Witcher 4’s Tech Demo Shows 60 FPS on PS5, But It’s Not the Final Game

The Witcher 4 60 FPS conversation officially kicked off with a surprise showcase during the latest State of Unreal stream. CD Projekt Red went live with a tech demo running at 60 frames per second on a base PlayStation 5, offering the first glimpse at how the game might look and feel.

The catch? It's not actually The Witcher 4, at least not yet. During the event, cinematic director Kajetan Kapuscinski played through a short sequence while CDPR’s Sebastian Kalemba and Epic Games’ Wyeth Johnson provided live commentary. Ciri was at the center of it all—riding Kelpie, inspecting a monster-ravaged cart, and blending from exploration into a cinematic seamlessly. The crowd saw a game that looked polished, fast, and dense with activity. But CDPR made it very clear: this is a tech demo, not the finished product.

"This tech demo runs at 60fps on PS5, and that's the performance we're aiming for in The Witcher 4." – CD Projekt Red spokesperson, speaking to Eurogamer

CDPR’s team wasn’t just showing off cool moments with Ciri. They were demonstrating the backend tech that might define the Witcher 4 experience. The highlight was the collaboration with Epic and use of the Unreal Engine’s latest features. For example, Kelpie's movements—muscles, skin, and animations—are driven by Chaos Flesh Solver and machine-learned deformation tech. It’s not just for looks either. These systems are meant to deliver realism without tanking performance.

Nanite Foliage also made a debut, allowing high-quality trees, plants, and environmental detail to pop without overloading the GPU. Then there’s the city of Vargrest, filled with dozens of NPCs, all going about their business—from inspecting bears to gossiping about fish. The team added a circus to ramp up crowd activity. Despite the density, the performance stayed stable. No lag, no stutter, just smooth rendering at 60 FPS on base hardware.

Kalemba pointed out that there’s an intentional design goal in minimizing the visual difference between main characters and regular NPCs. In the tech demo, Ciri didn’t look like a hyper-polished exception standing among copy-pasted villagers. That kind of parity is key for immersion, and CDPR wants to make it a core part of the Witcher 4 experience.

Don’t Get Ahead of the Demo

Despite the hype, CDPR isn’t claiming this is the game. In fact, they’re very clear that the visuals, animations, and even the story beats might not carry over. The build shown was meant to test and showcase Epic’s toolset, not deliver on a promise of what The Witcher 4 will look like in 2026 or beyond.

Some fans might get flashbacks to The Witcher 3’s bumpy launch. CDPR addressed that directly, stating that while performance is a target, the tech demo is not representative of the final product. They’re still early in development and not ready to confirm specs for all platforms. But the studio is aiming high. A stable 60 FPS experience on consoles is now part of the expected package, and early results are encouraging.

Technical Goals and Engine Capabilities

The Unreal-based pipeline now supports dynamic lighting, dense NPC behaviors, and real-time performance optimization, with CDPR taking full advantage of what Epic’s offering. While this doesn't lock in the final look of Witcher 4, it does help paint a clearer picture of what kind of systems the team is building around.

Here’s a compact breakdown of what the demo confirmed and what remains open-ended:

So while the Witcher 4 60 FPS tech demo impressed viewers with a polished, playable scene on PlayStation 5, it's a foundation, not a finished product. CDPR is clearly focused on achieving immersive gameplay and next-gen visuals, but players shouldn’t take the demo as a promise. The real version of Witcher 4 is still in development, and what we saw might only be one piece of a much larger picture.