The first look at The Witcher 4 gameplay
An Unreal Fest technical demo or a tease of the century?
My Substack is not a fast-moving video games news publication. Today, though, I have to make an exception and put in the work—The Witcher 4 demands it!
Today, The State of Unreal at Unreal Fest in Orlando opened with a special presentation from CD Project Red, giving us a glimpse of the actual game footage and early gameplay from The Witcher 4.
And guys, it looked incredible.
Visually stunning. Technically impressive, of course, especially from my amateur point of view. Where I expected another trailer, the initial opening cinematic turned to actual gameplay presented on a PS5 of all systems, with 60 FPS touted as the developers’ “budget“. The transitions from the cinematic cutscenes and dialogue to gameplay, which I appreciated so much in Expedition 33, looked even smoother in the Witcher tech demo. Performance optimizations were mentioned so many times that I’m holding out hope for the game to be playable on a range of setups, not just the high-end PCs, by the time The Witcher 4 comes out.
Look at the rendering of the forest foliage and the trees, especially. This part isn’t actual gameplay, so the end product will look different. What we’re seeing is so promising, I just can’t wait!
From the story point of view, we got Kovir at the new game location, gorgeous Kelpie the horse, and even a sneak peek of Lan Exeter in the distance. I was awed by the bright colours of the wintry Koviri village and the surrounding landscapes. It’s such a smart choice for a new game region—Kovir is only lightly explored in the Witcher books and is barely mentioned in the previous games.
The quest shown in the tech demo is likely from the beginning of the game. What other locations do we get to explore? Will we meet up with Triss Merigold at some point? Where will we find Geralt?
From now on, I’m betting on more sneak peeks and teasers from CD Project Red at every major gaming event and convention. The wheels of the marketing machine are starting to roll. And no matter what CD Project Red ends up giving out, people are going to gobble it up.
It’s me. I’m the people.
The Witcher 4 is going to be incredible.
And now we pray it’s nothing like the Cyberpunk launch!!
WE'RE GOING TO KOVIR! 🎉🎉🎉