One thing that caught my attention about The Witcher 4 recently is how seriously CD Projekt Red seems to be treating console performance this time around.
Apparently, the team has a system in place where development can basically be put on hold if the game fails its performance targets on any of the supported consoles. Instead of continuing to add new features and hoping the technical problems get sorted out later, they’ll stop and deal with the issue first.
That sounds like a pretty direct response to what happened with Cyberpunk 2077.
Back then, CDPR focused heavily on the PC version and seems to have underestimated just how difficult it would be to get everything running properly on older consoles. We all know how that turned out.
The interesting part is that The Witcher 4 is already running on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S during development. So they’re apparently testing the different versions much earlier instead of leaving console optimization until near the end.
Personally, I think this is probably the right approach. I’d much rather wait another few months for a game that’s properly optimized than get another huge RPG that needs months of patches after launch.
The Witcher 4 is currently targeting 2028, so there’s still plenty of time for things to change.
Do you think CDPR has actually learned from Cyberpunk 2077, or is this just something every developer says during development before the real problems show up?