CD Projekt Red has come a long way since releasing the original Witcher game in 2007. 15 years later, the studio has grown into two continents, producing not only multiple franchises, but multiple games within those franchises simultaneously.
While we knew it planned to develop two games simultaneously in the future, the Poland-based developer kicked the doors of the AAA gaming space in October 2022 when it released four new Witcher games, a new Cyberpunk, and another brand new one. project announced. instantly.
However, the explosion of information has led to some complicated ideas, with lots of numbers and orders and schedules thrown around. For example, the next three releases of CD Projekt Red will be Witcher games, but these are not the new Witcher trilogy. Confusing!
To stay tuned, IGN has compiled this list of all the CD Projekt Red games currently in development, as well as what we know about the release timeline. The developer also said it is opening up partnerships with third-party mobile game studios based on its franchises, but as nothing specific has been announced yet, they won’t be on the list.
Most games currently only have codenames (which are named after stars, because CD Projekt Red “reaches for the stars”), but we’ve also explained in clearer terms what each game actually is.
Polaris, aka The Witcher 4
In March 2022, a single teaser image was released to announce a new Witcher saga (Image: CD Projekt Red)
CD Projekt Red confirmed that a new Witcher game was in development in March 2022 that would mark the beginning of a new saga, and while it’s not officially called The Witcher 4, it can be considered the real next Witcher game.
It was later revealed to be codenamed Polaris, but the new game won’t be released until 2025 at the earliest as it didn’t go into pre-production until May 2022. It’s also being developed in Unreal Engine 5, a new endeavor for CD Projekt Red that essentially requires creating everything from scratch and laying a new foundation for the games to come. However, it will be one of the next two games to be released by CD Projekt Red.
There are no real story details on Polaris as of yet, although we do know that this will be the first game in a new trilogy and the teaser images show a Witcher medallion with a Lynx, leading many to speculate that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Ciri will be the be a new protagonist (since Geralt is officially out of the picture).
The last bit of information about Polaris is that Jason Slama of CD Projekt Red will be directing it. Slama most recently served as game director on Gwent: The Witcher Card Game and has promised that there will be no crunch at the studio after the Cyberpunk 2077 controversy.
Sirius, The Molasses Flood Game
Sirius is the new game from The Molasses Flood, who bought CD Projekt Red in 2021 (Image: CD Projekt Red)
Another Witcher game, codenamed Sirius, is in development at The Molasses Flood, the developers of The Flame in the Flood and Drake Hollow, which was purchased by CD Projekt Red in October 2021. It’s the only other game, besides Polaris, currently in development under the CD Projekt Red umbrella (outside of the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion), though it’s still in pre-production.
The game will feature single-player elements such as a story and quests, but will also be combined with multiplayer components, with CD Projekt Red explicitly confirming that players can play together. Although Sirius is set in the Witcher universe and is being developed with support from CD Projekt Red, it won’t follow the open-world RPG formula of Polaris or The Witcher 3.
It’s instead “aimed at a wider audience,” and while we’re not exactly sure what that means, CD Projekt Red’s Michał Nowakowski said it’s “certainly not a smaller game” and “definitely not a mobile game.” It’s instead looking for people who are interested in the Witcher franchise, perhaps because of the Netflix show or books, but aren’t interested in playing a “hardcore roleplaying game,” he added.
No further details have been shared, but we can infer from several job postings from The Molasses Flood that Sirius will likely feature stylized art and some form of procedurally generated levels with leveling up and a combat system, which could make for a survival or rogue-esque game. suggests. It’s unclear when we’ll find out more, but Sirius will be one of the next three games released from CD Projekt Red.
Canis Majoris, Another Open World Witcher RPG
Canis Majoris is another “full-fledged” open world Witcher being developed by a third party (Image: CD Projekt Red)
Polaris kicks off a new trilogy of traditional Witcher games, but these won’t be the only “full-fledged” entries on the horizon. Canis Majoris is the codename for another AAA story-driven Witcher RPG, but it’s only published by CD Projekt Red.
A currently unknown developer, led by industry veterans who have worked on previous Witcher games, will instead create a new entry in Unreal Engine 5 using the same toolset as Polaris. CD Projekt Red president and joint CEO Adam Kiciński confirmed that Canis Majoris will arrive after Polaris as a result, meaning it’s also at least three years away, and probably more.
While we don’t know who will make it right now, we do know who won’t. Rebel Wolves – a studio formed by the game director of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and several other former CD Projekt Red collaborators – confirmed it’s not the mysterious studio behind the spinoff after it was hounded by fans who expected its own AAA dark fantasy be the new Witcher game.
Marcin Jefimow was also expected (as executive producer of CD Projekt Red who left the company in September 2022), but he confirmed to IGN that neither he nor his new team are involved. We won’t have to wait too long for the mystery studio to be revealed, though, as Kiciński also noted that CD Projekt Red will be sharing more “soon, very soon.”
Orion, the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077
Orion is not yet in development but will be the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 (Image: CD Projekt Red)
Despite making it clear in the past that more Cyberpunk games would be on the way, CD Projekt Red officially confirmed its plans for a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel in October 2022. Codenamed Orion, the game isn’t in development yet as it’s first “further growth of the team”, something CD Projekt Red is taking seriously as it expands fully to the US
This official new studio, aptly titled CD Projekt Red North America, will be located in Boston (next to but separate from The Molasses Flood), but will also include the Vancouver team that was acquired in March 2021.
CD Projekt Red North America will be the main studio behind Orion’s development, and while a number of talents, including Paweł Sasko., the chief designer of Cyberpunk 2077 If CD Projekt Red’s CFO Piotr Nielubowicz notes that it is “safe to assume” that it takes between 350 and 500 developers to create Orion, a significant hiring wave is expected.
Hadar, CD Projekt Red’s First Original IP
CD Projekt Red began early conceptual work on its first brand new title, Hadar, in 2021 (Image: CD Projekt Red)
CD Projekt Red has officially started working on its own, original IP after nearly 20 years developing games for existing properties. Very little was said about what this game, codenamed Hadar, will be, but it has been thought about for a few years and official early conceptual work started in late 2021.
However, Hadar is probably years and years away, perhaps even the furthest away from any CD Projekt Red games we currently know, as the foundation of the new setting is still in a creative exploration phase. There’s no suggestion what it will be about, but CD Projekt Red has remained committed to its branding of a studio that makes AAA, story-driven RPGs, meaning Hadar will likely fall into that category.
However, the studio has said it plans to include multiplayer elements in most of its future titles as well, and its own IP could be the perfect place to explore this concept without limits.
The currently unnamed Witcher 5 and 6
The only games confirmed without code names, the Witcher 5 and 6 (for lack of official titles) were the last two games confirmed by CD Projekt Red in October 2022. Very little was said about the games, although they will round out the new Witcher. trilogy that starts with Polaris, and can be seen in the same way as the main Witcher games.
The trilogy marks a new saga for the Witcher as it expands beyond previous protagonist Geralt, whose story was set in the original Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski and the first trilogy of Witcher games.
We don’t know much other than what’s already been said about Polaris, but CD Projekt Red has at least offered a schedule for these last two games. It currently plans to release them both within six years of Polaris, meaning a new Witcher trilogy game would be released every three years on average.
It’s not known when Polaris will launch, of course, but since it won’t be released until 2025, the new trilogy will extend to at least 2031. While three games in six years may seem ambitious, CD Projekt Red is currently working on creating from the base of the trilogy within Unreal Engine 5 that will be used in all three, meaning the last two will be a little easier to develop.
CD Projekt Red also released the first three Witcher games over eight years at a fraction of current development capabilities, with the original launching in 2007 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt completing the trilogy in 2015.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day long.
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