The Witcher 4 Targets 2028, CD Projekt Red Confirms in Gamescom Development Update
CD Projekt Red is aiming to release The Witcher 4 in 2028, the studio's joint-CEO Michal Nowakowski confirmed in a development-update video posted ahead of Gamescom Eurogamer.
The date narrows a window that had been drifting for over a year. In March 2025, CD Projekt said the game would not arrive until sometime in 2027 at the soonest, according to PC Gamer. Finance chief Piotr Nielubowicz had previously told Reuters that release was expected after 2026. Nowakowski's 2028 target is the most specific date the studio has given.
More than 500 developers are now working on the project, according to Eurogamer. Nowakowski described it as CD Projekt Red's "biggest, boldest, and most ambitious game to date" — the studio's own characterisation, not an independent assessment. The team is building what it calls "a brand new saga," featuring a large open world, action-driven combat, and a story-focused campaign.
Ciri will be the protagonist. She takes over from Geralt of Rivia, who carried the original Witcher trilogy that began in 2007 and peaked with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in 2015 — a game widely credited with cementing the series' commercial and critical reputation.
Geralt is not done yet, though. The Witcher 3 is getting a new expansion titled "Songs of the Past," and it will star Geralt rather than Ciri. That expansion, announced by CD Projekt, gives longtime fans a return to the character they know while the main series moves forward.
For a studio with CD Projekt Red's history, a concrete target year matters. The company has seen its schedules slip before: in April 2022, it took the next-generation version of The Witcher 3 back in-house and postponed its release indefinitely, as Reuters reported at the time. That version eventually shipped, but the delay was a reminder that dates in game development move.
A 2028 window puts The Witcher 4 roughly five years after the studio first signalled a new entry in the series. For comparison, the gap between The Witcher 2 (2011) and The Witcher 3 (2015) was four years. The jump to the next mainline game will be longer, and CD Projekt Red is staffing accordingly — 500-plus developers is among the largest single-project teams in the studio's history.
What that means for players is a wait measured in years, not months. But the studio has now put a stake in the ground, and the next milestone to watch is whether 2028 holds.
