The Witcher 4: everything we know so far about Polaris

The Witcher 4 is officially in the works, though we don’t know all that much about it as of yet. For now, it’s being referred to as ‘Polaris’ while its in development, and there’s a high chance that it will have an entirely different name at launch.

CD Projekt Red announced The Witcher 4 in a blog post early last year, alongside several other projects related to The Witcher and Cyberpunk. The first The Witcher game is being remade, and there’s even some multiplayer projects in the works. In terms of the main series however, Polaris will kick off a brand new trilogy of RPGs, all for next-gen consoles. 

A teaser image was revealed for the game around the time of its announcement, sparking speculation that it could be about an entirely new Witcher school. While we wait for more info, this page will be regularly updated with all of the latest news and rumors. Here’s everything we know about the game so far.

The Witcher 4: cut to the chase

• What is it? The next mainline The Witcher game 
• When can I play it? TBC
• What can I play it on? TBC

The Witcher 4: release date and platforms

Let’s begin by tempering our excitement. CD Projekt RED has announced that The Witcher 4 is in active development, but it also made clear in a blog post that “no further details about a release date” are available.

No platforms for The Witcher 4 have been confirmed either, but that’s not surprising. We expect CD Projekt Red will make use of current-gen hardware, so releases on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC seem almost certain.

The Witcher 4: story and setting

Spoilers for The Witcher game series

As stated above, there are few details available about The Witcher 4. The official blog post only confirms it’s in development and that it’s being built in Unreal Engine 5. But, over the years, CD Projekt Red has said plenty about what a future Witcher game would involve. For a start, it’s not really The Witcher 4.

“The first three ‘Witchers’ were by definition a trilogy, so we simply could not name the next game ‘The Witcher 4’,” Kiciński said in an interview. “This does not mean, of course, that we will leave the world of The Witcher.”

At the end of The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, monster hunter Geralt was alive and well. Well, he was alive, at least. But his story arc had ended, the Wild Hunt was over. That doesn’t mean he won’t return in this new Witcher game, though he likely won’t be the main character.

The developer said as much back in 2013: “We are not killing the world and walking away from it, but we will definitely want to make this game the finale in a big way,” executive producer John Mamais told Polygon. “We might even include Geralt in later games potentially. We just need to talk about it and figure out what we’re going to do next.”

Perhaps we’ll see the reins pass to Ciri – if it’s decided that canonically she survived The Witcher 3. To avoid continuity issues, perhaps the team will set its story head of the events of Geralt’s adventures. After all, Netflix is developing a series set long before the events of the books, Blood Origin is a prequel set 1,000 years before the events of The Witcher.

The confirmation that the medallion shown in the game’s announcement picture is a lynx certainly suggests that the game will take things in a new direction. Potentially, that introduces an entirely new Witcher school. 

The author of the Witcher books, Andrzej Sapkowski, signed a new deal with the company to “further solidify their relationship”. So. the studio is free to pull from any one of his short stories or novels. (If you’re wanting to get caught up, here’s how to read The Witcher books in order.)

The Witcher 4 news

The Witcher 4 has its Game Director
Sebastian Kalemba , the former Lead Animator on The Witcher 3, has been announced as the Game Director for The Witcher 4. They announced this on Twitter, stating that they aim to ‘raise the bar.’

Polaris, and a brand new trilogy
In early October, 2022, CD Projekt RED announced a bunch of new titles via Twitter, including a new The Witcher trilogy. Polaris (what we’ve been calling The Witcher 4) will kick off the new saga, which will then play out over 6 years from the first release. This is obviously a huge undertaking, so we’ll have to wait and see whether it pays off.

Reconfirming the start of a new saga
CD Projekt RED has re-confirmed that The Witcher 4 will launch a saga. While it didn’t confirm how many games this’ll involve, CEO Adam Kiciński made these comments during a recent earnings call.

“We said that there will be a new saga. Of course, now we are pre-producing the first game of this saga. But we have in mind more than one. The first saga was three games, so now we’re thinking about more than one game. But we are in pre-production on the first game from the second Witcher saga.”

• Upcoming games in 2023