Well, folks, it's official — CD Projekt Red is hanging up the Red Engine for good, and Phantom Liberty gets the honor of being both the first and last DLC for Cyberpunk 2077. Talk about going out with a bang! The expansion, starring none other than the incredibly suave Idris Elba as Solomon Reed, marked the grand finale for CDPR's long-serving in-house engine before the studio packed its bags and moved into the shiny new neighborhood of Unreal Engine 5. And honestly? That's one heck of a swan song.

The Red Engine: A Tech Veteran Riding Off Into the Sunset 🌅

So why is Phantom Liberty the only DLC? Was CDPR just feeling lazy? Nope — according to SVP of business development Michał Nowakowski, it all boils down to a technological decision. As he put it in a Q&A session:

"This is the last time we're working on the Red Engine for the time being at least, and in the foreseeable future as you know we are working on the Unreal Engine from Epic. This was one of the key reasons why we decided this was the only one."

In other words, trying to pump out more DLC on a retiring engine would be like trying to squeeze one more road trip out of a car that's already been sold to the scrapyard. Not exactly a winning strategy.

The Red Engine itself has quite the backstory — and it's not exactly a feel-good origin story either. It was born out of the infamous cancelled 'White Wolf' console port of the original Witcher game, a project so financially catastrophic it nearly sent CDPR straight to the unemployment line. Between the bloated development costs and Atari breathing down their necks demanding repayment for funding a port that never even released, the studio was in some seriously hot water. The Red Engine was their survival mechanism, designed to make porting The Witcher 2 and its successors to PlayStation and Xbox a far less soul-crushing experience.

Over the years, the engine evolved like a Pokémon — getting beefier and flashier with each iteration. By the time Cyberpunk 2077 rolled around, Red Engine 4 was flexing ray tracing support and looking pretty darn good about itself. But all good things must come to an end, and CDPR eventually inked a deal with Epic Games to move onto Unreal Engine 5.

Welcome to the Unreal Era 🎮✨

CDPR wasn't shy about hyping up the transition, announcing in a blog post:

"This is an exciting moment as we're moving from Red Engine to Unreal Engine 5, beginning a multi-year strategic partnership with Epic Games. It covers not only licensing but technical development of Unreal Engine 5, as well as potential future versions of Unreal Engine, where relevant. We'll closely collaborate with Epic Games' developers with the primary goal being to help tailor the engine for open-world experiences."

In plain English? CDPR is getting cozy with Epic, and together they're cooking up something that could make open-world games look absolutely chef's kiss. The partnership isn't just about slapping a new engine license on the wall — it's a deep collaboration aimed at molding Unreal Engine 5 to handle the kind of massive, living, breathing worlds that CDPR is famous for building.

Polaris: The Next Chapter 🐺

So where does all that developer talent go once Phantom Liberty ships? Straight onto Project Polaris — the codename for the next mainline Witcher game, which CDPR promises will kick off a whole "new saga" for the series. No name, no screenshots, no trailers... just vibes and hype. Classic CDPR.

According to CEO Adam Kiciński, the numbers tell an interesting story:

Team	Developer Count (End of July)
Phantom Liberty	~300 developers
Polaris (Witcher Next)	~260 developers

As Phantom Liberty wrapped up its pre-release phase, a big chunk of those 300 developers was redirected to the Polaris team, which had already grown to nearly 260 people at that point. The staffing shuffle makes total sense — why keep hundreds of devs polishing a shipped DLC when there's a whole new saga to build from scratch?

The Bottom Line 🎯

At the end of the day, Phantom Liberty serves as the perfect farewell party for both Cyberpunk 2077's DLC journey and the Red Engine itself. It's bittersweet in the best possible way — like watching your favorite band play one last concert before going on indefinite hiatus. CDPR gave Night City one final curtain call, and now all eyes are on what Geralt's next adventure will look like running on Unreal Engine 5.

One thing's for sure: if CDPR manages to tailor Unreal Engine 5 for open-world experiences as promised, the next Witcher game could be something that genuinely breaks the internet. No pressure, guys. 😅

For now, players can revisit Phantom Liberty knowing it carries the weight of being the last Red Engine hurrah — and honestly, Idris Elba as Solomon Reed made it one seriously stylish exit.