Fans of The Witcher 4 are already worried about its release strategy after Grand Theft Auto 6 stirred up controversy earlier this week. An upcoming RPG by CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 4 follows a new protagonist – Geralt’s adoptive daughter, Ciri – and is set to feature a massive open world.
Although we’ve seen precious little of The Witcher 4 to date, and its release date is at least as far away as 2027, the upcoming sequel has already provoked a great deal of excitement and speculation among the series’ fan community. One new development for a completely different game, however, caused some pause among Witcher fans this week.
Preorders for Grand Theft Auto 6 began last week, with the game’s lack of a physical release causing some controversy. Even if you buy GTA 6 at a brick and mortar store, what you’ll get is just a code that you can enter on your platform of choice to activate a license. No disc copies will be available, and, despite rumors to the controversy, developer Rockstar hasn’t confirmed any plans to start producing a disc version in the future.
User JX900 took to Reddit shortly thereafter to complain: “When pre-order day comes, I hope CDPR takes notes from GTA 6‘s community. Please, CDPR, do not do this for The Witcher 4. 1: Put an actual disc in the physical version of the game. 2: Don’t lock customization shops or other core features behind paywalls.”
The second point references another GTA controversy that made waves this week: GTA 6 will also gate certain content, including customization shops and certain missions, behind its $100 Ultimate Edition. Many in the comments agree, as fans obviously hope to avoid the same fate. “I really hope they just go with one price and have a disc option. Like the good old days,” commented Feanixxxx.
For what it’s worth, some commenters noted that such a release strategy would be out of character for CDPR. “CDPR has always placed a strong emphasis on physical game ownership and preservation,” commented Area_Ok, pointing out that it even managed to cram the massive Cyberpunk 2077 onto a Switch 2 cartridge for a port that came out five years after its initial launch.
“Not only that, CDPR usually also has pretty content-rich Standard Editions,” added adventus_21. HorusKane420 notes that their Standard Edition copy of The Witcher 3 included stickers, a poster, a map, and a card from CDPR thanking them for supporting the game.
Still others pointed out that CDPR would likely be eager to avoid further controversy, especially after the buggy release of Cyberpunk. “CDPR, hopefully, has learnt from the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco,” said CallerIDKnown. “I’d say the only stain on [CDPR]’s resume is the Cyberpunk 2077 marketing and launch, which they are fully aware of and still to this day try to make up for. I think they know they don’t have room for dumb mistakes,” added Abdul-HakimDz.
Fans have made it clear that there’s significant interest in a proper, feature-complete physical release for CDPR’s next game, and, although there’s no official confirmation from the company yet, its track record makes it unlikely it’d do anything else. Still, we’ll have to wait until we see more details of The Witcher 4‘s release to know for certain.
- Engine
-
Unreal Engine 5
- Franchise
-
The Witcher