CD Projekt Red has finally put a year next to The Witcher 4. Joint CEO Michał Nowakowski says the Ciri-led RPG is targeting a 2028 release window, while more than 500 developers are now working on the project.
Nowakowski shared the window in a pre-Gamescom message on August 24. The Witcher 4 itself will not be shown at Gamescom 2026; CD Projekt Red is using the event to spotlight The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past, the new Geralt expansion scheduled for 2027.
CD Projekt Red gives The Witcher 4 its first public year
The studio is still stopping short of an exact launch date. Nowakowski said CD Projekt Red is not ready to name one, describing 2028 as the current release window rather than a fixed day or month.
The Witcher 4, previously developed under the Polaris codename, entered full-scale production in November 2024 after completing pre-production. CD Projekt Red’s 2024 recap also confirmed Ciri as the protagonist of the first game in its new Witcher saga.
The project has therefore moved well beyond its earlier planning phase, but CD Projekt Red has not published an internal milestone schedule or narrowed the launch beyond the year. The 2028 timing remains the studio’s current plan rather than a locked release date.
More than 500 developers are working on Ciri’s new saga
Nowakowski says the team has grown beyond 500 developers. CD Projekt Red describes The Witcher 4 as its biggest and most ambitious game to date, built around a large open world, action-focused gameplay and a story led by Ciri. Those descriptions remain broad production goals; the August message does not attach new mechanics or systems to them.
Ciri’s lead role was established with the game’s cinematic reveal in December 2024. CD Projekt Red has continued to frame this entry as the opening chapter of a new Witcher saga rather than another Geralt-led sequel. The company’s 2024 recap places that reveal after the project had already moved into full-scale production.
This week’s message does not add a new gameplay demonstration or reveal another system. Its focus is production scale and timing: a 500-plus-person development team, Ciri at the center of the project and 2028 as the first public year attached to the game.
Cyberpunk 2077 changed how CD Projekt builds for consoles
The Witcher 4 is already being kept operational across its target platforms during production. Joint CEO Michał Nowakowski told Game Developer that current builds can be launched on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, describing a workflow that differs from Cyberpunk 2077’s more PC-led development.
Platform performance is now part of the milestone process rather than a problem reserved for the end of production. If one target platform falls behind the team’s expectations, CD Projekt can hold the milestone instead of carrying that gap forward. It is an early production safeguard rather than a performance target, but it shows how directly the Cyberpunk 2077 launch has shaped development of Ciri’s next game.
The Witcher 4 skips Gamescom 2026
CD Projekt Red is going to Gamescom, but not with a new Witcher 4 presentation. Nowakowski said the sequel will not be shown at the event, so the development update stands on its own rather than accompanying another trailer or technology showcase.
The company is putting its Gamescom attention on Songs of the Past instead. CD Projekt Red says the Witcher 3 expansion is already at an advanced stage of development and will receive its first full presentation at the show, including more of its story and new content.
The split gives the two projects different places in the current Witcher lineup. Songs of the Past is the nearer release and the focus of this year’s event, while The Witcher 4 remains the longer-term mainline project.
Geralt returns first with Songs of the Past
Songs of the Past is due in 2027. CD Projekt Red calls it a full-fledged Witcher 3 expansion, co-developed with Fool’s Theory, and says Geralt will return for another adventure more than a decade after The Witcher 3 launched.
When Songs of the Past was announced in May, Nowakowski described it as a return to Geralt before CD Projekt Red passes the lead role to Ciri in The Witcher 4. The August update now puts those projects into a simple order: Geralt returns in 2027, and Ciri’s next mainline game is currently planned around a 2028 window.
CD Projekt Red still has not given The Witcher 4 an exact release date. It has, however, made the production picture much more concrete: more than 500 developers are on the project, full-scale development has been underway since late 2024, and the studio has publicly attached 2028 to the start of Ciri’s saga. The next public milestone has not been announced.
Sources: CD PROJEKT — August 24 Witcher update; CD PROJEKT — 2024 production recap; CD PROJEKT — Q1 2026 and Songs of the Past update; Game Developer — Michał Nowakowski interview.