The State of Unreal 2025 presentation has wrapped for another year, and with it comes all the eye-blistering and mind-boggling technology that is emerging from the Unreal Engine forges.
A big focus this year was on the upcoming The Witcher IV, showing off some proper in-engine footage of Ciri doing witcher-y things.
CD Projekt Red staff members Kajetan Kapuściński (Cinematic Director) and Sebastian Kalemba (Game Director) hit the stage alongside Epic Games Senior Director Wyeth Johnson to walk people through what they were seeing, after witnessing a beast destroy a caravan prior to Ciri arriving to figure out what went down.
The entire demo ran on a PlayStation 5 at 60 fps with raytracing, following a similar trend to the Grand Theft Auto 6 wizardry shown just a little while back, proving that this kind of fidelity is ready to run in your home right now. No magnificent NASA-level machines, just that humble console sitting in your entertainment unit right this very second can produce the gorgeous living world and busy character scenes on display.
Several Unreal Engine 5 secret weapons were being utilised, such as the Nanite Foliage geometry system that aims to make natural-looking foliage a staple within game worlds, doing some absurdly heavy lifting considering the density of these snowy locals. There was also the Chaos Cloth Tool providing some spectacular simulations for all manner of fabrics – when you see Ciri’s hooded cloak, you’ll understand.
For me, a stand out nifty was a detailed breakdown on how Kelpie animates. Kelpie is Ciri’s gorgeous black horse, and the small introduction scene had a special x-ray style preview of all the powerful horse muscles that work under the velvety hide to make Kelpie look like a real horse. It was awesome.
The whole thing clocks in at a cool 14 minutes, and spotlights some great Witcher staples like character conversations and crowded town spaces – well worth a watch if you are keen to see how The Witcher IV is coming together, or even just to appreciate the next big leap in Unreal Engine game potential.
For me, I’ll be over here appreciating how complex and cool horses are – and hoping I can brush Kelpie’s mane when the game eventually releases.
Did you tune into the State of Unreal 2025? What did you think? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
Known throughout the interwebs simply as M0D3Rn, Ash is bad at video games. An old guard gamer who suffers from being generally opinionated, it comes as no surprise that he is both brutally loyal and yet, fiercely whimsical about all things electronic. On occasion will make a youtube video that actually gets views. Follow him on YouTube @Bad at Video Games
