The star of the Epic Games event, The Witcher 4, is unfortunately still a long way off.
From June 2 to 5, Epic Games celebrated its famous graphics engine - the Unreal Engine - at an event aptly named Unreal Fest 2025. An event which, of course, emphasized the power of the creative tool and highlighted each of its facets through numerous workshops, keynotes and other sessions presented by Epic Games developers, but also by many of the company's partners. Over the three days, Orlando, Florida became the center of Unreal Engine creation.
At the start of the event, Epic Games presented a two-hour " State of Unreal 2025 ", a vast overview of the graphics engine, its strengths and its potential. From the 30th minute onwards, the presentation took on an even more interesting accent for all gamers, as studio CD Projekt RED arrived to present its most important project, the eagerly-awaited The Witcher 4. So, after a short cinematic introducing the adventure's new heroine - Ciri, a sort of protégé of the previous main character, Geralt de Riv - we were treated to a more technical demonstration.
Impressive in more ways than one, this demonstration is not a gameplay sequence - let's be very clear on this point. Rather, it should be seen as a kind of declaration of intent, CD Projekt RED's goal, and that goal is an impressive one. Of course, the animations are exceptional, from Ciri's face to those of her horse, Kelpie, but it's perhaps the impression of life that emerges from the passage through Valdrest that's most remarkable: light effects, animation of the smallest pennant and numerous non-player characters all contribute to creating an atmosphere that's barely believable.
After picking up our jaws, however, we're left with two questions: despite CD Projekt RED's comments that the game is designed to run at 60 frames per second on a simple PlayStation 5... we find it hard to believe them, and we can't imagine that it will ever be at this level of quality! The second question concerns the game's release date. Naturally, we can't wait to see it land, but we'll have to be patient: the Polish studio hasn't given any details on this subject, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it won't probably be released before 2027.
