CD Projekt RED plans Cyberpunk sequel and lots more Witcher games

Details: The studio offered an unusually transparent look at what it is working on.

• The Cyberpunk sequel got a codename, Orion, but no sense of release timing. In a call with investors, executives said it hasn’t started making it as the studio focuses on an expansion to Cyberpunk 2077.
• The new Witcher trilogy will launch with a game codenamed Polaris, with two sequels to follow in a six-year span. (The studio says 150+ people are already working on it; the studio has over 1,000 employees)
• Two other Witcher games are in the works: Codename Canis Majoris, which is new, externally-developed Witcher game, and Project Sirius from Boston-based studio The Molasses Flood, which CDPR recently acquired. Sirius will include single- and multiplayer modes and target a broader audience than previous Witcher games, according to a CDPR statement.
• Something new is also in the works. The studio is conceptualizing a third franchise, Codename Hadar.

Between the lines: The line-up is highly ambitious, especially for a company whose last two releases, Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 were released five years apart.

• The release of Cyberpunk 2077 was broadly considered premature, given severe performance issues that led to the publisher offering refunds and PlayStation delisting the game for several months.

• The studio also has had a reputation for working its developers hard, and has repeatedly vowed to improve their work-life balance.
• That makes the timetable for the new games, especially the six-year window for the three Witcher games surprising. "It's a bold statement, as we are talking about three large-scale productions,” CDPR president Adam Kicinski said of the trilogy plan, “but we really mean it and we have a plan on how to achieve it."
• Kicinski said the timetable should be achievable thanks to a plan to share technology across the three games.

Go deeper:

• Cyberpunk 2077 surges after Netflix anime debut