Earlier this month,we all thought we were getting our first lookatThe Witcher 4’s gameplay.CD Projekt Redhad to step in and say it was just a tech demo, showing off what the team is playing around with as it works on the long-awaited sequel.
Since then, the devs have tried to get us to adjust our expectations. We’ve already heard that 60fps on console,especially Xbox Series S, isfar from guaranteed at this stage. And now, we’re being told not to expect the final game to look like the tech demo, as the visuals might take a hit too.
The Witcher 4 Might Look Quite Different From The Tech Demo
This comes from Jan Hermanowicz, engineering and production manager at CDPR, who discussed The Witcher 4’s tech demo withGamesRadar+.
“We took a lot of lessons from the Cyberpunk launch,” says Hermanowicz. “We’re not calling this gameplay, we’re not pretending that this is the actual game. It is a technological demo.”
This refers to how CDPR misrepresented the state ofCyberpunk 2077prior to its launch. Features that had been shown off in trailers and gameplay reveals were nowhere to be found, and across the board, the quality of the game had taken a hit by launch day. Now, Hermanowicz says that the team wants to be “extremely transparent”.
That involves admitting that what we saw in the demo is “not an actual game, or gameplay”. Furthermore, the final game might not use the assets that we saw in the demo, although they are assets that are being worked with right now.
On that note, we’re told that what we saw in both the reveal trailer during The Game Awards and the tech demo represents CDPR’s “current approach” with The Witcher 4. That might change, or it might not.
We won’t know for sure until we get closer to launch (whenever that ends up being) and CDPR has something to show off that is, hopefully, more indicative of the final game.
