The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red is working on multiple unannounced projects, including at least one based on its existing franchises.
The studio’s 2021 earnings report (opens in new tab) confirms that CDPR is knee-deep in “conceptual and research work on unannounced projects” even as it balances ongoing work on Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion, not to mention the recently delayed Witcher PS5 and Xbox Series X versions, which are now being handled internally at CDPR.
The report also singles out The Molasses Flood, a separate studio under CDPR’s umbrella, and its work “on an unannounced project based on one of our franchises.”
It’s worth noting that all of these mystery projects are separate from The Witcher 4, which has technically been announced even if we don’t know what the next Witcher game is actually called. A slide outlining the studio’s resource allocation suggests that roughly half of CDPR’s development staff is working on “other projects, including [a] new game in The Witcher IP.”
However, as CDPR clarified in its results conference, 10 of the studio’s 17 development teams are working on the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, while the remaining seven are working on technologies to support “future games.” This could indicate that the individual Cyberpunk teams are smaller than CDPR’s future-facing teams, but it’s tough to glean exact figures from a rough bar graph.
From July through December 2021, the studio steadily downsized the live team handling Cyberpunk 2077 and its new-gen version. This period saw the release of the mammoth 1.3 update as well as the delay of some free DLC and other Cyberpunk updates, but it seems the team in charge of the sci-fi RPG’s long-awaited expansion has actually grown slightly since December.
The studio’s 2022 production timeline also confirms that it plans to launch a single-player Gwent mode parallel to “further support for Gwent … and The Witcher: Monster Slayer.”
These announcements come on the heels of CDPR’s “strategic partnership” with Epic Games and Unreal Engine 5, which could well become a recurring foundation for the studio’s games beyond the next Witcher.
CDPR says it’s “still improving” Cyberpunk 2077 and was encouraged by the response to the recent 1.5 update.