The Witcher 4 Prioritizes Console-First Development; CDPR Says 60 FPS on Xbox Series S Will Be ‘Extremely Challenging’

CD Projekt RED has officially confirmed that The Witcher 4 is being developed with a console-first approach, aiming to deliver a cutting-edge experience built around current-generation hardware from the ground up. This major shift in strategy was discussed during a new interview conducted by Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia, who visited CD Projekt RED in Poland to delve into the tech behind the Unreal Engine 5-powered demo recently showcased at the State of Unreal 2025 event. You can watch the full interview here: YouTube – Digital Foundry Interview

Charles Tremblay, Vice President of Technology at CDPR, explained the studio’s revised approach: instead of scaling down from high-end PC builds as they’ve done in past projects, CD Projekt RED is now designing The Witcher 4 from the console level first—more specifically, targeting 60 frames per second on PlayStation 5 as a baseline.

“When we started the collaboration [with Epic], we had super high ambitions... We really want to be more of a console-first development. Then we worked with Unreal and saw the challenge to realize the ambition to make what we want—60 FPS on PS5. There would be work.”

This marks a pivotal departure from how the studio approached games like Cyberpunk 2077, which struggled during its initial release on older consoles due to optimization issues. Tremblay emphasized that The Witcher 4 will aim for a 60 FPS target from the outset, and while the current build is still a tech demo without implemented gameplay systems like combat, the studio has set a clear performance benchmark it hopes to meet.

However, things get much more complex when it comes to Microsoft's lower-end console, the Xbox Series S. Tremblay acknowledged the challenges:

“I will say that 60 FPS will definitely be extremely challenging on Xbox Series S. Let’s just say this is something that we need to figure out.”

Optimization work on Series S has not yet begun, indicating that CDPR still has a long development journey ahead before confirming performance targets for all platforms.

One of the central technological pillars of the game is the use of hardware-based Lumen ray tracing, an evolution over Unreal Engine’s former software-based solution. CDPR and Epic confirmed that the tech demo used this new rendering pipeline, underlining the high visual fidelity being targeted for the next Witcher title. While Epic views software Lumen as obsolete due to limitations, CDPR intends to scale visuals even higher on PC, though specific implementations are still to be determined.

With The Witcher 4 likely slated for a 2027 release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, the road ahead remains filled with technical hurdles—but also ambition. CD Projekt RED’s renewed focus on stability, performance, and next-gen-first development appears to be a direct response to past missteps and a step forward for the beloved franchise.

Are you optimistic about CD Projekt RED’s console-first strategy for The Witcher 4? How important is 60 FPS to your next-gen gaming experience? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.