CD Projekt RED still justifies the switch from their native game engine to Unreal Engine
Michal Nowakowski explained why CD Projekt RED is moving the next The Witcher to Unreal Engine 5. The core gripe was continuity — REDengine forced the team to rebuild foundational systems for each new title, so projects often began with a blank slate. That eats up time and cash; onboarding someone to the studio’s proprietary tech could take up to 9 mo., which in practice drags production and saps team momentum. You don’t need a flowchart to see how that complicates hiring and slows everything down.
Partnering with Epic changed the mechanics of the problem. CDPR negotiated access to UE5’s so‑called “black box,” i.e., deeper integration points that let them drop their own systems on top of Epic’s base. In plain terms: they get to use an industry platform while grafting in the RPG-specific tools and workflows they care about. This isn’t a magic cure—there are still trade‑offs, learning curves, and choices to make—but it aims to stop the studio from repeating the same engine-rebuild cycle and, hopefully, speed up future work.