The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 creators CD Projekt Red have reported their earnings for 2023 (their fiscal year corresponds with the regular calendar year) and it seems it was a good 12 months for the Polish publisher. 2023 was CDPR’s second-best year ever, thanks to the sales of the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion, which managed to move 5 million copies, which is added to the 20 million in sales for the original Cyberpunk 2077. CDPR has also announced that The Witcher series surpassed 75 million units sold last year. So, yes, if you’re doing the math (75 million for the Witcher, 25 million for Cyberpunk) CDPR has now sold over 100 million games. Not bad!
CD Projekt Red also provided some updates on the state of their development pipeline. Despite promises that The Witcher’s New Saga, codenamed “Polaris,” would enter full production this year, it apparently hasn’t happened yet, as it’s still listed as being in pre-production as of the end of February. The Witcher “Project Sirius” spinoff in the works at The Molasses Flood is also in pre-production following a creative reset. Meanwhile, other big endeavors like The Witcher Remake and the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel are still in the concept phase. In other words, don’t expect another CDPR game anytime too soon – apparently switching to Unreal Engine 5 hasn’t sped up development all that much.
As for the distribution of CDPR’s devs, the large majority are now working on the main The Witcher sequels, although a significant number of people, mostly at CDPR’s new Boston offices, are working on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. Meanwhile, development on Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty has almost entirely dwindled away. Project Hadar, a new IP coming from CDPR, has also gained a bit of strength with around 20 folks working on early concepts.
What are your thoughts on the upcoming CD Projekt Red pipeline? Will we see another release from them sometime this generation? Or will we just have to wait to play their next thing on the PS6 and RTX 9000-series cards in 2029?
