Map size and setting
The open world is set in Kovir and Poviss, a northern kingdom in the Witcher universe. The map is "more or less the same size" as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's world, which measured roughly 142 square kilometers. CDPR clarified it could be "90, 85, or 100 percent" of that size. Not identical, but in the same ballpark.
The world is bounded by natural borders:
The Dragon Mountains to the north
The sea (North Sea / Gulf of Praxeda) along the southern coast
The kingdom of Redania to the southwest
Creyden to the west
Confirmed locations
Valdrest: a bustling port town shown in the State of Unreal 2025 tech demo. The demo followed Ciri riding through the countryside into Valdrest, showing dense NPC populations and detailed architecture.
Stromford: a small, isolated village featured in the Game Awards 2024 trailer. This is where the Bauk encounter takes place.
Lan Exeter: the winter capital of Kovir, a Venice-inspired port city
Pont Vanis: the summer capital of Kovir, an inland city
NPC behavior
The world reacts to Ciri's actions in granular ways. Bump into a townsfolk and they react. Knock over a crate of apples and a chain reaction can unfold. These are not scripted events; they are physics-driven interactions with systemic NPC responses.
The State of Unreal 2025 tech demo showed up to 300 individually unique NPCs in a single scene. Each had distinct appearance, clothing, and behavior. Sebastian Kalemba stated: "We have this rule to make every single NPC looking like they're living, with their own story."
Kelpie
Ciri's horse is Kelpie, a black mare from Sapkowski's novels. This is Kelpie's first appearance in any Witcher game (Geralt rode Roach in previous entries). The name comes from a Scottish water spirit, which Sapkowski used as an in-world name.
Technical details from the tech demo:
Seamless mounting from any angle (no fixed mount point)
Realistic muscle simulation via ML Deformer (muscles flex and shift under the skin during movement)
Full integration with the Unreal Animation Framework for smooth transitions between gaits
Roach, Geralt's horse in The Witcher 3, became an unintentional comedy icon because of her tendency to spawn on rooftops and get stuck on geometry. CDPR appears to be investing heavily in making Kelpie more polished.
Density over raw size
The decision to keep the map at roughly the same size as TW3 rather than making it larger is telling. Open-world games have trended toward ever-bigger maps, but the common criticism is that bigger maps often mean more empty space. CDPR seems to be prioritizing density: more NPCs per location, more reactive systems, more things to do per square kilometer.
This philosophy mirrors Philipp Weber's quest design approach: no filler, no fetch quests, every piece of content worth the player's time.