The Witcher 4 is expected to be CD Projekt Red's most ambitious project yet, according to one industry analyst. Mateus Chrzanowski of Noble Securities (via Clawsome Gamer) estimates The Witcher 4's budget to be around $778.9 million (as converted to Zloty), making it more expensive than any of the studio's games to date.
Chrzanowski believes development costs will total $389 million, with the remaining funds going toward marketing. CD Projekt Red is no stranger to drastically cutting marketing costs. Hiring Keanu Reeves to pitch and promote Cyberpunk 2077 couldn't be cheaper.
The game that catapulted CDPR to the pinnacle of AAA development, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, had a development cost of around $81 million, while Cyberpunk 2077's budget was even higher at around $400 million.
Big Budget, Big Expectations
If The Witcher 4 is priced at $800 million, the title would have to be very successful to make a profit. By comparison, Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 reportedly cost $300 million to develop, and there were complaints that the game wouldn't have sold well enough to justify that price. However, Spider-Man 2 ended up selling 16 million copies within two years of its release, which likely represents a significant profit.
As of May 2025, The Witcher 3 has sold 60 million copies, which is likely why CD Projekt Red is willing to invest so much money into the sequel. If The Witcher 4 achieves that level of sales, it will justify its huge budget.
Waiting 12 years for The Witcher 4 means it's not The Witcher 4 anymore.
The Witcher 3 changed what it meant to be an RPG, but The Witcher 4 will have a hard time living up to it.
Considering the game isn't expected to release until late 2027 at the earliest, we know some surprising things about The Witcher 4. We know he'll be playing Ciri (now voiced by Ciara Berkeley), we know he'll explore several new locations, including Korvir, and we know Geralt will appear in some way, with Doug Cockle reprising his role.
Nothing is confirmed yet, but we got a taste of what the gameplay could look like in the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo released by CD Projekt Red.
Cyberpunk 2077 is now considered one of the best RPGs of all time, but the game launched in notoriously poor condition and burned through a lot of the goodwill the studio had built up from The Witcher 3. With that in mind, CD Projekt Red will do its best to prevent The Witcher 4 from releasing until it's fully ready.
