In March, acclaimed video game developer CD Projekt Red announced they were hard at work on a new game in The Witcher franchisee. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt won tons of awards and captivated millions of fans around the world; it was also instrumental in bringing Andrzej Sapkowski’s witcher novels to the attention of a whole new generation of readers. It’s not too hard to say that without CD Projekt Red’s video game series, we might never… The Witcher show on Netflix.
That is, it wasn’t a big surprise when CD Projekt Red announced they were working on a sequel. The Witcher 3 served as the capstone to the story of Geralt of Rivia, seeing him retreat to the magical land of Toussaint after a life of monster kills. For the upcoming fourth game in the franchise, the studio will take a slightly different approach.
We still don’t know much about the new game, which we are going to mention The Witcher 4 from now on. It almost certainly won’t focus on Geralt as the main character; based on early marketing images, it will feature a new School of the Lynx branch of Witchers. It is also made with the Unreal Engine, a first for CD Projekt Red, which was previously developed witcher games with their own software engine.
As it turns out, The Witcher 4 may be just the beginning. According to Adam Kiciński, CEO of CD Projekt, the developer is already considering making several new games on the mainland. “We said there would be a new saga. We have more than one in mind,” Kiciński said during a talk about financial income this week PC gamer. “The first saga was three games, so now we’re thinking about more than one game. But we are in pre-production of the first game from the second witcher legend.”
It’s still early – the fact that The Witcher 4 is only in pre-production, meaning the actual building of the game has yet to really begin. But it’s still exciting to know that CD Projekt is thinking long-term about this next chapter of The Witcher legend. The second and third games featured systems where certain story elements and player choices were carried over from one title to another, similar to: Mass effect. Hopefully by taking a more long-term approach for the next generation of witcher titles, CD Projekt can make those aspects even more robust.
Cyberpunk 2077 Expansion Announced
The Witcher isn’t the only CD Projekt Red game to get a boost lately. The developer finally announced the highly anticipated expansion for its other big game, Cyberpunk 2077. On a recent episode of Night City Wirea youtube show about cyberpunkthe expansion was announced along with a range of other new information.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty will feature a new cast of characters who will cross V in Night City. The first teaser trailer features an ominous voiceover from V promising to serve the “New United States of America,” while Keanu Reeves’ rocker rebel Johnny Silverhand mutters that taking the oath was a “bad idea.” Reeves confirmed that he will return to voice Johnny for the expansion.
Phantom Liberty is slated for release in 2023 on PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X|S and Stadia. Notably, it doesn’t look like this expansion will be released on previous-generation platforms like PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, despite the mainline Cyberpunk 2077 game is available to them. Not unheard of, but worth mentioning if you’re one of the millions of people playing cyberpunk on those systems.
Beyond the Phantom Liberty announcement, a new patch for Cyberpunk 2077 went live this week and introduced a ton of items from the coming Cyberpunk: Edge Runners anime from Studio Trigger, which premieres on Netflix next week. Patch 1.6 allows players to purchase the jacket worn by the anime’s main character, David Martinez, as well as other items. It also brings with it some much-requested quality-of-life updates to the game, including a transmogrification system (aka changing the look of your clothes), cross-platform progression, and a roach race arcade minigame.
Cyberpunk: Edge Runners premieres on Netflix on September 13.
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