The last AAA heavyweight from polish developer CD Projekt RED was 2020’s seminal open world RPG Cyberpunk 2077 which left a really bad impression when it first launched back in 2020 and required several years and multiple game-changing patches to get back on it’s feet. And although Cyberpunk 2077 is a vastly different game right now, the disastrous and “heartbreaking” launch had left the studio as well as many fans a bit scarred, which CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michał Nowakowski thinks they can win back with The Witcher 4, when it releases.
In a recent interview with GamesRader, Nowakowski stated that Cyberpunk 2077’s launch had made the devs lose “the faith of some people indefinitely”, cause the game was pretty much unplayable on day one at multiple platforms along with different hardware configurations.
“I’m not 100 per cent convinced we went through the full redemption arc,” Nowakowski said. “I’m convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that’s a fair thing.”
“But I do hope we will be able to make it back – if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next,” he said.
Nowakowski also opened up on how the fumbling launch of Cyberpunk 2077 had affected the company in a fundamental way: “We were left with seasoned, battle-hardened veterans; leaders who were able to carry a different kind of challenge on their shoulders.”
After that, he spoke on the future direction of the studio along with their specific approach towards making more games: “Our dream is to be making more games, although we never want to turn into the studio that’s going to be launching a big game every year,” he added. “It may happen, but this is not the goal. We have a rough 10-year rolling plan, but the goal is not to flood the games market with CDPR games. We just want to make really cool games, and we don’t want to have a ton of IPs either. We’re not planning to grow in that way.”
The Witcher 4 is going to be another monumental and possibly groundbreaking title for CD Projekt which is not expected to arrive before 2027, at the very least.
