CD Projekt Red announced about 1.5 years ago that a new legend for the Witcher series would begin in March 2022. However, since the day it was announced, the company has been working intensively on Cyberpunk 2077 and its DLC. Now, good news has arrived for Witcher 4.
Witcher 4 development team exceeds 200 people
More than 200 developers who developed Cyberpunk 2077’s DLC Phantom City, whose trailer was shared at Gamescom 2023 and will be released on September 26, are now involved in the development process of Witcher 4 with the completion of that project.
CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński announced that the development team of the long-awaited new game of The Witcher series, codenamed Polaris, has reached approximately 260 developers. Although most of the CD Projekt team is currently working on Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC, Kiciński notes that many of these developers will eventually join the Witcher team.
CD Projekt first put forward the idea of a new The Witcher game in 2020, before the poor launch of Cyberpunk 2077, and stated at that time that it would not be called The Witcher 4.
In addition to a new main entry in the popular fantasy series, CD Projekt were also planning to add a multiplayer spin-off game to the series, but it was reportedly canceled due to an internal ‘disappointment’ incident that was not disclosed to the press.
While fans of The Witcher series will certainly be pleased to hear that work on the next mainline game is well underway in earnest, not every developer at the Polish publisher will have the chance to join the Polaris team.
Earlier this year, CD Projekt Red was expected to cut 100 jobs by the first quarter of 2024. This layoff, representing 9% of the company’s team, was another process that negatively affected the development of games.
The game, which will probably restart the series just like God of War 2018, will not be called Witcher 4 as a result. The series will be re-released directly under the name ‘The Witcher’. Increasing the number of the development team will of course speed up the development process of the game, but do not expect anything soon.
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