Almost half of CD Projekt, the developers behind Cyberpunk 2077, is now working on The Witcher 4, following the release of Phantom Liberty. Read on to learn more.
Related Video
CD Projekt Focuses on The Witcher 4
330 Developers On the Job
Almost half of CD Projekt Red is now working on a sequel to the critically acclaimed Witcher game series, following the release of Phantom Liberty, Cyberpunk 2077’s DLC.
This information comes from CD Projekt Red’s recent earnings report, which shows that 330 developers, or a little under 50% of its development manpower, have been working on The Witcher 4, codenamed Polaris, since October 31, 2023. Adam Kiciński, the company’s CEO, confirmed that around 400 developers are expected to be working on the sequel by mid-2024. The dev team behind The Witcher 4 has been growing, with only less than 25% of their development workforce working on Polaris at the end of last year. With Phantom Liberty out of the way, we can expect more people to join in on the project.
The report also indicates that more than 25% of the dev team is currently “in transfer” from Phantom Liberty. The company has previously confirmed that a lot of those transferees would join The Witcher 4, a Cyberpunk sequel codenamed Orion and other games.
While we know how many people are working on Polaris, we don’t know what stage of development it’s in. The last news on this was CD Projekt’s confirmation of Polaris entering its pre-production phase way back in May of last year.
Despite the large number of people working on the game, it’s still a long wait before its release. Kiciński mentioned in October of 2022 that it’ll be at least 3 years until we get to play the game because, in addition to making an entire game, they also have to develop new technology within Unreal Engine 5. Chief commercial officer, Michał Nowakowski, also mentioned that creating a new game while creating new technology usually takes four or five years, so it’s safe to say that Kiciński’s 3-year estimate is more on the earlier side.
