CD Projekt RED announces The Witcher Remake, being built with Unreal Engine 5

The original adventure is being rebuilt in partnership with a team called Fool’s Theory.

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What you need to know

What you need to know

CD Projekt RED is going back to where it first began with The Witcher games.CD Projekt REDsharedon Wednesday that the previously-revealed project codenamed Canis Majoris is in fact The Witcher Remake. This remake is being developed using Unreal Engine 5, and is being created in partnership with Fool’s Theory, a Polish studio that has hired several staff that previously worked at CD Projekt RED.

The Witcher was first released in 2007 on PC. While it found critical and commercial success, the somewhat rythm-based combat is widely considered to have not aged well, and the game’s visuals are naturally well behind those of the studio’s later games in the series, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which were released in 2011 and 2015, respectively.

While CD Projekt RED planned a console port of the first game that was titled The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, plans for this port fell through after CD Projekt RED fell out with planned porting team Widescreen Games, a team which went bankrupt and dissolved in 2009.

“Collaborating with Fool’s Theory on the project is just as exciting, as some of the people there have been previously involved in The Witcher games," said Adam Badowski, head of CD Projekt RED. “They know the source material well, they know how much gamers have been looking forward to seeing the remake happen, and they know how to make incredible and ambitious games. And although it will take some time before we’re ready to share more about and from the game, I know it’ll be worth the wait.”

CD Projekt RED recently shared thecodenames and details of multiple projectsthat are in development. In addition to Canis Majoris, other Witcher projects include a new trilogy that’s beginning with thenext Witcher game— codenamed Polaris — which is also being developed using Unreal Engine 5.

Finally, CD Projekt RED’s Boston studio The Molasses Flood is working on a game codenamed Sirius, which will introduce some form of multiplayer to the franchise.

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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.