CD Projekt: “Cyberpunk 2077” successor and new “Witcher” trilogy in planning

CD Projekt puts the cards on the table: the Polish development studio has published a project preview for the coming years, which includes several new “Witcher” video games and a new title in the “Cyberpunk 2077” universe. The Polish company also wants to open another development studio in the USA.

CD Projekt published the project planning, which was surprisingly transparent for the secretive games industry, on Tuesday evening, together with a PDF presentation and an explanatory YouTube video. It shows the long-term plans of the studio, which wants to find its way back to its old form after the difficult market launch of “Cyberpunk 2077”.

CD Projekt celebrated its greatest successes with its legendary “The Witcher” role-playing games. In this universe, several games are planned to be created in the coming years:

• “Project Sirius”: An “innovative” game for “Witcher” fans in development by CD Projekt studio The Molasses Flood is currently in pre-production. It is said to include a multiplayer component.
• “Project Polaris”: A new role-playing game trilogy set in the “The Witcher” universe, which celebrates its prelude with the recently announced “Witcher” title. The series is being developed by CD Projekt Red, the main team of the Polish company. Both sequels should appear within six years of the release of the first part. Among other things, it is known that the first game in the Polaris trilogy will be developed on the basis of the Unreal Engine 5.
• “Project Canis Majoris”: A new single-player role-playing game, also based on Unreal Engine 5, but being developed by an external studio (yet unknown).

The next-gen update of The Witcher 3 is still in the works. It is due to be released later this year.

“Cyberpunk” and new brand

CD Projekt also wants to continue its work in the “cyberpunk” universe. After the expansion “Phantom Liberty” for “Cyberpunk 2077” a successor to the role-playing game is to be developed. Not much is known about him – the presentation only reveals that he is being developed by CD Projekt Red and is intended to “demonstrate the full potential” of the cyberpunk universe.

CD Projekt also wants to establish a third major brand alongside “The Witcher” and “Cyberpunk 2077” with “Project Hadar”. A small team has been working on the new CD project brand since 2021, which is currently still in the concept phase. There are no further details.

However, CD Projekt states that future games from the studio will also deal with multiplayer modes compared to previous titles. However, it is unclear whether this also affects the new “Witcher” trilogy and the “Cyberpunk” successor. So far, CD Projekt’s games have been aimed purely at single-player fans. Meanwhile, in the games industry as a whole, multiplayer experiences dominate that retain players over the long term and generate recurring revenue.

Marcin Iwinski gives up CEO post

CD Projekt wants to open another studio in the USA in order to be able to handle the ambitious project plan for the coming years. The new team will be based in Boston, where The Molasses Flood studio is already based. Another team from the Polish game company is based in Vancouver, Canada.

CD Projekt announced as part of the preview that co-founder Marcin Iwinski will vacate his CEO post at the end of 2022 to join the board of directors. He also wants to play an active role in the new position, Iwinski writes in a message published on Twitter. Iwinski founded the company in 1993 together with Michał Kiciński.

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