Director Sebastian Kalemba has taken to social media in order to reveal that the game — commonly referred to as The Witcher 4 — is now in "full-scale production".
Typically, this means that the bones of a project have been assembled; the foundations are in place and all of the studio's teams can get cracking on actually building the game out. Basically, this is where everything starts coming together.
Polaris was originally announced in March 2022, before entering pre-production in May 2022. Kalemba himself was revealed as director in November of that same year.
So, in essence, The Witcher 4 — or whatever it ends up being called — has been in development for over three years. The majority of developers at CD Projekt Red have been working on it ever since support for Cyberpunk 2077 wrapped up in late 2023.
When can we expect Polaris to release, then? Well, again, full production is a big deal, but there's no way to place a definitive timeline on this part of the cycle, and it really all depends on the scope of the project as a whole.
But at the very least, we can see CD Projekt Red teasing one or two things in the coming months, now that the basics are locked in.
What are your hopes and dreams for The Witcher 4? Feel free to bet on a release year in the comments section below.