New Witcher Game (on Unreal Engine 5)

At the risk of wanting to rinse my eyes with bleach...

the-witcher-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/School_of_the_Lynx#Characteristics

Well...that was singularly unhelpful.

The only value I see in using this - from a game perspective - is that they have female witchers, as well as male, which would allow character creation to some extent (if they wanted to), or an either/or scenario, like with Kassandra and Alexios in AC: Odyssey. But, if the School of the Cat also allowed females to join, then that seems a bit superfluous. Until we hear otherwise, I think I'm operating under the assumption that the Lynx is simply the totem chosen for the School of the Cat.

🏳️‍🌈🐻🅱️andy🐙@fuck COPS @octolingtime
You forgot to mention the sign on bonus of horrible crunch and being treated like a dog

Jason Slama @slamatwoflags
Never on my watch!

Ah...Ok.  Thank you - I've not read any of the novels/books, so all I know of lore comes from the two games I've played and little bits and pieces from the show.  The rest comes from people here 

I do think it’s a possibility, as others mentioned even before the confirmation.
My question would be, though, why go for a lynx? They’d could’ve very well gone for a normal cat. 

For me, given that I’d love CC options, either choices would work. We won’t know the truth until 2023, at least.

Reason; CDPR lost quite a number of devs in the last couple of years. Devs who worked on Witcher 3 so they don't have enough manpower, especially engine programmers to work with Red Engine which is difficult and a nightmare to handle. Unreal Engine 5 is easier and would lighten the workload. 

At least, that's the reasons given. Whether it's going to be the right decision, we'll only know when they launch their next game. Imo, they want to use UE5 to shorten developing time to launch their next product as well as giving their new intakes (devs / staff) less difficulty and more time to settle down and develop their skills.    

As far as I'm concerned, Red Engine is excellent as can be seen in Cyberpunk so perhaps they would continue to use it in future once they have a reason, the devs and confidence to do it. 

I think its the only decision they could have made right now.  I don't think they have the institutional knowledge to support their own game engine due to the level of reported turnover in the company. I wish I could find the video, but there was a YouTuber that looked up every developer that was part of The Witcher 3 team and what their status was at the release of Cyberpunk.  There were a lot of people that left the company and a lot from their engine development side.

Now, I won't say never, but I am skeptical once they get everything in place for UE5 they are going to switch back to a custom engine.  It becomes a cost benefit comparison at that point.

I think it’s fair to assume that once Cyberpunk content reaches completion, Red Engine is being put in the cooler indefinitely. 

CD Projekt Red breaks down why they've chosen Unreal Engine 5 as their game engine of choice, when it comes to building new open-world games, including a new entry into The Witcher series of games.

The "tyranny of numbers" only exists because of the tyranny of numbers that matter.

1. Studios pay developers poorly.
2. Developer always looking for better job, learning tools that give them broad prospects.
3. In-house engine requires retaining developers
4. Investment in in-house engine considered sunk cost, cheaper to drop it and continue to pay low wages, since everyone knows the generic engine
5. Games are more and more generic, and as a result very profitable.
6. ...
7. Harbinger assumes Direct Control.

It is frustrating. UE is a great engine. RedEngine is a legitimately great engine.

Hell, Unity is impressive at this point. More engines is better, not less.

My /rant - the tyranny of numbers is a real thing, but it really comes from the board of directors and is entirely avoidable with a little fairness and loyalty to employees. But we live on this planet.

Devil's in the details.

I have no idea what the details are. Are the overlords of this planet really lizard people? Is the earth shaped like an Oreo cookie, with a creamy Middle Earth? Is the entrance some cave in New Zealand?

Often I feel like an unfrozen caveman lawyer.

UE5 has tremendous flexibility, plug-in support, and can be configured for an SP experience while still having the DNA of a MP engine - the showcase, for years, was UnReal Tournament, also Rest in Love.

The strengths are many. What is lost is maybe easier to pick apart?

Things I can think of -

In-house requires institutional knowledge. Experience is generally priceless, and almost always worth it to keep if you can. If you can keep your devs and your in-house engine, innovation in that space can occur that is "ouside the box". UE5 can also be customized, but if you have developers that are making your games, also improving the engine they use as needed to bring new tools to the forge, you have an opportunity to move faster than UE5 and create niche gameplay moments through game dev/engine dev integration and synergy.

I think this is what made TW3 so good, and why CP2077 fell short and will always be playing catch up. They lost the institutional knowledge (this they admit) and without that, the advantage becomes a disadvantage instantly.

I am not worried about the engine affecting the quality of CDPRs next project, but I think they have sold their souls and thus will have challenges bringing good titles to release. It is very reminiscent of BioWare's purchase by EA, except CDPR made their own Kool-Aid and then shrugged their shoulders and drank it.

The cause of the change, I think, was poor ethics.

As for bringing in new talent and having them able to contribute on day 1 - yeah, they need a mass market engine to make that possible. My argument is at a strange level of abstraction (surprise!) - they have made a smart business decision for the place they put themselves in. Since the only option is to move forward, there wasn't much else they could have done and it was a pragmatic, and likely correct, decision.

Yes, the artistic side is what is compromised. 3D printers can make amazing replicas of hand-built items, and they can be functionally equivalent. Still, almost in every circumstance, the real thing feels better and has more value. It was made by a craftsman who knew their tools, even made special ones for this item. Maybe even rebuilt their process.

Craftsmanship is what is lost. UE5 will never be under the control of CDPR, and they will need to maintain any tools they make for it themselves or use generic UE5 tools that are available... to everyone. Identity traded for profit. It's what the business schools preach, maximization.

Gaming is about min/maxing. Somehow the damned suits missed this. Min/maxing is another word for optimizing, the proper school of business administration.