The hunt is on: CD Project Red has finally started production on the next Witcher game (which probably isn’t going to be The Witcher 4)

That’s right, folks, you can finally start counting down the days to the next Witcher game, as production has finally kicked off at CD Projekt Red.

Now, don’t get too excited as it’s almost definitely still years away, but those of you desperately hoping for some Witcher updates finally have a juicy one: the director of the next Witcher game has confirmed that production has started on Project Polaris (the codename for the next entry in the popular RPG series). “I’m thrilled to announce that Project Polaris has entered the full-scale production phase!” wrote Sebastian Kalemba on his personal Twitter account. “With new challenges just around the corner, it’s the talented and hard-working people who make me believe we can together make the upcoming Witcher Saga a remarkable experience. No stopping now! Stay tuned for what’s on the other side of the coin!”

That last line is in reference to a photo paired with the tweet, which you can see above, of a few coins laying on a stone floor. Obviously if production has only just started on the game, we’re still a good few years out from being actually able to play it. How many years? Don’t ask me! Haven’t the foggiest, but I’ll cross my fingers for all you Witcher fans that it’ll be sometime this decade at the very least (we’ve about five years to go until the next one, but we all remember what happened to Cyberpunk 2077, don’t we).

One important thing to note about this upcoming sequel is that it seems unlikely to outright be The Witcher 4. Next year it will have been a full decade since The Witcher 3 came out, and with game development taking so long a lot of games are designed to be welcoming to new players even if they are sequels (just look at Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and how little it references Breath of the Wild).

The voice of Geralt himself has even said the next one isn’t about the series’ mainstay protagonist, though he doesn’t know who it will be about. Back when the sequel was revealed it even noted that it’s the start of a new saga, so it’s pretty safe to say this’ll be starting fresh, more or less. I’m sure we’ll find out more when CD Projekt Red is ready to show more.