CD Projekt SA has agreed a 15-year deal with Epic Games Inc. for the use and development of the latter company\u2019s Unreal Engine and is starting the partnership with the next entry in its popular The Witcher series.<\/p>\n
Warsaw-based CD Projekt\u00a0announced<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0on Monday that it\u2019s working on the next Witcher game and making the jump from its in-house REDengine to Epic\u2019s widely-used graphics system.<\/p>\n The company earned global acclaim for 2015\u2019s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which it followed with a jump from sword-and-sorcery fantasy to futuristic dystopia with 2020\u2019s Cyberpunk 2077.<\/p>\n Both were built using the REDengine, but Cyberpunk suffered from a series of graphical and gameplay glitches that spoiled the experience for early players.<\/p>\n Epic\u2019s Unreal Engine is one of the most widely-used game-making toolkits.<\/p>\n Its latest version, UE5, was showcased on Sony Group Corp.\u2019s PlayStation 5 and Sony\u00a0bought<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0a $250 million stake in the company in 2020.<\/p>\n The collaboration with CD Projekt includes \u201cfurther development and improvement of this engine in order to adapt it to the requirements of open-world games,\u201d according to a filing by the Polish company.<\/p>\n \u201cIf anyone can push the limits of the malleable Unreal Engine in open-world games, it\u2019s CD Projekt\u2019s engineers,\u201d said Bernstein analyst Matti Littunen.<\/p>\n The Witcher, originally a fantasy series written by Andrzej Sapkowski, was also adapted by Netflix Inc. in a successful live-action series starring Henry Cavill and recreating the look of its titular character from the game\u2019s design.<\/p>\n