CD Projekt, the renowned Polish publisher, announced on Tuesday that it is planning a series of new games, including a new Cyberpunk game, a new Witcher trilogy and a new game based around CD Projekt’s first original IP.

 

 

In addition to the Cyberpunk games, the company took to Twitter to reveal three new projects set in The Witcher universe. Project Polaris, the start of a new trilogy in The Witcher franchise, is already in the preliminary stages of development at CD Projekt Red’s development studio, with the ambitious goal of releasing the next two games in the trilogy within six years of Polaris’ release.

On the other hand, Project Sirius will be an “innovative” multiplayer title and is in pre-production at another subsidiary, Molasses Flood, with the support of CD Projekt Red. The last one, Project Canis Majoris, will be a single-player open-world RPG contracted to an unnamed third-party studio led by veteran developers of The Witcher series.

Project Orion is described as a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 that will “prove the full power and potential of the Cyberpunk universe”, according to a company statement.

The development of Orion will be led by the company’s new North American studio, CD Projekt North America.

The company also plans to release a Cyberpunk 2077 expansion next year, titled Phantom Liberty.

The last project announced, Hadar, is CD Projekt’s first original IP. Hadar has been in the works for years, but the concept development phase only began last year when a small incubation team was hired to work on it.

Piotr Nielubowicz, CFO of CD Projekt, said in a video that the company was developing two AAA projects in parallel. He said the ability to work on multiple titles in parallel was “crucial to our future growth.” He also revealed that CD Projekt Red would use Epic Games’ Unreal engine in the future, replacing the proprietary REDengine the studio has operated since 2011’s The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

“A key strategy decision was forming a long-term partnership with Epic Games,” said Nielubowicz.

“Unreal engine will be the technology which we will build upon to deliver our creative vision, CD Projekt Red’s unique style and exceptional quality in open-world storytelling.”

To strengthen CD Projekt’s ambitions, the company highlighted the acquisition of developers CD Projekt Vancouver (formerly Digital Scapes) and Boston-based Molasses Flood. The two studios merged to create the company’s newest regional arm, CD Projekt North America. Two new members have also been appointed to the CD Projekt Board of Directors. Pawel Zawodny as Chief Technology Officer and Head of Production, and Jeremiah Cohn as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Franchise Development.

Adam Kiciński, president and co-CEO of CD Projekt, said in the strategy video that the company employs more than 700 developers (and more than 1,100 employees in total) in its studios.

The company outlined the roadmap for all its announced products and its sprawling multimedia vision for its IP.

The success of the Netflix anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners after the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020 is a massive relief for the company. The game was released unfinished after years of delays, crises and allegations of workplace abuse. The game was also criticised for portraying Asian, transgender and female characters. The flaws were so severe that both Sony and Microsoft announced they would be refunding copies of Cyberpunk 2077 purchased through their stores.

Source: CD Projekt, YouTube