Look, let's be honest about CDPR and their grand plans for The Witcher 4, currently slated for a 2028 launch. The studio insists they are not about to repeat the absolute shambles that was the launch of Cyberpunk 2077.

In a rather revealing chat with the folks over at Game Developer, CDPR's joint CEO Michal Nowakowski made it crystal clear that The Witcher 4 is being primed to run smoothly right out of the gate on current-gen hardware—that's PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, for those keeping count. The team is putting serious graft into optimization during the current development phase. This is essentially a public promise that they won't be revisiting the agonizing optimization nightmares that plagued Cyberpunk 2077 back in 2020, which famously focused heavily on PC before stumbling through console ports.

The CEO didn't shy away from admitting that the early days of Cyberpunk 2077 were bogged down by a cheeky dose of overconfidence from the dev team. Riding high on the successful multi-platform launch of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, CD Projekt Red put all their eggs in the PC basket to push graphical boundaries, completely losing the plot when it came to keeping console versions stable. Nowakowski noted that while they used to brush off missed development targets with a casual 'we'll fix it later' attitude, those days are well and truly behind them.

Meanwhile, in other CDPR news you might want to pop in your diary, The Witcher 3 Remaster is dropping on September 29, followed by the brand new expansion Songs of the Past in 2027. Best of luck to the team, mate.