In a thread on Twitter, the corporate revealed three new initiatives set in The Witcher universe. Challenge Polaris, the beginning of a brand new trilogy for The Witcher franchise, is in preproduction at its growth studio, CD Projekt RED, with the bold aim of releasing the following two video games within the trilogy inside six years after Polaris’s launch. Challenge Sirius might be an “modern” multiplayer title, and is in preproduction at one other subsidiary, Molasses Flood, with assist from CD Projekt RED. Challenge Canis Majoris might be a single-player, open-world RPG contracted to an unnamed third-party studio led by veteran builders of The Witcher sequence.
Challenge Orion is described as a sequel to “Cyberpunk 2077” that “will show the total energy and potential of the Cyberpunk universe,” reads the company’s announcement. Orion’s growth might be spearheaded by the corporate’s new North American studio, CD Projekt North America.
The corporate additionally plans to launch an enlargement for “Cyberpunk 2077,” titled “Phantom Liberty,” subsequent 12 months.
The ultimate introduced mission, Hadar, is CD Projekt’s first authentic IP. Hadar had been brainstormed for just a few years, however didn’t begin its conceptual part till a small incubation group was assigned to it final 12 months.
CD Projekt described its technique in better element in a video on its YouTube channel.
Within the video, CD Projekt Chief Monetary Officer Piotr Nielubowicz stated the corporate has been growing two AAA initiatives in parallel, stating that the power to work on a number of titles in tandem is “essential to our future development.” He additionally revealed CD Projekt RED might be utilizing Epic Video games’ Unreal engine shifting ahead, changing the in-house REDengine the studio has used since 2011’s “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.”
“A key technique resolution was forming a long-term partnership with Epic Video games,” Nielubowicz stated. “Unreal engine would be the know-how which we are going to construct upon to ship our inventive imaginative and prescient, CD Projekt RED’s distinctive model and distinctive high quality in open-world storytelling.”
To bolster CD Projekt’s ambitions, the corporate touted the acquisitions of builders CD Projekt Vancouver (previously often called Digital Scapes) and Molasses Flood in Boston. The 2 studios mixed to type the corporate’s newest regional department, CD Projekt North America. There have additionally been two new appointments to CD Projekt’s board: Chief Expertise Officer and Head of Manufacturing Pawel Zawodny, and Chief Advertising Officer and Head of Franchise Growth Jeremiah Cohn.
CD Projekt President and joint-CEO Adam Kiciński stated within the technique video that the corporate has greater than 700 builders (and over 1,100 employees in complete) throughout its studios.
The corporate laid out a street map for all its introduced merchandise together with a burgeoning multimedia imaginative and prescient for its IPs.
CD Projekt will even make investments extra deeply into broadening the attain of their current franchises. The corporate referred to this technique because the franchise flywheel, which CD Projekt Senior Vice President of Enterprise Growth Michał Nowakowski described within the video as “an ecosystem of comedian books, TV, movie, animation, merchandise and spinoff video games we’re constructing round our IPs.”
The success of the Netflix anime “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” was a much needed win for the corporate after the disastrous launch of “Cyberpunk 2077” in 2020. It launched in an unfinished state after years of delays, crunch and allegations of office abuse. The sport was additionally criticized for its portrayal of Asian, transgender and feminine characters. The bugs had been so unhealthy that each Sony and Microsoft introduced they’d refund copies of “Cyberpunk 2077” purchased by way of their shops.
CD Projekt was as soon as praised as one of the crucial beloved, customer-first publishers within the trade for its agency stance in opposition to DRM (digital rights administration, which could be restrictive and unwieldy for shoppers) in its video games and intensive historical past of releasing free downloadable content material. After “Cyberpunk 2077,” CD Projekt was lampooned for months with memes, and have become a cautionary story for the remainder of the trade.
The corporate’s goals, summarized Tuesday, embrace cultivating three flagship franchises, branching out to multiplayer titles (“Cyberpunk 2077” had a deliberate multiplayer mode that by no means made it to launch) and extra tv and movie diversifications.
“We see CD Projekt as a rising drive formed by our groups taking satisfaction within the video games they ship and daring of their ambitions,” Kiciński stated within the technique replace video. “We experiment, innovate and create, and we’re nonetheless all about reaching for the celebs.
