In case you have lost it, the 2025 state event began today and began with a key CD Projekt network note and a technical demonstration for its next game The brightness 4.
The brightness 4 It was only revealed a few months ago, and it seems that it will not arrive until 2027 as very early, but fortunately, today’s new footage has given us enough to survive while we wait.
There are a lot of notable things to unpack the showcase of almost 10 minutes, from a new region, elegant unreal Engine 5 Tech and a new partner, but I have managed to choose the five most important things that most caught my attention.
1. Know Kelpie
Like Rivia Geralt had Roach in The Witcher 3: Wild HuntingIt seems that in The shine 4, Ciri will have his own horse horse called Kelpie to keep his company on his trip.
Kelpie originates in Witcher’s novels and was owned by a man named Hotspurn before the mare entered Ciri’s care. The black mare was initially without a name until Ciri saw her already Hotspurn crossing a river, after which Ciri appointed Kelpie.
From the footage, it seems that Ciri can call his horse whistling, as Geralt does Roach. Interestingly, in the books, Kelpie could be summoned by rubbing a magical bracelet, but it is not clear if this tidbit will be added to the game.
Since Ciri and Kelpie will explore the world together, CD Projakt Red explained that driving should “feel perfect, natural and simply fun.” To admit that, the study has introduced something called “Multi-Character Movement” in Unreal Engine 5, which makes the torque “perfectly synchronized” when riding from any angle and speed.
With luck, Kelpie will not move away and will be trapped in a roof like Roach.
2. A location never seen before
When the Witcher 4, CD Projakt Red was initially revealed confirmed that the game will introduce new regions of the continent, but that the map will continue to be “more or less the same” size as Witcher 3 “.
In the last demonstration of technology, they provided our first look at Kovir, a mountainous region full of dense forests and snowy cliffs. The images also showed us our first glance to the port city of Valdrest in the region, which is full of NPC.
In Witcher’s tradition, the Northern region is famous for its glass industries and was once a Redania County, but now it is part of the Kovir and Povis kingdom.
3. Was everything captured in the PS5?
According to CD Projakt Red, the last technology demonstration is executed in a PlayStation 5 to 60 FPS base, with enabled ray tracking. At first, I thought the images were of a high -end PC or even a PS5 Pro, so it is difficult to believe that a game that looks so good could handle a current generation console.
Although it was not indicated during the event, CD Projakt Red has since clarified (through VGC) that the footage was a technological demonstration established in The brightness 4 world, and no The brightness 4 game, suggesting that what we saw will not be connected to the narrative.
“This is a technological demonstration and a first look at the avant -garde technology that works The brightness 4 – But not The brightness 4 In itself, “a spokesman told VGC.
“Shows the powerful base that we are building in close collaboration with the epic games to boost the design of the open world beyond what never before and the main systems and characteristics that we are developing using Unreal Engine 5.
“We are very proud of this early milestone and we are excited to give it an advance of some of the great technological products such as UAF, Nanita foliage, intelligent objects, ML defressor and fastgeo transmission that are helping to shape the future of the witch.”
4. Matters
Before the technical demonstration began, the key note began with a short film that shows a group of Korviso men and their salt shipments were attacked in the middle of the night by a monster called Manticore.
As the scene goes to Ciri, we see that he has had the task of investigating men and shipping disappeared by a Valdrest premises, and presumably, hunting and killing the creature.
Initially, I thought that this search could be established at the beginning of the game to give the players an idea of their surroundings and familiarize themselves with mechanics, similar to the search for Geralt to hunt the Griffon at the beginning of The brightness 3.
However, considering the footage is not real Brillo 4 game, and instead only a technological demonstration set in the world of The brightness 4It is not clear if this search and the manticore will appear in the full game.
5. Let’s make technicians
Since this demonstration was exhibited at the State of Unreal 2025, we were sure to obtain many juicy technical details about what it is doing exactly The brightness 4 It looks so good.
All the aforementioned features are being developed, testing and eventually launched to all Unreal engines developers, starting with the release of Unreal Engine 5.6 today.
These include the new unreal animation framework, the foliage of Nanitas and the metahuman technology with the massive crowds of AI, which are being used to help offer an immersive world at 60 fps without compromising quality.
The unreal animation framework promotes the realistic movements of the characters in occupied scenes, which we can see in action in the port city of Valdrest, while Fastgeo Streaming, developed in collaboration with epic games, allows the environments to be loaded quickly and without problems.
Nanita foliage is being used as a way of making environments look and feel more realistic, allowing developers to fill forests and fields with dense details without sacrificing performance.
Then there is the mass system, which manages to great dynamic crowds easily, and ML Deformer, which adds subtle and realistic touches to characters, “just even muscle movement”, as demonstrated with Kelpie.
