I don’t mean to surprise you here, but it seems that CD Projekt Red intends to make follow-ups to its wildly successful RPG games. The studio plans to start “parallel triple-A development” in 2022, according to a new business strategy report, and the devs are focusing those efforts on their “two core franchises”: The Witcher and Cyberpunk.
Of course, it’s far too early for any real details on those games, so the actual titles could be anything from The Witcher: Adventures of Ciri to Cyberpunk 1850. (Those titles are pure speculation from me, please don’t put this part on Reddit.) The thing CDPR is clear about is that these will be “genre-blending” RPG games with an “online experience” in addition to the single-player stories the studio is known for.
“CD Projekt Red makes single-player, story-driven triple-A RPGs,” joint CEO Adam Kiciński says. “That is not changing. What is changing is our long-term approach to online. We are building an online technology that can be seamlessly integrated into development of future games.”
This general change in approach also means that the planned Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer game – hinted to be a standalone release – will not be happening. Now that the studio is investing in online for all its future triple-A games, the devs plan to move away from the idea of standalone multiplayer games. (Though smaller-scale spin-offs like Gwent and Monster Slayer will continue to happen, too.)
— CD PROJEKT IR (@CDPROJEKTRED_IR) March 30, 2021
REDengine will continue to power future games in both the Witcher and Cyberpunk series, but now the studio will structure its development teams so that resources between the two games can be shared. As an example, both games might use the same tech for both NPC routines and character control.
— CD PROJEKT IR (@CDPROJEKTRED_IR) March 30, 2021
CD Projekt is changing its approach to marketing, too. “We have learned many things from our marketing and PR campaigns for Cyberpunk 2077” SVP of business development Michał Nowakowski says in CDPR’s latest business strategy report. “We see things that need to change in the future and this is how we will do that. Going forward, our campaigns will be much shorter. We’ll wait until much closer to our game’s launch before we start showing things like trailers, demos, or going in depth about mechanics.”
That doesn’t mean announcements won’t happen early. Nowakowski says that “if it makes sense we will still tease future projects at an early stage, with the actual campaign waiting until closer to launch.”
So don’t expect a Witcher 4 release date to land anytime soon, but we might be the first teaser for the next entry sooner rather than later. For 2021, CD Projekt will continue to focus on patches, updates, and free DLC for Cyberpunk 2077, as well as next-gen console upgrades for both it and The Witcher 3.