It’s considered one of the best role-playing games out there today, especially after Phantom Liberty. However, despite changing how it develops titles (including properly documenting everything), steps to eliminate crunch, and more, CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski believes its redemption arc hasn’t been completed.

“I’m not 100 percent convinced we went through the full redemption arc,” he told the Knowledge newsletter (via GamesRadar). “I’m convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that’s a fair thing.”

Of course, the company isn’t simply taking it lying down. Nowakowski hopes that “we will be able to make it back – if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next.” Which would potentially be Cyberpunk 2, if not The Witcher Remake from Fool’s Theory.

Regardless, it’s a long journey, especially since CD Projekt isn’t keen on releasing a swath of titles. In the same interview, Nowakowski said that he’s not keen on a big game every year, and the team isn’t planning to grow by having several new IPs. Instead, the plan is to make “really cool games” – with the odd expansion such as, say, Songs of the Past for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

As for The Witcher 4, it doesn’t have a release date, but chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz said that it wouldn’t launch before 2027 at the earliest.

In a recent financial earnings call, CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski revealed that “the expansion is now in an advanced phase of production. Around 190 developers, most of them from our trusted partners at Fool’s Theory, are currently working with us on the project. At the same time, CD Projekt RED provides the creative oversight to safeguard the quality of the Witcher experience.”

How many developers from CDPR are involved remains unknown, but as of April 30th, 2026, there are 163 developers currently working on Project Orion aka Cyberpunk 2. Project Sirius, a multiplayer Witcher spin-off developed by The Molasses Flood, is next up at 83 developers, while Project Hadar has dropped from 26 to 24.

The Witcher 4 continues to command the lion’s share of resources with 513 developers currently, up from 499 in February. With CD Projekt RED’s focus split between its two core projects, it’s understandable that Fool’s Theory is handling the bulk of the expansion. Whether it’s affecting development on The Witcher Remake is a different question altogether.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past launches in 2027 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, with a reveal confirmed for Gamescom. However, you should expect something akin to a guided demo rather than hands-on time, per Nowakowski.

It started with the complete lack of documentation for The Witcher 1 and 2, and, surprise, “nothing from that period” exists.

“We were tasked to recreate the classic game for the mainstream audience, only to realize that we had little to no technical knowledge preserved from that time,” said Ruciński, referring to the upcoming remake from Fool’s Theory. With Cyberpunk 2077, the team opted for a “fresh start” and utilised Confluence, a “living documentation tool.”

Unfortunately, what started with the best intentions turned into over 8,000 pages of barely useful material (and maintaining it was, unsurprisingly, a “low priority”). Things became even worse when Phantom Liberty shifted to a “cloud instance of Confluence” for its documentation.

As Fulneczek notes, “It was chaos, right? Two spaces, two instances. It was very difficult to understand for us, for our outsource partners as well… If you can, don’t divide between platforms or different tools. You have to link very clearly between them.”

Thankfully, CD Projekt RED has overhauled its documentation process. Referring to The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, Fulneczek said, “The future looks really promising for us. We learned our lesson.”

“We’ve got some new requirements, especially a new definition of ‘done’. So as you know, any project, any game goes through development stages, and right now, every stage ends with a gate. Part of the requirements to pass that gate is the documentation, which wasn’t the case before.”

Ruciński added, “Unlike in the past, now, today our knowledge isn’t locked between specific teams’ permissions. It’s a shared asset. If a team working on, let’s say, The Witcher figures out a solution for a specific issue, the Cyberpunk team can see it, benefit from it, take it into their own code, modify it probably a little bit.” This means that “problems aren’t being solved multiple times by different teams, and also that if a breakthrough happens on one of the projects, the whole company benefits.”

While this is all well and good, the fact that CD Projekt RED shipped some of the biggest games out there despite this messy approach says something. It also makes one excited about what a properly organised development team can deliver in the future, that too without severely burning out its workers.

The Witcher 4 doesn’t have a release date, though it entered full production in late November 2024. As for Cyberpunk 2, it was last noted to be in the pre-production phase as of May 2025. Teams for both have been scaling up, however, so it wouldn’t be surprising if there were new announcements this year.

After having spent 8 years at Warhorse Studios working on both Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its sequel, Glatz has now taken on the role of senior open world designer at CD Projekt RED. During his tenure at Warhorse, he had worked as a senior game designer and writer, and a lead level designer.

Interestingly, Glatz’s new role is similar to one that was mentioned back in December 2025 among a list of roles that CD Projekt RED had been hiring for. Other roles included Game Capture Lead, Lead VFX Artist, and Senior VFX Artist, among many others.

Since then, the studio hasn’t slowed down its efforts to hire new developers. In February, former cinematic animator on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Lucie Hennet, joined CD Projekt RED’s Warsaw-based studio, which is working on The Witcher 4.

“During my time at Sandfall Interactive, my main responsibilities included cleaning up and refining body and facial motion capture, as well as managing data from Xsense to UE5,” wrote Hennet about her qualifications. “I also provided support on the motion capture sessions and contributed to building the animation pipeline for the cinematics.”

December 2025 also saw Felix Pedulla jump over to CD Projekt RED from Larian after having worked at the Baldur’s Gate 3 developer as its senior cinematic designer. Pedulla is an industry veteran, and in the past has also worked at Crytek, having a hand in the creation of cinematics for titles that include Hunt: Showdown.

“After an incredible and frankly wild six-year ride with the amazing team at Larian Studios, a new chapter begins,” wrote Pedulla. “I’m so grateful for every chaotic, creative, and unforgettable moment we shared. We made some serious magic together, and I’ll forever cherish the lessons and memories. A huge thank you to all my incredible colleagues and friends I made.”

“As one adventure ends, another begins! I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I’m joining the legendary team at CD Projekt Red as a Senior Cinematic Designer! The opportunity to contribute to one of the most ambitious studios in the industry is a dream come true. Time to trade in my Baldur’s Gate dice for some Polish steel and get to work crafting some epic cutscenes.”

In the meantime, CD Projekt RED has continued to quietly work on its variety of projects. While it hasn’t yet confirmed a release date for The Witcher 4, co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has reaffirmed that there are plans to release the game, along with two sequels, within the span of six years.

“I do believe that further games should be delivered in a shorter period of time – as we had stated before, our plan still is to launch the whole trilogy within a six-year period, so yes, that would mean we would plan to have a shorter development time between The Witcher 4 and The Witcher 5, between The Witcher 5 and The Witcher 6 and so on,” he said on the subject of development times for CD Projekt’s games getting “shorter and more predictable” in their cadence.

Having entered full production in late 2024, it’s interesting to see The Witcher 4’s development team continuing to grow. By comparison, the team working on Project Orion aka Cyberpunk 2 has added approximately 14 developers over the past several months. It’s worth remembering, however, that CDPR previously outlined plans to more than double the size of the Boston, Warsaw, and Vancouver teams.

The plan is for Cyberpunk 2 to have more than 450 developers by 2027. As The Witcher 4’s development is showcasing, however, that could mean full production begins either later this year or early next year (it entered pre-production in May 2025). The development team will then continue scaling throughout until it hits the intended target, and nothing says it can’t increase even further.

The Witcher 4 doesn’t have a launch date or platforms, outside of PC, obviously. Noble Securities analyst Mateusz Chrzanowski believes it could arrive in late 2027 with the rumored Witcher 3 DLC – now believed to be coming in September – serving to bridge the story.

Creative director Igor Sarzyński didn’t affirm one way or another, but he definitely prefers the “uninterrupted immersion” that the current game offers. “Stumbled upon some old pics I shot during Phantom Liberty development,” he said on Bluesky. “Gotta admit, setting up cutscenes in this game would be extremely pleasant (because everything looks mindblowingly amazing), but in the end I value our uninterrupted immersion more.”

That immersion is due to Cyberpunk 2077 being almost entirely in first-person as players embody V through their journey in Night City. Third-person cutscenes are a rare occurrence, but you’re otherwise witnessing everything through your character’s eyes. So while Sarzyński isn’t necessarily denying a third-person perspective for Cyberpunk 2, it certainly looks unlikely.

If you needed anymore evidence that he’s factoring it in alongside cutscenes here, he responded to another user who claimed that the current presentation “limits interest from people who enjoy third person.” “When something is for everyone, then it’s for no one. It’s okay to not vibe with our choices!”

Back in 2023, quest director Paweł Sasko said the team hadn’t decided whether the sequel would be first-person. Cut to 2025, when a job listing for senior gameplay animator indicated that it would be first-person after all. With pre-production starting last May and CD Projekt RED planning to scale up its teams over the next two years, players may be looking at another highly immersive experience. With potentially sporadic glimpses of their created character, of course.

Chrzanowski has noted that the actual development price is likely closer to PLN 1.4 billion (roughly $388 million). He also expects CD Projekt to spend a similar amount on its marketing, which will likely bring up its overall expenses to the $800 million mark. He has also offered predictions about the development budget of other CD Projekt titles, such as the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel Project Orion.

He has predicted that Orion‘s development will cost around PLN 1.5 billion (roughly $416 million), with a chunk associated with the rumoured multiplayer game modes. Along with this, the launch window for Orion has also been reportedly pushed back to Q4 2030.

Chrzanowski had previously reaffirmed that the DLC for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is “100 percent” happening. He cites the company’s incentive program being short PLN 700 million (roughly $194 million), which may be met if new paid content for one of CD Projekt’s games is released.

As for the rumours about new The Witcher 3 DLC, Chrzanowski predicts that it will be released in May, and will sell 11 million copies over the next year. He has also predicted a development budget of PLN 52 million (roughly $14.5 million) for this DLC.

While CD Projekt RED is yet to make any DLC announcements, reports have indicated that it will take players to Zerrikania, east of Nilfgaard. Along with this, IGN Poland has also claimed to have known about the DLC for “a very long time”. It is worth noting that these details about the DLC are from early in its development, and that they may have been changed since then. Kovir is noted as another possible location for its story.

Development of The Witcher 4 has been going quietly at CD Projekt RED, with no new details having been revealed in quite some time. Back in December, however, CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski had spoken about the company’s hiring policies, and whether it has been changed because of the rise of generative AI in the IT industry.

“We are not really hiring ‘classic’ IT – but I understand this is supposed to be about gaming industry talent – the availability of talent has perhaps increased a bit over the past three years, but I’m not sure I’d actually ascribe it to AI, to be perfectly honest – some studios have been going through turmoil; there were some project closures and so on, which led to many redundancies in the gaming industry; we’ve all seen that – it’s been very dramatic in many cases – but – literally kill me here, but I don’t recall a single time when it would be attributable directly to AI,” he explained.

He also noted that the company isn’t looking to reduce its headcount due to generative AI anytime soon. Rather, the company’s use of AI largely revolves around “productivity areas”, and he isn’t convinced that the technology can “sit down and make games”.

“That’s our take. It doesn’t mean it’s not gonna be useful, but it’s not gonna be making The Witcher 5, or 6, or anything like that,” he said.

Granted, that’s only three more than it reported as of July 31st, but it makes sense since full production began almost a year ago. The developer has grown overall this past quarter, going from 799 to 851 developers with Cyberpunk 2, also known as Project Orion, gaining 21 more team members. Other projects like The Molasses Flood’s Project Sirius and new IP Project Hadar saw comparatively minor increases to their teams.

However, it’s interesting to note CD Projekt RED’s plans to scale its Boston, Warsaw and Vancouver teams for the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. From October 2025 and well into 2027, it plans to more than double the former’s size to over 300 developers. The latter two teams will also go from fewer than 100 to well over 150, meaning over 450 developers will be working on the title in about two years.

While The Witcher 4 won’t launch before 2027 “at the earliest,” this presents a timeline for when CD Projekt RED may start winding down production and gradually shifting team members to Cyberpunk 2. That’s if everything goes according to plan, and with a project aiming to be the “most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game,” there may be some hiccups.

“Our recruitment efforts have significantly sped up over the last three months and as a result the total number of talented developers working across our projects has grown by 10% reaching almost 800 people,” said joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski in a presentation to investors. “This growth was primarily driven by our two largest development teams.”

“The Witcher 4 team grew to over 440 developers while the Cyberpunk 2 project which transitioned into pre-production recently in Q2 as you may remember added 20 new team members. We anticipate further gradual growth in our total developer headcount by the end of the year, particularly for the teams working on projects in the most advanced stages of production.”

Of the two projects, The Witcher 4 is quite a bit further along in development than the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, as evidenced by the fact that the team for the former is much larger than the latter, as well as the fact that The Witcher 4 was officially unveiled back in December 2024 with a trailer.

Since then, CD Projekt RED has been revealing more details about the action RPG. Back in July, narrative director Philipp Weber spoke about how much pressure the team has been facing to make The Witcher 4 better than its critically-acclaimed and beloved predecessor.

According to Weber, “‘Witcher 3 was one of the best games ever made, how are they going to top it?’” he went on to mention that he agrees with discourse surrounding the 2015 RPG, saying “I’m like ‘yeah, how are we going to do that?’”

“I think the way we want to do justice to the legacy of The Witcher 3 is to take the philosophy we had during The Witcher 3 – how to make a game, how to really care about these things, how to tell stories – and keep that philosophy,” Weber continued. “At the same time, there are new questions we want to answer, because this is supposed to feel like a true sequel, not just redoing what we did before. And I think it’s really trying to have that healthy mix of really moving forward and also trying out some new things, but doing justice to what was there, not trying to beat it.”

The Witcher 4 doesn’t yet have an official release date. The title is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and is making use of the most cutting edge technology available for Unreal Engine 5 out there.

Sondej’s statement comes shortly after the company confirmed that it has entered the pre-production phase for Cyberpunk 2 – known internally as Project Orion. The announcement was made during a recent earnings report, where the studio also noted that Cyberpunk 2 wasn’t the finalised name for the game.

While pre-production on the game may have started already, we might still be between 4 and 5 years away from seeing the actual game. During the same investor call, studio co-CEO Michał Nowakowski said that CD Projekt RED’s development pipeline usually takes games around 5 years to go from pre-production to final release date.

“Our journey from the pre-production to the final release date takes four to five years on average,” said Nowakowski when asked about whether the studio’s current development pipeline for The Witcher 4 is also an indicator for what we can expect for a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. “Having said that, and keeping in mind that each project is unique and there are many variables that influence the final outcome, I will not lead you into specific years.”

Project Orion was announced has having entered the earliest stages of development back in February 2024, with Gabriel Amatangelo – who last worked on Cyberpunk 2077’s expansion Phantom Liberty – serving as the game’s director. Other developers working on the game include Dan Hernberg as executive producer, Ryan Barnard as design director, and Alan Villani as engineering director. All three are veterans of the game development industry, with Hernberg having served at Blizzard, Barnard at Ubisoft Massive and IO Interactive, and Villani at WB Games.

While details about Project Orion – or Cyberpunk 2 – might still be sprase, back in 2022, studio CFO Piotr Nielubowicz spoke about how many developers the game might need. In an investor call at the time, Nielubowicz said that the studio can take cues from Cyberpunk 2077’s development team, and that the new game might need between 350 and 500 developers.

“As for the total headcount required for such a production, I believe the best reference is Cyberpunk 2077, our most recent release and a good reference point when thinking about development headcount and future projects of this scale,” he said at the time. “I think it’s safe to assume that between 350 and 500 developers should be required.”

Development on Project Orion is being handled primarily by CD Projekt RED’s North American studio, with support coming in from teams working in Boston, Vancouver, and Poland.

Creator Mike Pondsmith has also said that Cyberpunk 2 would take place in a new city, which he has described as being less like the Blade Runner-inspired Night City and more like a “Chicago gone wrong.” Pondsmith has also said that Night City will still be present in the game in some form.