Cyberpunk 2077’s next DLC will still be powered by the proprietary REDengine, even if the next Witcher game is rumoured to use Unreal Engine 5. REDengine replaced BioWare’s Aurora Engine for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, which was developed by CDPR in 2011. The Witcher 3’s expansive open-world landscapes were powered by an improved version of the technology, REDengine 2, which was also used in Cyberpunk 2077, a sci-fi RPG. First impressions were promising, but the studio’s tried-and-true Red Engine proved to be a poor fit for Cyberpunk 2077. Even high-end PCs had trouble reliably delivering acceptable performance when the game was released with numerous difficulties in late 2020.
Cyberpunk 2077’s transformational 1.5 patches have solved many of the performance and graphical glitches, but there are still a few issues that remain. That CDPR would experiment with new technology while working on the next chapter of the Witcher tale makes sense. The official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account announced the future DLC expansion for the sci-fi role-playing game will continue to use REDengine technology following news of the next Witcher game running on Epic’s Unreal Engine 5.
Moving Cyberpunk 2077’s DLC to a new engine would involve a substantial amount of effort even for the most tech-savvy production teams, so this isn’t a great surprise per see. After three significant projects, CD Projekt Red’s choice to abandon its own proprietary game engine may surprise many. However, someone at the company obviously thinks this is the greatest decision for future Witcher and Cyberpunk projects.
A reasonable assumption is that, like the fourth mainline Witcher edition, whatever cyberpunk titles follow the cryptic tale extension will run on Unreal Engine 5. Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest mystery is, of course, what will be included in the next DLC. Some of the game’s endings and a few side missions could need a few more hours of gameplay. Likewise, the plotline of Jackie Welles nearly begs for its own narrative development. The CD Projekt Red team hasn’t even hinted at what they have in store for Cyberpunk 2077’s long-awaited DLC as of this writing. There’s no news yet on when formal information will begin to spread.