As it sends off Cyberpunk 2077 and eyes The Witcher 4, CDPR wants its games to be "something that we've never made at this scale"
Nov. 28, 2023CDPR is working to build out parallel AAA development
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With work onCyberpunk 2077winding down post-Phantom Libertyand more resources now being shifted toThe Witcher 4,CD Projekt Redhopes to expand its development operations to a scale “not precedented in the history of our company.”
That’s straight from CFO Piotr Nielubowicz, who discussed the studio’s ambitions during an earningsconferenceearlier today. Asked how CDPR will distribute revenue following the year which has now seen the company’s best-ever third quarter on the back of Phantom Liberty, Nielubowicz explained:
“We definitely want to continue with developing games and with investing into them. We want to do it at a scale that was not precedented in the history of our company, working on a few projects at the same time – something that we’ve never made at this scale, historically.”
This tracks with the manyupcoming CD Projekt Red gamesannounced ata mammoth earnings call last year. The news included the establishment of a Boston-based North American studio for CDPR which will shepherd the Cyberpunk franchise going forward and become key to the studio’s ambitions for parallel AAA development. For clarity, the two big parallel projects in question areCyberpunk 2077 sequel Project Orionand The Witcher 4 (Project Polaris until we get more than a working title).
However,CDPR has also seen a number of layoffs this year, with management attributing the cut of some 100 devs to overstaffing. In October,studio staff pushed to unionizefollowing a third wave of layoffs.
“We are also working on other projects besides video games within our franchises. We have nothing to announce at the moment but we’ve been working on this for quite a while and the time will come to share some insights about this.” This was swiftly followed by an odd question about Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2,which Kiciński couldn’t help but laugh at.
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“And of course, The Molasses Flood will continue to develop Project Sirius with some direction,” the CEO continued, referring to theexternally developed, now-rebooted Witcher spinoff. “And [The Witcher remake] Canis Majoris, a very special project. We know the game very well because it’s The Witcher 1, but at the same time we want to remake it with all the new technology and designs that we are preparing for Polaris.”
The Witcher 4 is now CD Projekt Red’s priority, with roughly half of the dev team working on the RPG.
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