The Witcher Remake will be open-world, CD Projekt Red confirms

Last month, we got the very exciting news that The Witcher 1 is getting an official remake - it turned out that CD Projekt Red’s mysterious codename Canis Majoris was the rebuilt original title all along. The game, which is being built from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5 (so you know it’s gonna look good) is “currently in the early stages of development” by Polish games studio Fool’s Theory, alongside Witcher series veterans.

Until now, that’s pretty much all we knew about the game - we don’t have a trailer to look at just yet (although this Witcher in Unreal Engine fan project might help give you an idea of what the real game will look like), nor has a release window been revealed. However, as IGN reports, a very vital piece of information has just been uncovered which confirms this isn’t going to be a simple one-for-one remake - it’s going to be so much more.

Before we get into it, check out the trailer for The Witcher 3’s new-gen update below.

In CD Projekt Red’s third quarter earnings results The Witcher Remake was described as a “story-driven, single player open-world RPG – a modern reimagining of 2007’s The Witcher”. So, it’s official - players can get ready to explore the world of The Witcher in a whole new open-world way (and inevitably pour a lot more time into it than they would have done otherwise).

As IGN writes, things won’t feel entirely new if you’ve already played The Witcher 3. In the 2007 game, Geralt journeyed around the Temerian capital of Vizima, which is briefly visited in the third instalment. So, players have previously had the chance to explore the area in an open-world fashion before, but only in the castle itself - the rest of Vizima wasn’t explorable. So, we can all look forward to that when the game releases…at some point.