In a long-term strategy update on Tuesday, CD Projekt laid out an extremely ambitious development plan that stretches far into the future, and includes confirmation of no less than six new games in addition to the new Witcher games already discussed. There Wasn’t: Two More Witcher Sequels, Two Witcher Byproducts, and a Sequel cyberpunk 2077As well as the creation of a completely original third series, which is currently in the early conceptual stages.
CD Projekt wisely didn’t put a concrete timeline on any of these, but from what the studio said, it’s possible to put the projects in rough release order, and to explain where the resources to build them would come from.
In the near future, CD Projekt Red – the company’s main studio, which includes three development centers in Poland – is focused on finishing a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X version. Magician 3due this year, and phantom liberty to extend cyberpunk 2077in 2023.
After that, the next three games in the development pipeline are all from the Witcher franchise, and two are in pre-production. The first is “Sirius”, the codename for a single and multiplayer game created by Boston studio The Molasses Flood, which CD Projekt acquired last year, and which created the co-op survival game. drake hollow, Also in pre-production is “Polaris”, the first game in the new Witcher saga, produced by the core CD Projekt Red Team. Next is most likely “Canis Majoris”, a “full blown” Witcher game, but different from the new saga and made by an outside studio.
Beyond this trio, CD Projekt Red hopes to follow up on “Polaris” with two sequels in the space of just six years. Meanwhile, “Orion”, the next game in the cyberpunk universe, will be produced by a new CD Projekt Red studio in Boston, as well as by CD Projekt Red Vancouver (formerly Digital Scapes, a more recent acquisition). “Hadar”, the new IP, is most likely the farthest; CD Projekt is working on the Red setting, but hasn’t started any actual game development.
Image: CD Project Red
Here are at least a decade worth of new games to be released. It is very rare for any publisher or developer to set their plans so far in advance. It also represents a revolutionary expansion for a company that, until this year, only worked on one major project at a time — and took its time about it as well. ,The Witcher 3 And cyberpunk 2077 Each were in production for four to five years.) Now CD Projekt is talking about managing two to three projects simultaneously in an internal studio, as well as working with an external studio for the first time on something bigger than a mobile game. doing.
In short, this is an extremely aggressive plan, and revealing it in full is a surprising, almost unprecedented PR move. What’s going on here?
One reason for analyzing the motivation of CD Projekt is that there is Too many In addition to announcing its massive production slate, its message is running in. In a 15-minute strategy video, an investor call, a presentation document, and many more deep-dive videos (on marketing, culture, and technology), CD Projekt seemed eager to talk about a range of topics, including are: expanding to multiplayer gaming (focusing on single-player experiences); Epic’s transition from its technology to Unreal Engine 5; Expanding further into film, TV and mobile gaming; Promote a healthy and sustainable work culture in your group of studios; both volume improvement And quality of its product. All this, and it also announced a change in leadership, with Joint CEO Marcin Ivinsky returning to a non-executive position as chairman of the board.
There is no doubt that the company and its investors were shaken by the reaction. cyberpunk 2077, which launched in late 2020 in such poor condition that PlayStation took the extreme step of withdrawing its PlayStation 4 version from sale. Earlier this year, it was reported that CD Projekt’s share price had fallen to a quarter of its value prior to the game’s release. with the sale of cyberpunk 2077 Now Hitting 20 Million – Helped Along With New Netflix Anime’s Success Cyberpunk: Edgerunners CD Projekt isn’t struggling financially, but it certainly will be eager to rebuild confidence in its ability to make games and drive that share price up.
Repeated insistence on game quality, extensive discussions of how Unreal Engine 5 will streamline the development process, and tensions over its growing network of internal and external studios, all seem designed to offer post-cyberpunk Assured but the stated plan goes far beyond that — and by its track record, far beyond CD Projekt’s capability — it seems the company has a loftier goal than just reassuring everyone here that Don’t mess up the buggy to win his next game.
Overall, the presentations are intent on changing the concept of the company to that of CD Projekt. since The Witcher 3, CD Projekt paints an image similar to that of Rockstar Games: a top-flight developer moving from one mega-blockbuster to the next at a deliberate pace. This new approach of a company working on three properties and three or more projects simultaneously is quite different.
The explosion of activity around The Witcher particularly suggests that publishers such as Ubisoft attempt to exploit the likes of Assassin’s Creed with a constant stream of new games (incidentally, Ubisoft recently released more or less obscure Assassin’s). has created its own fleet of cult declarations). But perhaps Blizzard is a close comparison: an entity between a publisher and a mega-studio, with multiple internal teams working on a handful of cherished assets.
Looks like CD Project now wants to do the project; The last question is, to whom is it presenting? A reliable answer is potential employees; Some of the videos came in like extended recruitment ads, and the company certainly has a lot of employees to do. Another theory could be that CD Projekt is showing its wares to present itself as an attractive acquisition prospect, as the wave of major mergers continues to rip through the industry.
Or it could be the opposite. Given the company’s disappointing share price, and the rest of CEO Adam Kisinski’s previous insistence that the company isn’t for sale — which he reinforced with his talk of complete independence in the strategy video — it seems that CD Projekt is not really worth its money. trying to grow and rally its shareholders against Temptation to take quick money from some potential buyer. Stay with the company, its leaders are saying, and a bright, empire-building future awaits.
Captivating sight. Now CD Projekt just needs to deliver it.
