The Witcher 4 is easily CD Projekt Red's most anticipated project, but it may be quite some time until it arrives. While the developer has not officially announced a release date for the game, a recent earnings call has at least provided us with a general timeline.
Unfortunately, The Witcher 4 will not be released by 2026, which means the launch window is now pushed into 2027 at the earliest — possibly even later than that.
“Even though we do not plan to release The Witcher 4 by the end of 2026, we are still driven by this financial goal,” CD Projekt chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz told investors, referring to the company's goal of generating 2 billion złoty (around $515 million USD) in net profit from 2023 to 2026.
Nielubowicz was asked again to elaborate on The Witcher 4's release date during the Q&A portion of the call to which he responded: "We are not going to announce the precise launch date for the game yet, All we could share now to give more visibility to investors is that the game will not be launched within the time frame of the first target for the incentive program, which ends December 31, 2026."
While possibly disappointing, a 2027 release date is not totally unexpected.
CD Projekt first announced they were working on a new Witcher game, codenamed "Project Polaris," back in March 2022. In October of that year, CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński acknowledged that the game was at least still three years away. He even acknowledged it could take four or five years to release, which initially put the launch anywhere between 2025 and 2027.
The Witcher 4 had been in pre-production from 2022 until November 2024. A cinematic trailer was revealed at The Game Awards in December of last year. The beginning of a new saga, it was confirmed that Ciri will take center stage as the protagonist, "embarking on her own journey to become a professional monster slayer."
The Witcher 4 is a single-player, open-world RPG from CD PROJEKT RED. At the start of a new saga, players take on the role of Ciri, a professional monster slayer, and embark on a journey through a brutal dark-fantasy world.
The Witcher 4 is being built in Unreal Engine 5 with the aim for it to be "the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date." Given these lofty ambitions, CD Projekt Red will almost certainly ensure every aspect of the game is fleshed out and polished before release to avoid a situation similar to the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077.