The Witcher 1’s Remake is currently on hold

The Witcher 1’s Remake is currently on hold as The Witcher 4 takes priority

It looks like gamers will need to wait longer than expected for The Witcher 1’s planned remake. CD Projekt Red has confirmed that the project has been halted, but not cancelled. Right now, The Witcher 4 is taking priority, and The Witcher 1’s remake will be built using its foundations.

CD Projekt Red is working with Fool’s Theory on several projects. They are primarily working on The Witcher 3’s upcoming Songs of the Past expansion, and have a smaller team supporting The Witcher 4’s development.

Why is The Witcher 1’s Remake paused?

The Witcher 1’s Remake will be built on the technological foundation of The Witcher 4. That means Fool’s Theory needs the assets, tools, and pipelines used to create The Witcher 4. Right now, their efforts are better spent on The Witcher 4, where they can accelerate the game’s development. Once the game passes a certain development threshold, the remake can continue.

Instead of producing both games in parallel and possibly using different solutions to tackle the same problems, CD Projekt Red has decided to make one project dependent on the other. This prevents wasted time/development effort and lays the groundwork for more efficient development of the remake. Both projects will have similar technological dependencies and build off each other.

Fool’s Theory team is focused mainly on the development of Witcher 3: Songs of the Past, while a relatively small part of their team is supporting the development of The Witcher 4. As we have previously announced, the development on The Witcher Remake has been temporarily integrated with The Witcher 4 due to production process dependencies. As The Witcher Remake will be built on the foundation laid by The Witcher 4, we need to have the necessary assets, tools, and pipelines ready for efficient development.

– CD Projekt Red to Gamespot

Gamers can expect a lot of new The Witcher content in the future

This month, The Witcher 3 Remastered will be released, and in 2027 the game’s Songs of the Past DLC will be released. The Witcher 4 is due to release in 2028. After that, gamers can look forward to Fool’s Theory’s The Witcher Remake.

CD Projekt Red aims to make its game development pipeline more efficient. If the studio can give its new games a similar technological foundation, it can spend more time making and releasing content, and less time rebuilding everything from the ground up. This is part of the reason why CD Projekt Red now uses Unreal Engine 5.

Join the discussion on CD Projekt Red’s development plans for The Witcher franchise on the OC3D Forums.