns to another crowd scene. Each person is a unique individual with their own reaction to the same event. With this, the presentation essentially concludes.

Interestingly, Kovir’s architecture differs from the buildings seen in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, including those on Skellige. The developers have infused the setting with far more of a Slavic flavor. There are many wooden structures, vibrant decorations, and ornate domes visible in the distance. This makes the new kingdom feel even closer to a distinctly Slavic setting, setting it apart from the more European-inspired Velen and Novigrad or the Viking vibes of the third game’s isles.

Now it’s time to sum things up.

The Polish developers have already rushed to clarify that what we saw is not The Witcher 4, but merely a technical demo created specifically for presentation purposes. This tells us several things. First — much of what was shown will eventually be simplified. The demo was recorded using Unreal Engine 5.6. All the technologies presented will be available to interested developers, but how they’ll be applied in practice is still uncertain. Reportedly, the new engine version focuses on improving framerate on consoles. The footage was running on a standard PS5 at 60 frames per second. Unfortunately, this kind of performance is unrealistic in practice. Achieving high resolution — something on the level of 4K — with a stable framerate using these technologies simply isn’t feasible on a base PlayStation, and even on the PRO version it seems doubtful. Especially considering that Unreal Engine generally performs poorly on consoles. Even with heavy optimization, the best we can hope for is something vaguely similar. And we’ll be lucky if it doesn’t stutter, blur, or crash. I’d love to be proven wrong — the final release of The Witcher 4 isn’t expected until 2027 — but something tells me we shouldn’t count on miracles.

The same goes for the multitude of animations and the almost surreal liveliness of the environment. We were shown just a single, meticulously prepared slice — polished to perfection — but if you think about it, the developers’ claims raise some questions. If something like an NPC collision and the subsequent reaction to dropped apples isn’t scripted, then how far can this system go? What if Ciri draws her weapon and attacks someone? Or sets the market on fire? Can you break every crate and cause total street chaos? What happens if you drop all the food from your inventory? Will that trigger a social collapse as the impoverished townsfolk abandon their tasks and rush to collect 10 kilograms of smoked pork? Clearly, the project is in for significant simplification. Yes, it will undoubtedly be stylish and visually striking — just not quite like what we’ve seen. CD Projekt RED will surely try to fix the static open world of the third game, especially now that they have Cyberpunk 2077 experience under their belt. But let’s be honest — even in the saga of V and Johnny Silverhand, the world was far from realistic. It took years just to implement a halfway decent police response to player crimes — let alone dropped apples and other fine details.

All of this is strongly reminiscent of the first Watch Dogs presentation — when gamers were shown a mind-blowing trailer for a futuristic hacker action game that turned out to be only loosely related to the final product. Everything from the mechanics to the graphics was downgraded. But we don’t even need to look that far — The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt itself changed dramatically between its first trailer and the final release. The only difference this time is that the Polish devs are being more transparent and have openly warned us about the expected downgrade.

All in all, CD Projekt RED has shown us the future of open-world gaming at the State of Unreal 2025. The level of detail is astonishing, and someday we’ll definitely see it all — but maybe not in the next game from this studio. Still, there’s hope. If all goes well, The Witcher 4 could follow in the footsteps of the third entry and become a breakthrough, and Unreal Engine 5 might finally turn into a convenient tool for creating visual splendor not only on PC. For now, all we can do is wait and be amazed.