There are a lot of remarkable things to unpack from the nearly 10 -minute showcase, from a new region, Fancy Unreal Engine 5 tech and a new companion, but I have managed to choose the top five things that were the most out for me.
1. Meet Kelpie
(Image Credit: CD Project Red)
Like Geralt from Rivia had Roach in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt it seems to The Witcher 4, Ciri wants his own horse friend named Kelpie to keep his company on his journey.
Kelpie originated from the Witcher novels and was first owned by a man named Hotspurn before the jump came in Ciris Care. The black mare was originally named until Ciri saw her and hotspurn cross a river, after which Ciri named her Kelpie.
From the shooting, it seems that CIRI will be able to call her horse to her by whistling, as Geralt does for Roach. Interestingly, Kelpie in the books could be called by rubbing a magical bracelet, but it is unclear if this Godbit will be added to the game.
As Ciri and Kelpie want to explore the world together, CD project Red explained that riding has to “feel seamless, natural and just fun”. To support this, the study has introduced something called “Multi-character Motion matching” in Unreal Engine 5, making the pair “perfectly synchronized” when mounting from any angle and speed.
Hopefully, Kelpie does not wander off and find himself stuck on a roof like Roach.
2. One never before seen location
(Image Credit: CD Project Red)
When Witcher 4 was originally revealed, CD Project Red confirmed that the game will introduce new regions on the continent, but that the card remains “more or less the same” size as Witcher 3 “.
In the latest tech demo we got our first look at Kovir, a mountainous region filled with dense forests and snow -covered cliffs. The footage also showed us our first glance at the region’s port city of valrest, teeming by NPCs.
In Witcher -Lore, the northern region is famous for its glass industries and was once a earliness of Redania, but now forms part of the Kingdom of Kovir and Poviss.
3. It was caught everyone on PS5?
(Image Credit: CD Project Red)
According to CD Project Red, the latest tech demo runs on a basic PlayStation 5 at 60 FPS, with radiation pording activated. At first I thought the footage was from a high-end PC or even a PS5 Pro, so it’s hard to believe that a game that looks so good could handle a current gene console.
Although not stated during the event, CD Project Red has since clarified (via VGC) that the recordings were a technical demo that was put in The Witcher 4 the world and was not The Witcher 4 Gameplay that suggests that what we saw will not be associated with the narrative.
“This is a technical demo and a first look at the groundbreaking technology that drives The Witcher 4 – But not The Witcher 4 Even a spokesman told VGC.
“It shows the powerful foundation we build in close collaboration with Epic Games to push open-world design further than ever before, and the core systems and features we develop using Unreal Engine 5.
“We are really proud of this early milestone and excited to give you a sneak peek at some of the cool technologies like UK, Nanitløv, Smart Objects, ML Defeats, and Fixing Streaming that help shape Witcher’s future.”
4. Killing monsters
(Image Credit: CD Project Red)
Before the technical demo started, the keynote speaker started with a short kinematically showing a group of men from Corviso and their shipments of salt that were attacked in the middle of the night by a monster called a Manticore.
When the scene transfers to CIRI, we see that she has been tasked with examining the missing men and shipping of a valrest room and presumably chasing and killing the creature.
For starters, I thought this quest could be set at the beginning of the game to give players a sense of their surroundings and to become familiar with mechanics, similar to Geralt’s quest to chase Griffon at the start The Witcher 3 .
Given that the recordings are not real Witcher 4 gameplay, and instead just a technical demo that is set in the world of The Witcher 4 It is unclear whether this quest and Manticore will appear in the full game.
5. Let’s get technical
(Image Credit: CD Project Red)
When this demo was showcased at the State Unreal 2025 event, we were sure to get a lot of juicy technical details of what exactly The Witcher 4 looks so good.
All features mentioned are developed, tested and will eventually be released to all Unreal Engine developers, starting with today’s Unreal Engine 5.6 release.
These include the new Unreal Animation Framework, Nanite League Refreshing and Metahuman technology with Mass AI -Crowd scaling used to help deliver an immersive world of 60 FPS without compromising on quality.
The unreal animation framework controls realistic character movements in busy scenes, which we can see in action in the port city of Valrest, while Fastgeo streaming, developed in collaboration with Epic Games, allows environments to load quickly and smoothly.
Nanite Leaves are used as a way to make environments look and feel more realistic, allowing developers to fill forests and fields with close detail without sacrificing performance.
Then there is the mass system that easily handle large, dynamic crowds and ML deforms that add subtle, realistic touches to character animations, “right down to muscle movement”, which was demonstrated with kelpie.
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