It’s almost surreal to think that one day I’ll be able to collect The Witcher 4 achievements. No matter how obsessed I am with the latest teaser trailer for my favorite fantasy RPG series, CD Projekt has to avoid The Witcher 4 having day one problems again. The Polish publisher does have two of the best Xbox RPGs ever, but only after hard graft in the months and years after launch by the CD Projekt Red development team.Kes’ Take — The Witcher 4 has to avoid the day one woes of Cyberpunk 2077CD Projekt announced The Witcher 4 at The Game Awards 2024However, both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt launched in a poor stateThe Polish publisher has to remedy the state of its games on release before it becomes a defining traitHoly moly, I love that The Witcher 4 reveal trailer. It was one of those moments at The Game Awards this year that gave me the old E3-style tingle of excitement. No matter how much I’m jacked up for a new game with Ciri as the lead, however; I can’t help but think about one thing. What will the state of The Witcher 4 be on day one?You see, as I’m sure many of you well know — CD Projekt has a history. Cyberpunk 2077 is a brilliant game now that truly has come alive on Xbox Series X thanks to the more powerful hardware. On release, it was infamously and catastrophically broken on old-gen consoles like Xbox One and PS4. From crashes and glitches to performance woes and looking ghastly, it was a horror show.If you play the game now, you’ll find a robust RPG with awesome skill trees, diverse weaponry, great customization, and one of the best DLCs ever in Phantom Liberty. Notably, a lot of this connective tissue that helps make Cyberpunk 2077 such a joy now, just didn’t exist at launch.The launch was so poor that Sony had to remove it from PSN and offer a refund, a historic move for the Japanese company. I was working on TrueTrophies (our wonderful sister site) at the time, and I can’t tell you how weird it was to see the normally silent Sony have to communicate and make consumer-friendly moves for their customers on behalf of a third-party game.The simple truth is that Cyberpunk 2077 should have been released years later than it did and CD Projekt should’ve scrapped all last-generation versions of the RPG.While that debacle remains fresh in the memory, I think fewer people remember (especially given its near-mythical status as the monarch of RPGs now) that The Witcher 3 wasn’t in a great way at launch on Xbox One and PS4 either. Listen, RPGs are complex beasts to build and will almost always have some technical hiccups on release, but The Witcher 3 was really buggy (not Cyberpunk 2077 bad, mind).Throw in a fair few foundational issues, like a broken economy and missing quest makers, and you’d be hard-pressed to claim that The Witcher 3 was in proper shape on release. A few months later after much of the technical stuff was resolved with patches (and they finally optimized the PC version), we could see the game we have now. What a game it was, too!With The Witcher 4, I don’t think the publisher can afford to have another disaster on the scale of Cyberpunk 2077 on day one. The state of the game in 2020 was unacceptable and broke the trust of its most dedicated fans, but it (rightfully) earned it back over three years of hard work from its developer. If that trust were to break again with The Witcher 4, I don’t know if it could be repaired.In various details about the game over the years, we know that CD Projekt Red is switching over from making games on its proprietary REDengine to Epic’s Unreal Engine 5. I’m sure that was a big adjustment for the developer, but it should pay off given how many other developers use that technology and how much support CD Projekt Red will get from Epic. Hopefully, a more ‘normal’ game engine helps solve that issue.Then you have the development time. The Witcher 4 has been in pre-production for a considerable period. Given the engine switch, this might have been an imposed technological requirement. However, a little extra time in the oven gives the team a better chance to deliver a refined game.At launch, Cyberpunk 2077 felt like it was in the earliest playable state. It was like they had the outline of a great game, but none of the details or a solid technical foundation — Cyberpunk 2077 felt rushed to the finish. Another year of development on that game would have gone a long way. Let’s hope that CD Projekt learns and gives its development team that extra time for The Witcher 4.So, that’s my take on what I’m hoping proves to be one of the best Xbox games ever! Please, CD Projekt, make sure we love The Witcher 4 from day one! Are you more or less optimistic than I am? Let me know in the comments, TrueAchievements community. I’m curious to hear your thoughts!
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