The Witcher 4 trailer debuts: rendered on Nvidia RTX 5000-series GPU and Unreal Engine 5

What just happened? We were promised some “Holy s**t!” moments at last night’s Game Awards, and it delivered. The biggest surprise was the six-minute-long trailer for The Witcher 4. Cinematic trailers don’t tend to reveal too much about what the final game will be like, but the interesting thing here is that clip was rendered on an unannounced Nvidia GPU, rumored to be the RTX 5090.

We’ve known for a while now that CD Projekt Red is in full production of The Witcher 4, but the game is still a very long way off – few people expected to see a trailer at the Game Awards.

The video confirms that Ciri will be the protagonist in the next entry in the long-running series. “We believe that Ciri deserves it,” game director Sebastian Kalemba said. “In this game we want to explore what it means to truly become a witcher by following Ciri on her Path. This trailer is a taste of both that, and just how dark and grounded the world of The Witcher can be.”

Ciri looks at least a decade older in the new game. Geralt fans needn’t worry, though: the distinctive voice of actor Doug Cockle can be heard at the end of the trailer.

Something else that has excited people is the piece of text at the bottom of the screen that appears at the start. It states that the trailer is rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU – CD Projekt Red announced in 2022 that it would transition from its proprietary REDengine to Unreal Engine 5 for future projects.

We’re only a few weeks away from the start of CES 2025, where Nvidia has pretty much confirmed it will be unveiling the new Blackwell consumer graphics cards, the RTX 5000 series.

The RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are expected to be the first cards to arrive. Rumors claim the Witcher 4 trailer was rendered using the flagship RTX 5090.

CD Projekt Red also confirmed that The Witcher 4 will be a single-player game and the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher title to date.

Ahead of the event taking place, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier talked about announcements at the Game Awards that would make fans say “holy s**t!” He added that there will be trailers for games that won’t be out until 2026 or later, so one can assume he’s talking about The Witcher 4 in this case.