CD Projekt Red confirms Cyberpunk 2077 sequel and five more Witcher games

[Cal Jeffrey]

In brief: CD Projekt Red (RED 2.0) confirmed that a Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely on the table. However, it might be a little while as it looks like the priority for the studio is a new Witcher trilogy. The Polish developer has already stated it plans to run simultaneous teams on both IPs. So we might see a shuffle in the launch order of its upcoming games.

In 2021, CD Projekt Red restructured its studios to enable it to work on multiple titles simultaneously. It dubbed the plan "RED 2.0" and promised that it would have teams working in tandem on its two biggest franchises — the long-established Witcher and the newly launched Cyberpunk 2077 worlds.

At the time, the announcement seemed implausible, considering CDPR was still reeling from the less-than-warm reviews the bug-riddled Cyberpunk 2077 launch earned. Many felt that talk of a sequel in March 2021 was a bit early since players were still waiting for the debut title to get fixed.

Like it or not, a recent strategy update confirms that RED 2.0 is alive and well. The presentation says CDPR already has a second Cyberpunk 2077 game codenamed Project Orion in early development. Also, as promised, the studio has the next Witcher — wait, make that five Witcher games in the pipe.

In total, CDPR has six "Projects" under various stages of direct or indirect development that should produce eight games:

In-house

• Phantom Liberty — Upcoming CP2077 expansion
• Project Orion — Cyberpunk 2077 sequel
• Project Polaris — a new Witcher trilogy
• Project Hadar — an unknown new IP

Third-party

• Project Sirius — Witcher game developed by The Molasses Flood
• Project Canis Majoris — Witcher RPG by an unnamed third-party studio

Details were scarce for these titles, and timelines were equally vague. The studio pegged Project Polaris to release three games over six years. It already has 160 team members working on it and will likely add more once the 350 Phantom Liberty developers launch their expansion. Orion appears to be in the very early development stage and might not have a whole team formed yet. The strategy makes sense — get the CP2077 expansion out, launch a new Witcher game, then think about getting a CP2077 sequel into players' hands.

The third parties developing Sirius and Canis Majoris might likely see releases before anything CDRP is directly working on (aside from Phantom Liberty), but that's my speculation. I don't think RED 2.0 wants a repeat of the CP2077 launch, so it'll likely take its sweet time getting anything out the door.

As rough as Cyberpunk 2077's December 2020 launch was, there is no denying its success. At launch, the game already had 8 million preorders. It's unknown how many customers took up CDPR's refund offer for the shoddy launch, but by the end of 2020, it had racked up more than 10 million in digital sales (a record) and 3 million discs. As of September 2022, the total number of units sold was over 20 million worldwide.

If that's not enough to justify a sequel, someone call EA and let its Star Wars Battlefront team know. That game has a lifetime total of 14 million in sales, with its grind-heavy sequel only bringing in 9 million.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/96203-cd-projekt-red-confirms-cyberpunk-2077-sequel-five.html

 

[m4a4]

Not surprised they'd want to print more money with successful franchises. Though, CP2077 will definitely force them to do better.

Interesting wording though, suggesting teams will absolutely split their time between projects. In my experience, it isn't a great strategy flip-flopping on what project you're working on. I would bet that programmers and designers wouldn't be (those are definitely full time positions on any single project)...

 

[sorten]

Bold claims for a studio that has had so much trouble executing on one game. I'd be happy to see another Witcher game. W3 is one of my personal favorites.

 

[yRaz]

Hopefully the new game is what it should have been in the first place. I love the IDEA of cyberpunk but it's execution was killed by the
forced release from the parent company.

 

[bluetooth fairy]

Wonder how other guys had managed to release story dlcs in time. Bioshock Infinite and Dishonored ftw.

 

[Puckmanoz]

Interesting wording though, suggesting teams will absolutely split their time between projects. In my experience, it isn't a great strategy flip-flopping on what project you're working on. I would bet that programmers and designers wouldn't be (those are definitely full time positions on any single project)...

I wonder if they will have different staff working on different games, while other projects are on down time. Like the assent creation people might switch to different projects when needed? That way they don’t have to fire people when projects are in the initial phase of development?

 

[passwordistaco]

Bring it on!

Not surprised they'd want to print more money with successful franchises. Though, CP2077 will definitely force them to do better.

Interesting wording though, suggesting teams will absolutely split their time between projects. In my experience, it isn't a great strategy flip-flopping on what project you're working on. I would bet that programmers and designers wouldn't be (those are definitely full time positions on any single project)...

I wonder if they will have different staff working on different games, while other projects are on down time. Like the assent creation people might switch to different projects when needed? That way they don’t have to fire people when projects are in the initial phase of development?

They've announced a co-development deal on Unreal 5 with Epic. The engine dev team's work will apply to each title. Asset devs could conceivably work multiple titles, even adapting common assets between Witcher and CP. Artists can do textures for different games. If managed right, this approach could increase efficiency and quality of development.

 

[RudyBob]

I would prefer five more Dishonored games but since guys like this stuff it's good for them

 

[George Keech]

Well if you can't do one right try doing 5 at once

 

[mrSister]

Sirius and Canis sound like mobile cashgrabs like Diablo Immortal.

 

[Ohnooze]

After cyberpunk I'm a wait and see kind of guy.

 

[Nobina]

The Witcher 3 is one of the best games ever made, they will very likely never top that one. Many people thought Cyberpunk 2077 was gonna do it and it was laughable. It is a good game but not on TW3 level even after all the bug fixes.

TW3 was supposed to be the last Witcher game but I'm guessing CDPR wants to go the Ubisoft way. When a game is made from greed it's probably going to be soulless shite.

 

[tacobravo]

With the Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners anime, there are a lot of new players like me. So far I haven't experienced too many bugs, most are minor with only a couple of crashes to desktop and I've put in 43 hours so far.

 

[Revolution 11]

With the Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners anime, there are a lot of new players like me. So far I haven't experienced too many bugs, most are minor with only a couple of crashes to desktop and I've put in 43 hours so far.

The game is fine, but that is all it is. Not outstanding like the hype suggested, not dogshit like the post-launch reception was. It is a thoroughly average RPG with very nice graphics. (The marketing however was almost illegally misleading).

The anime is far far better than the game ever will be which only reinforces the idea already in my head that AAA games are not and never will be the frontier of storytelling that have been breathlessly echoed in media for a decade now.

Finally, CDPR owes Studio Trigger a big one for saving Cyberpunk 2077 from gamer apathy.

 

[Puckmanoz]

The game is fine, but that is all it is. Not outstanding like the hype suggested, not dogshit like the post-launch reception was. It is a thoroughly average RPG with very nice graphics. (The marketing however was almost illegally misleading).

The anime is far far better than the game ever will be which only reinforces the idea already in my head that AAA games are not and never will be the frontier of storytelling that have been breathlessly echoed in media for a decade now.

Finally, CDPR owes Studio Trigger a big one for saving Cyberpunk 2077 from gamer apathy.

Let’s see what they do with the sequel. Just remember Witcher 1 and 2 were rather mediocre apart from the story line. It wasn’t until they had the experience and budget that they made 3.