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Witcher 4’s Unreal Engine demo looks promising—but I fear a repeat of a Cyberpunk 2077 situation
On June 3, we finally got to see The Witcher 4 up close, albeit in the form of a vertical slice and a tech demo that demonstrates its use of the latest Unreal Engine 5. What CDPR presented was some of the most awesome and most advanced gameplay to date—but given past experiences, I'd rather be cautious than optimistic. During State of the Unreal, CD Projekt Red gave a live presentation of The Witcher 4's technical capabilities, utilizing the latest and greatest version of Unreal Engine 5 to demonstrate just how far we've come. From realistic movement, physics, environments, simulated LOD that looks great from any distance, and some of the most interactive and dynamic NPCs ever shown on screen, CDPR certainly is going all out on this title. They manage this, too, while keeping the game running at a smooth 60 fps on the base PS5, all the while having ray tracing turned, a fact even more impressive than the tech demo itself. The developers also retained the charming and recognizable art direction inaugurated by the previous game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, though with different cultural and societal characteristics as we are no longer in Old Temeria, but far up north in the forested, snowy Kovir that carries heavy inspirations from trade principalities of Baltic Russia. Each part of the world shown to us felt alive, responsive, and dynamic. But it remains to be seen how this will actually look in the real game. Image via IGN The world feels responsive, it looks good, and Ciri, the protagonist, interacts with the world, as do all the NPCs we saw, in an organic and direct manner. You bumped into a man carrying a bunch of apples? Well, he just dropped the crate and children are flocking like birds to peck away and steal what they can. Guards spit at you for being a filthy mutant, and merchants convince passers-by that their piece of fish is the best in town in natural exchanges. The world, simply put, is alive. However, CDPR soon pointed out that this is not, in fact, part of The Witcher 4 proper. It's a specialized tech demo and a vertical slice that serves to showcase the various new and existing Unreal Engine technologies utilized in the company's new game. While it is a sneak peek of what may come, it's still a prepared, baked, and decorative showcase, not the actual game. And this immediately awoke my fears, built on past experiences with CDPR's demos and showcases, that always somehow wound up being radically different than the actual game. Think of 2014's E3 (RIP) demonstration of The Witcher 3. We were given realistic lighting, volumetric smoke and clouds, realistic water simulation, better graphics, almost an entirely different environmental engine, and so much more, that made The Witcher 3 look as one of the best games ever conceived. Novigrad's textures would not look the way they did in that 2014 promo until 2022, when the Next Gen update for The Witcher 3 came out, while other systems I mentioned above are still absent from the game, no matter how hard modders tried to make up for them. Demos of Cyberpunk 2077 promised a lot more than what was delivered, and I hope The Witcher 4 does not share the same fate. Image via CDPR Downgrades in CDPR titles do not end there, however. Back in 2018, we saw the first extended demo of Cyberpunk 2077, a game so ambitious it ended up being its undoing (at least initially). Crowd simulations, graphics, combat, and the now infamous wall climbing mechanics were all there in the demos and showreels, but never in the actual game. What's worse, we even saw a lot of story and RPG elements that promised endless freedom of choice and consequence, but what we received was a mostly linear game where lifestyles only changed the intro and some dialogue choices, if that. Cyberpunk 2077's high ambitions, nowhere near the stuff we saw in this new demo, also led to its incredibly poor launch, delisting from the PlayStation store, and countless refunds, controversies, and years of poor performance and reputation. It took the company until patch 2.0, several years down the line, to fix what they could, but the game's advertised depth remained absent, which could very well happen to The Witcher 4 if the company doesn't play its cards right this time around. Thankfully, CDPR, having learned from its own past mistakes, has clearly defined what it showed as a demo and nothing else, but the fact remains that the company showed it knowing full well people would be sold on it as soon as they saw it. After all, what we saw today, though impressive and beyond anything we are used to in games, is marketing and an effort to hype up the upcoming title. And hype is at an all-time high, with CDPR not having a lot of wiggle room left in the trust department to disappoint once again. And to avoid being disappointed for the third time, let us instead be cautious. I will certainly curb my excitement for the game, even though The Witcher 3 is my favorite title of all time.
On June 3, we finally got to see The Witcher 4 up close, albeit in the form of a vertical slice and a tech demo that demonstrates its use of the latest Unreal Engine 5. What CDPR presented was some of the most awesome and most advanced gameplay to date—but given past experiences, I'd rather be cautious than optimistic.
During State of the Unreal, CD Projekt Red gave a live presentation of The Witcher 4's technical capabilities, utilizing the latest and greatest version of Unreal Engine 5 to demonstrate just how far we've come. From realistic movement, physics, environments, simulated LOD that looks great from any distance, and some of the most interactive and dynamic NPCs ever shown on screen, CDPR certainly is going all out on this title.
They manage this, too, while keeping the game running at a smooth 60 fps on the base PS5, all the while having ray tracing turned, a fact even more impressive than the tech demo itself. The developers also retained the charming and recognizable art direction inaugurated by the previous game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, though with different cultural and societal characteristics as we are no longer in Old Temeria, but far up north in the forested, snowy Kovir that carries heavy inspirations from trade principalities of Baltic Russia.
The world feels responsive, it looks good, and Ciri, the protagonist, interacts with the world, as do all the NPCs we saw, in an organic and direct manner. You bumped into a man carrying a bunch of apples? Well, he just dropped the crate and children are flocking like birds to peck away and steal what they can. Guards spit at you for being a filthy mutant, and merchants convince passers-by that their piece of fish is the best in town in natural exchanges. The world, simply put, is alive.
However, CDPR soon pointed out that this is not, in fact, part of The Witcher 4 proper. It's a specialized tech demo and a vertical slice that serves to showcase the various new and existing Unreal Engine technologies utilized in the company's new game. While it is a sneak peek of what may come, it's still a prepared, baked, and decorative showcase, not the actual game. And this immediately awoke my fears, built on past experiences with CDPR's demos and showcases, that always somehow wound up being radically different than the actual game.
Think of 2014's E3 (RIP) demonstration of The Witcher 3. We were given realistic lighting, volumetric smoke and clouds, realistic water simulation, better graphics, almost an entirely different environmental engine, and so much more, that made The Witcher 3 look as one of the best games ever conceived. Novigrad's textures would not look the way they did in that 2014 promo until 2022, when the Next Gen update for The Witcher 3 came out, while other systems I mentioned above are still absent from the game, no matter how hard modders tried to make up for them.
Downgrades in CDPR titles do not end there, however. Back in 2018, we saw the first extended demo of Cyberpunk 2077, a game so ambitious it ended up being its undoing (at least initially). Crowd simulations, graphics, combat, and the now infamous wall climbing mechanics were all there in the demos and showreels, but never in the actual game. What's worse, we even saw a lot of story and RPG elements that promised endless freedom of choice and consequence, but what we received was a mostly linear game where lifestyles only changed the intro and some dialogue choices, if that.
Cyberpunk 2077's high ambitions, nowhere near the stuff we saw in this new demo, also led to its incredibly poor launch, delisting from the PlayStation store, and countless refunds, controversies, and years of poor performance and reputation. It took the company until patch 2.0, several years down the line, to fix what they could, but the game's advertised depth remained absent, which could very well happen to The Witcher 4 if the company doesn't play its cards right this time around.
Thankfully, CDPR, having learned from its own past mistakes, has clearly defined what it showed as a demo and nothing else, but the fact remains that the company showed it knowing full well people would be sold on it as soon as they saw it. After all, what we saw today, though impressive and beyond anything we are used to in games, is marketing and an effort to hype up the upcoming title. And hype is at an all-time high, with CDPR not having a lot of wiggle room left in the trust department to disappoint once again.
And to avoid being disappointed for the third time, let us instead be cautious. I will certainly curb my excitement for the game, even though The Witcher 3 is my favorite title of all time. After all, downgrades and marketing have fooled me enough times as is, and I would rather be satisfied with whatever CDPR delivers, than overestimate and expect that which, if the past is anything to go by, often never comes.
What do you think? Will The Witcher 4 manage to deliver on the ambitions it flaunted today? Let us know below.
The post Witcher 4’s Unreal Engine demo looks promising—but I fear a repeat of a Cyberpunk 2077 situation appeared first on Destructoid.
