The Witcher 4 trailer debuts: rendered on Nvidia RTX 5000-series GPU and Unreal Engine 5

[midian182]

What just happened? We were promised some "Holy s**t!" moments at last night's Game Awards, and it delivered. The biggest surprise was the six-minute-long trailer for The Witcher 4. Cinematic trailers don't tend to reveal too much about what the final game will be like, but the interesting thing here is that clip was rendered on an unannounced Nvidia GPU, rumored to be the RTX 5090.

We've known for a while now that CD Projekt Red is in full production of The Witcher 4, but the game is still a very long way off – few people expected to see a trailer at the Game Awards.

The video confirms that Ciri will be the protagonist in the next entry in the long-running series. "We believe that Ciri deserves it," game director Sebastian Kalemba said. "In this game we want to explore what it means to truly become a witcher by following Ciri on her Path. This trailer is a taste of both that, and just how dark and grounded the world of The Witcher can be."

Ciri looks at least a decade older in the new game. Geralt fans needn't worry, though: the distinctive voice of actor Doug Cockle can be heard at the end of the trailer.

Something else that has excited people is the piece of text at the bottom of the screen that appears at the start. It states that the trailer is rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU – CD Projekt Red announced in 2022 that it would transition from its proprietary REDengine to Unreal Engine 5 for future projects.

We're only a few weeks away from the start of CES 2025, where Nvidia has pretty much confirmed it will be unveiling the new Blackwell consumer graphics cards, the RTX 5000 series.

The RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are expected to be the first cards to arrive. Rumors claim the Witcher 4 trailer was rendered using the flagship RTX 5090.

CD Projekt Red also confirmed that The Witcher 4 will be a single-player game and the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher title to date.

Ahead of the event taking place, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier talked about announcements at the Game Awards that would make fans say "holy s**t!" He added that there will be trailers for games that won't be out until 2026 or later, so one can assume he's talking about The Witcher 4 in this case.

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The Witcher 4 trailer debuts: rendered on Nvidia RTX 5000-series GPU and Unreal Engine 5

 

[Felusy]

Ah, so I will be playing W4 on RTX 6000 series or UDNA

 

[Atmajaya2020]

And I need to upgrade my whole system just to play it..

 

[Felusy]

And I need to upgrade my whole system just to play it..

Why? PC gaming has never been easier. Ultra settings often look worse than Medium too. Why? Because Ultra forces alot of garbage like Motion Blur, Bloom, DoF, too much fog and just strange crap in general that blurs visibility.

I max textures, AF to x16 and then adjust everything else. End-result is often alot of fps gained with a much cleaner image.

 

[Jarenien]

And I need to upgrade my whole system just to play it..

Boohoo?

 

[R00sT3R]

Ah, so I will be playing W4 on RTX 6000 series or UDNA

Good point, actually.

People looking at this thinking they must get a 5090 to play it, forgetting the earliest, and it's being (very) optimistic, this game will launch is likely 2yrs from now, right about the time the 60xx series is about to be released.

 

[DanteSmith]

They should have kept it in their own engine, UE5 will just turn the game into a stutter fest.

 

[redgarl]

They should have kept it in their own engine, UE5 will just turn the game into a stutter fest.

RED engine, as impressive it was, was the reason why Cyberpunk launched in the state it launched. People from the industry were not able to work on RED directly since most were trained on Unreal Engine. It add complexity to fixing bugs and issues. CDPR lost a big part of their valuation when it happened. The last thing they want is a repeat of this.

Also, rumors are saying this will be a PC game first and ported to console later. All good news to me.

The game will release in 3-4 years, so problems with UE5 will be fixed by then and CDPR is also using a customized UE5.

 

[DanteSmith]

RED engine, as impressive it was, was the reason why Cyberpunk launched in the state it launched. People from the industry were not able to work on RED directly since most were trained on Unreal Engine. It add complexity to fixing bugs and issues. CDPR lost a big part of their valuation when it happened. The last thing they want is a repeat of this.

Also, rumors are saying this will be a PC game first and ported to console later. All good news to me.

The game will release in 3-4 years, so problems with UE5 will be fixed by then and CDPR is also using a customized UE5.

Nope. I'm confident that Cyberpunk on UE5 would suffer from significantly lower performance. The "developers" are sacrificing proper optimization and high-quality graphics for the sake of saving development time and reducing costs. However, considering they're not a small, underfunded indie studio, this compromise ultimately degrades the product's quality and limits its potential reach unnecessarily.

Take Rockstar, for instance, are they using UE for GTA VI? No. They understand that investing time and resources into their proprietary engine allows them to deliver a more polished and well-rounded experience. Ultimately this translates into profit.

 

[airbornex]

CD Projekt Red: "We’re making the most immersive game ever."
Me... preparing to spend 90% of it petting Roach and getting stuck on a rock while admiring RTX 5090 reflections.

 

[noblody]

Witcher 3 ran great, Cyberpunk was nice and ran ok on my GPU, granted, I wasn't an early adopter. The rendering looks stunning, but it is only a movie. Will the game run smooth? Using UE5 doesn't inspire much confidence. Will they even be able to fix the issues that stem from the engine itself? If they customize UE5, will they be able to upgrade it to newer versions that maybe fixes some of the performance issues? Well, they have some experience and I hope they make the best decision rather than finding another way of screwing the early adopters.

 

[Kotters]

Well that wasn't Half Life 3.

 

[BigBurkeyBoy]

This reminds me of Doom 3 being showcased with the GeForce 3 and people clamoring to get one after the initial tech demos. By the time Doom 3 came out, we were on the Geforce FX 6000 series and the GeForce 3 struggled to run the game.

Also keep in mind, your PC Hardware doesn't suddenly become obsolete and non-functional when a new GPU releases as much as Nvidia would have you believe. All of your current hardware is still fully capable of playing games. Don't buy into the cyclical hype of getting a new GPU each generation.

 

[HardwareHunt365]

CDPR will once again push the fidelity of graphics further than you ever imagine possible! Thank you Nvidia for once again working closely with CDPR (and vice versa) to bring this vision to life. Absolutely stoked to see more at CES 2025!

 

[Sovietrebel]

Where's the preorder button!? I will gladly jump on the RX5000 or 6000 bandwagon for the witcher!

 

[godrilla]

Ah, so I will be playing W4 on RTX 6000 series or UDNA

The trailer didn't show anything ground braking that the current 2 year old rtx 4080 or 4090 shouldn't be able to handle but they decided to include running on a announced rtx gpu. Oh wait it's using Unreal engine brute forced approach to gaming that is enabling this shyteshow!

 

[Sovietrebel]

The trailer didn't show anything ground braking that the current 2 year old rtx 4080 or 4090 shouldn't be able to handle but they decided to include running on a announced rtx gpu. Oh wait it's using Unreal engine brute forced approach to gaming that is enabling this shyteshow!

Actually the trailer didn't show anything at all! Just a super detailed cinematic which probably has been rendered at 1 frame per minute

 

[godrilla]

Actually the trailer didn't show anything at all! Just a super detailed cinematic which probably has been rendered at 1 frame per minute

That's even worse. I did notice hair works on the Father worse than the Witcher 3 on my 1080ti or whatever hardware I ran it at the time.

 

[Kirby1]

Weird to mention what GPU was used for a pre-rendered video since it really doesn't matter at all when it's pre-rendered.

This isn't a real time demo, it's just a typical CGI trailer with some weird marketing Nvidia hype tacked on.

 

[godrilla]

Actually the trailer didn't show anything at all! Just a super detailed cinematic which probably has been rendered at 1 frame per minute

That's even worse. I did notice hair works on the Father worse than the Witcher 3 on my 1080ti or whatever hardware I ran it at the time.
Here is Cyberpunk for reference running on 2 year old hardware.

 

[Kirby1]

Nope. I'm confident that Cyberpunk on UE5 would suffer from significantly lower performance. The "developers" are sacrificing proper optimization and high-quality graphics for the sake of saving development time and reducing costs. However, considering they're not a small, underfunded indie studio, this compromise ultimately degrades the product's quality and limits its potential reach unnecessarily.

Take Rockstar, for instance, are they using UE for GTA VI? No. They understand that investing time and resources into their proprietary engine allows them to deliver a more polished and well-rounded experience. Ultimately this translates into profit.

Nope.

Abandoning red engine was absolutely the right move. Red engine is still a disaster in 2077 with massive visual bugs.

 

[godrilla]

Nope.

Abandoning red engine was absolutely the right move. Red engine is still a disaster in 2077 with massive visual bugs.

Yep let's ignore all Unreal engine games that came so far that need enthusiasts level hardware to enjoy at playable stutter compilation stutters. I guess on paper and if we focus on the outlier. Sure. What's the message they are sending that says rendering on Unnounced rtx gpu? Vs running on available hardware? Hmm?

 

[Kirby1]

Yep let's ignore all Unreal engine games that came so far that need enthusiasts level hardware to enjoy at playable stutter compilation stutters. I guess on paper and if we focus on the outlier. Sure. What's the message they are sending that says rendering on Unnounced rtx gpu? Vs running on available hardware? Hmm?

UE5 has CPU bottlenecks thst are already mostly fixed, but no game has released on an up to date version of UE5. Stalker 2 runs on 5.1, but UE is on 5.5 now.

Also, the issues with UE5 are CPU bottlenecks, not GPU.

They're not sending any message at all because the trailer is pre-rendered CGI, it's not real time and it's not what the game will look like. It's meaningless.


Red Engine is an absolute embarrassment. 2077 still has so many glaringly obviously visual bugs that UE5 doesn't have at all.

 

[Kirby1]

Just a note, this game is no where near release. CP2077 got a pre-rendered trailer just like this literally a decade before the game came out. Don't read into it.

 

[MarcusNumb]

This is a really really good reason to upgrade my GPU xD At least I still have 2 or 3 more years to save money xD