Switching To UE5 Won’t Mean Starting Development From Scratch, Says Cyberpunk 2077 Director

Cyberpunk 2077 director Gabe Amatangelo has recently assured fans in an interview with PC Gamer that the studio’s decision to transition to Unreal Engine 5 from CDPR’s built-in tech, REDengine would not mean a start from zero for the devs. CD Projekt Red is all set to bid farewell to REDengine after the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty DLC.

CD Projekt Red has utilized REDengine for more than a decade to craft its hits. The transition could mean a substantial change in the studio’s development approach. Yet, when questioned about the studio’s move to adopt UE5, considering the remarkable cutting-edge technology they’ve achieved with REDengine, the Cyberpunk 2077 director reassured that this wouldn’t entail commencing from square one.

The game director went on to say that both the engines have their perks, and while there are plenty of similarities to make the transition smooth, there are some gaps too. However, given all factors, the studio’s engineers intentionally opted to embrace UE5.

It isn’t starting from scratch. A lot of times when you build these things, like Ray Reconstruction, there are a lot of methodologies you can apply to new engines. Learnings and the strategy of setting up the architecture. And when you look at the things that Unreal does well, the things that REDengine does well—there are some similarities and some gaps, but the brilliant engineers are like ‘with all the stuff that we know you crazy creatives want to do in the future, there’s less of a delta here. Let’s strategically shift to [Unreal Engine 5].”

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Amatangelo was also asked about challenges with REDengine versus Unreal Engine but declined to give details due to the Cyberpunk sequel. He mentioned it’s “refreshing” to bring their 2077 experience to Unreal instead of “rebuilding” their own engine for the next game. The game director also highlighted the studio’s intention to collaborate closely with Epic to integrate REDengine’s superior features into Unreal Engine.

Likewise there’s some things that REDengine does better than Unreal [that] we’re working with Epic to basically bring to that engine as well. So it goes both ways… It’s about economies of scale: you can obviously do all these amazing things in both.”

Additionally, with an end to any further big content for Cyberpunk 2077 with the release of Phantom Liberty DLC, fans eagerly await the sequel codenamed Orion, built on Unreal Engine 5. The Witcher 4 has also been announced last year making it more likely to be the first CD Projekt Red title with UE5 tech to see the light.