The next installment of The Witcher has been officially confirmed to be in development from CD Projekt RED. The other portion of this news that's fascinating is the studio has revealed it will not be using their REDEngine for this next installment, but stated that a working relationship has been formed with Epic Games to utilize the new Unreal Engine 5 for production. The details that are available have been stated on CD Projekt RED's official website.

"This is an exciting moment as we’re moving from REDengine to Unreal Engine 5, beginning a multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games. It covers not only licensing, but technical development of Unreal Engine 5, as well as potential future versions of Unreal Engine, where relevant. We’ll closely collaborate with Epic Games’ developers with the primary goal being to help tailor the engine for open-world experiences."

https://t.co/XtbfqscMWr pic.twitter.com/eK6ZIbfLRa

— The Witcher (@witchergame) March 21, 2022

There's currently no details about the game's story or a release date window, likely wise, considering how the delays Cyberpunk 2077's development cycle went. Speaking of, REDEngine will still be used for the future roadmap for Cyberpunk's expansions. 

CD Projekt RED earned a lot of good will from the gaming community following the success of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, earning the 2015 Game of the Year honors. Cyberpunk 2077 was teased roughly around the same time of Witcher III's release, but likely due to the underpowered state of the eighth generation consoles, lead to the first of many setbacks leading up to its release.

Epic Games, developers of Fortnite and Rocket League, spent the better part of 2021 embroiled in a settlement with Apple over in-app purchases in Fortnite. A later suit was filed by Epic Games with Google regarding the Google Play Store for the same reasons. epic Games owns Unreal Engine, one of the more viable proprietary game engines of the modern era.