As current co-CEO Marcin Iwinski changes roles within the company, CD Projekt Red has just released an overview of its long-term plans . While the rhetoric about the work ethic within the studio may be dubious – is this a real evolution, or just a show to try to make up for the sadly usual fiasco in this industry, which was the release from Cyberpunk 2077 ? This overview allows you to understand what the studio’s next projects will be in the future.
The main goal in the coming year will be, on the one hand, to set up more multiplayer experiences and, on the other, to expand pre-existing franchises, Cyberpunk and The Witcher series . With this in mind, the company’s management team has been enriched. Already with the acquisitions of last year: a new studio in Vancouver and Molasses Flood in Boston, then with two new members of the management of the studio, a director of new technologies, Pawel Zawodny , and a chief marketing officer, Jeremiah Cohn . In addition to these additions, the company is opening a brand new studio in the United States.
In terms of setting up franchises, The Witcher is already well established, and it’s joined by Cyberpunk 2077 , which officially becomes a multimedia franchise with the release of the Cyberpunk Edgerunners animated series . This development was already an objective of last year, which provided for an extension in books, films and series of their flagship licenses. Everything was presented as a virtuous circle, which would allow video game licenses to achieve an unprecedented cultural base.
In this context, CD Projekt Red reaffirms its desire to work with other studios , particularly on mobile game projects. If this kind of proposal generally causes an understandable outcry, it is inevitable given the number of players on portable. The most important, from the players’ point of view, is surely in the second part of the overview: updates and new games in development.
It should first be noted that everything must be taken with a grain of salt: these are projects at the start of development. Of those that have reached the pre-development phase, there are two new installments related to The Witcher .
- The project developed by the Boston studio is codenamed Sirius . The team will be assisted by developers from the main studio. The game is primarily aimed at a wider audience than the already acquired fans, with a multiplayer mode.
- Polaris is the Witcher-related project that will mostly speak to core audiences already used to the franchise. It builds on the way The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt presented its narrative as an open world.
- A third game, not even in pre-production yet, will complete a trilogy, released six years from the release of Polaris , presumably the first to hit the slate. These games will presumably be made on Unreal Engine 5, with a kit of assets produced for Polaris used on all of them to simplify the development process.
- Another new Witcher-related project, Canis Majoris , will be produced entirely externally. However, the title remains developed by developers who already have experience in the franchise.
- While there’s a lot to come for The Witcher, Cyberpunk isn’t left out. The new project of this license is codenamed “Orion” , but the studio does not share much information about it.
- Finally, the studio suggests the appearance of a new license with, once again, only a code name: “Hadar” . It has been in development since 2021 and is, for the first time, entirely created by CD Projekt Red. However, we should not expect to see games developed in this universe for a long time, since they are only at the creation of the universe.
An overview full of projects, in short. If they are all worthy of a real interest, remains that we must be wary and control our expectations – the tendency of CD Project Red to announce very big projects extremely early in the production process is debated. This is indeed what is generally at the heart of the very high expectations of the public, and generally does not mix well when a good part of the players has no idea of the internal workings of the studios.
We can hope that this is less and less true, and that one of the good aspects of the proximity induced by social networks allows the public to get an idea of the commitment and the means necessary in the creation of projects as massive.
