Update: Not unsurprisingly, a representative from CDPR confirmed that this mention of The Witcher 4 was an accident. I can only assume that so many people have called Project Polaris The Witcher 4 out of necessity, with no official name to go on, that it's now gotten into the devs' heads too. Here's the full statement for clarity:
"This was actually a slip of the tongue. Polaris will be the first game in a new Witcher saga. The saga will consist of three games."
Original story follows...
CD Projekt Red has been talking up Project Polaris, known to most people as The Witcher 4, for several months, but it's never actually acknowledged its de facto title – until today, that is, when CEO Adam Kiciński finally joined us in calling this thing The Witcher 4.
During the Q&A portion of CDPR's latest earnings conference call, Kiciński discussed the implications of the studio's shift to Unreal Engine 5 in partnership with Epic Games. "We are preparing things on the pipeline side and toolset sides," he begins. "Some developers are still learning the technology, and at the same time, there are teams working together with Epic on those aspects that are needed for our open-world RPGs. For the first project, Polaris, it will, maybe not slow down, but it won't accelerate the process.
"But for the next projects, we assume that it should smoothen the production," he continues. "That was one of the reasons behind saying the strategy that we want to release three big Witcher games within six years, starting from the release of Polaris, which is Witcher 4."
Ahh, "Witcher 4." Music to my ears. I had some coworkers listen to this section just to make sure I didn't mishear Kiciński here, and I think we can finally agree that The Witcher 4 is indeed The Witcher 4.
That being said, this doesn't mean the game will actually be released under the title of The Witcher 4. More to the point, I'm willing to bet that this won't be the final name. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has a prominent subtitle, and with The Witcher 4 kicking off a new saga, it's sure to have its own motif. Even so, after some confusing semantics, it's just nice to see CDPR join us on Planet Sensible and acknowledge how this thing fits into the series overall.
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