In a thread on Twitter, the corporate revealed three new tasks set in The Witcher universe. Project Polaris, the beginning of a brand new trilogy for The Witcher franchise, is in preproduction at its improvement studio, CD Projekt RED, with the bold purpose of releasing the subsequent two games within the trilogy inside six years after Polaris’s launch. Project Sirius can be an “innovative” multiplayer title, and is in preproduction at one other subsidiary, Molasses Flood, with assist from CD Projekt RED. Project Canis Majoris can be a single-player, open-world RPG contracted to an unnamed third-party studio led by veteran builders of The Witcher collection.
Project Orion is described as a sequel to “Cyberpunk 2077” that “will prove the full power and potential of the Cyberpunk universe,” reads the company’s announcement. Orion’s improvement can be spearheaded by the corporate’s new North American studio, CD Projekt North America.
The firm additionally plans to launch an enlargement for “Cyberpunk 2077,” titled “Phantom Liberty,” subsequent yr.
The remaining announced mission, Hadar, is CD Projekt’s first authentic IP. Hadar had been brainstormed for a number of years, however didn’t begin its conceptual part till a small incubation group was assigned to it final yr.
CD Projekt described its technique in higher element in a video on its YouTube channel.
In the video, CD Projekt Chief Financial Officer Piotr Nielubowicz mentioned the corporate has been growing two AAA tasks in parallel, stating that the flexibility to work on a number of titles in tandem is “crucial to our future growth.” He additionally revealed CD Projekt RED can be utilizing Epic Games’ Unreal engine transferring ahead, changing the in-house REDengine the studio has used since 2011’s “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.”
“A key strategy decision was forming a long-term partnership with Epic Games,” Nielubowicz mentioned. “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 bolster CD Projekt’s ambitions, the corporate touted the acquisitions of builders CD Projekt Vancouver (previously referred to as Digital Scapes) and Molasses Flood in Boston. The two studios mixed to kind the corporate’s newest regional department, CD Projekt North America. There have additionally been two new appointments to CD Projekt’s board: Chief Technology Officer and Head of Production Pawel Zawodny, and Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Franchise Development Jeremiah Cohn.
CD Projekt President and joint-CEO Adam Kiciński mentioned within the technique video that the corporate has greater than 700 builders (and over 1,100 employees in whole) throughout its studios.
The firm laid out a highway map for all its announced merchandise together with a burgeoning multimedia imaginative and prescient for its IPs.
CD Projekt may even make investments extra deeply into broadening the attain of their current franchises. The firm referred to this technique because the franchise flywheel, which CD Projekt Senior Vice President of Business Development Michał Nowakowski described within the video as “an ecosystem of comic books, TV, film, animation, merchandise and spinoff games we are building around our IPs.”
The success of the Netflix anime “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” was a a lot wanted 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 recreation was additionally criticized for its portrayal of Asian, transgender and feminine characters. The bugs had been so dangerous that each Sony and Microsoft announced they’d refund copies of “Cyberpunk 2077” purchased by means of their shops.
CD Projekt was as soon as praised as some of the beloved, customer-first publishers within the business for its agency stance towards DRM (digital rights administration, which will be restrictive and unwieldy for customers) in its games and intensive historical past of releasing free downloadable content material. After “Cyberpunk 2077,” CD Projekt was lampooned for months with memes, and turned a cautionary story for the remainder of the business.
The firm’s targets, 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 variations.
“We see CD Projekt as a growing force shaped by our teams taking pride in the games they deliver and bold in their ambitions,” Kiciński mentioned within the technique replace video. “We experiment, innovate and create, and we’re nonetheless all about reaching for the celebrities.