New 'The Witcher 4' Trailer: Pre-Rendered on an 'Unannounced' NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU

Witcher 4's first trailer debuted at the 2024 Game Awards — a six-minute cinema-quality thriller. It's a teaser for a game that "aims to be the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date," according to an announcement from CD Projekt Red. The trailer is pre-rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU. Powered by the same tech that The Witcher IV is built on, using assets and models from the game itself, it aims to provide players with a cinematic look at the kind of experience the game is aspiring to provide.
The trailer shows "a remote village that has been terrorized for generations by a fearsome monster demanding human sacrifices..." their announcement notes. ("At the heart of the trailer is Ciri's perspective as an outsider to the village.") "Geralt will appear in the game, but we don't want to spoil his role precisely," CD Projekt Red told IGN.

Kotaku reminds fans there's also Netflix's animated movie The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep in February 2025 — plus the first new Witcher novel in over a decade (with an English translation) expected sometime next year as well...

Thanks to Slashdot reader jjslash for sharing the news.

Cautiously optimistic

[GeekWithAKnife]

They've learnt not to repeat Cyberpunk L's launch ever again, right?

Re:

[alvinrod]

CDPR has always had their games launch in a rough state, albeit Cyberpunk was the worst. People forget about that though because they're remembering the game after the patches, updates, and expansions. To some degree Cyberpunk has been rehabilitated in the same way and people are generally positive about it. If nothing else you can know that they're a company that will take the time to fix the problems in their games instead of abandoning them. I'd like to see them make a Cyberpunk sequel as the game has co

Re:

[alvinrod]

This is about the game series, not the television series. Completely different mediums and completely different companies.

Re:DoA

[Calydor]

So what you're saying is you do NOT want to play as a both badass and reasonably attractive female protagonist getting by with no other abilities than natural skill and wit in a world invaded by the supernatural?

Re: DoA

[ruemere]

Posting under influence makes you look bad.

The games take place years after official canon ends (with the exception of chronologically last story from Season of Storms).

Thank you.

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[F.Ultra]

How incel of you.

Re: DoA

[godrik]

You do understand that they literally write the canon? By definition, anything they write IS canon.

Pre-rendered?

[backslashdot]

How about showing some gameplay?

Re: Pre-rendered?

[ruemere]

It's likely at least two years from now, before it's ready for demoing. Thank you.

Re:Pre-rendered?

[thegarbz]

How about showing some gameplay?

Do you understand what an announcement trailer is for? There's these things that come much later called "gameplay trailers", and the reason they come out later is to give companies some time to actually develop a basic functioning game first.

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[backslashdot]

Yes I understand what it's "for". To hype something up, now how about you understand why cinematic trailers do nothing to inform me (or anyone else) what actual gameplay is like. If they have time to construct a cinematic trailer, they have time to show some short clips/examples of what they expect gameplay to actually look like.

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[thegarbz]

So you're upset that you got hyped up too early?

If they have time to construct a cinematic trailer, they have time to show some short clips/examples of what they expect gameplay to actually look like.

In many if not most cases, gameplay trailers even ones within the same year of release end up looking quite different to the game. More so when mocked up. More so the further out from release the trailer is. You'll just be firing off a different (and in my opinion far more justified) complaint if they released a gameplay trailer now.

As yet there is no release date. It isn't a year out. It may not even be 2 years with several analysts expecting a 2027 release.

Re: Woke game with masculine GIRL-BOSS. BOYCOTT it

[Fons_de_spons]

There is a song in Belgium. A little bit gay is quite Okay! Sing it from time to time. It will make you happy and feel warm inside. Cheers!

Re: Woke game with masculine GIRL-BOSS. BOYCOTT it

[ruemere]

No, it hasn't. Thank you.

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[quonset]

You said the magic word. Pay the price [imgur.com].

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[Calydor]

So they replace the big buff handsome guy with a girl ... and that makes it gay?

Guys, is liking women gay?

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[fleeped]

I like the emphasis on fugly. "If I have to play a girl, I should at least be able to drool at her!"

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[F.Ultra]

if you had bothered to play Witcher 3 then you would have known that Ciri was the next protagonist.

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[Calydor]

Maybe not 'known', but at least 'suspected she could be'. I thought there'd be more of a spinoff to focus on her, not the next installment in the series.

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[F.Ultra]

it was clearly spelled out at the end of Witcher 3 that Geralt was out and Ciri was the next Witcher, something she also longed for the entire series.

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[Calydor]

I'll admit to not remembering that specific bit of dialogue, but it has been many years at this point.

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[F.Ultra]

Ofc there are always differences of opinion (and the game have some 36 different endings) but after the end in the Blood & Wine expansion most in the community was convinced back in 2016 that the next game would be focused on Ciri and that Geralt would be retired at the Corvo Bianco vineyard together with Jennifer. He was constantly complaining that he was too old and tired of the Witcher life.

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[thegarbz]

it was clearly spelled out at the end of Witcher 3 that Geralt was out and Ciri was the next Witcher, something she also longed for the entire series.

Actually it was clearly spelled out at the end of Witcher 3 that Ciri is dead. That's the thing about games, they have multiple different endings depending on how you play.

As for Ciri being "the next" Witcher, no, the only thing which was spelled out was that Ciri was "a Witcher". In fact she specifically ended up getting her own swords, and her own medallion, in no way implying that Geralt will cease being "the Witcher".

I'm looking forward to playing as Ciri going forward and am sick of the "I don't like f

Re: Woke game with masculine GIRL-BOSS. BOYCOTT it

[godrik]

Do you need directions to the door of the closet?

Re: Woke game with masculine GIRL-BOSS. BOYCOTT it

[vbdasc]

Epic's Unreal had a girl protagonist in 1998 and yes, she was... aesthetically challenged. Nobody accused the game of being "woke" (if this word even existed in 1998) and it was a great success.

Your rant is stupid. Even orange-loving guys will play the game without any reservations

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[narcc]

Witcher 4 has been wokified.

Great! Get woke or go broke!

Re: Woke game with masculine GIRL-BOSS. BOYCOTT it

[EldoranDark]

I've checked your other comments. Hundreds of them. If there was one that wasn't about DEI or didn't mention something woke, it was sure hard to find. Get a hobby perhaps?

Shadows suck...why do games have to be so dark?

[Somervillain]

OK, I get that the technology to render massive dynamic range on modern hardware is new(ish), but I fucking hate the new trend to make everything so difficult to see and dark. I want to unwind and enjoy a good game...I want to see all the nice details...in that trailer, everything is so dark and it's so difficult to see much of anything...and even adjusting the brightness just blows out everything and it' still hard to see. There's a similar phenomena with Disney+....maybe it looks good when you have a 10

What difference does it make

[EldoranDark]

What difference does it make what it was pre-rendered on? Rtx 5090? 3dfx Voodoo3? Sentient Potato? Are they claiming it's real time, or is this what you get after six hours per frame?