CD Projekt Red has released its earnings report for Q3 2023, in which it’s confirmed that about half of its development team is working on Polaris, codename for The Witcher 4. It’s been in production since at least 2022 and now seems to be entering full development.
To be precise, according to IGN, there are about 330 developers actively working on The Witcher 4, which constitutes a bit less than half of the development team. CDPR did say that it will be pivoting from Cyberpunk: 2077 following the release of Phantom Liberty, and it appears it’s done just that. CDPR leaves a successful year behind it after a long and thorny road of redeeming the futuristic RPG, with the next Witcher installment in its sights.
As reported by PCGamer, CEO of CDPR Adam Kiciński said on Nov. 28 that CDPR’s core development team is slowly expanding. “The team is steadily growing, having reached almost 330 developers at the end of last month,” he said, adding, “It’s expected to grow to over 400 by mid next year.” The same earnings call confirmed that a couple of hundred developers will also be focused on the Cyberpunk sequel, which, according to a PCGamer report, is already in the early stages of production.
The last time CDPR talked about The Witcher 4 was when it was still known as Project Polaris and in a stage of pre-production in May 2022. CDPR also gave us more information on potential new projects, including a sequel to Cyberpunk: 2077. It’s refreshing to hear concrete information finally and to know that the game is, indeed, being actively developed and not just part of a broader development prognosis.
Alongside The Witcher remake and many other planned CDPR projects, it seems that we’re in for a joy ride with the Polish developer, and I, for one, cannot be happier.
