Old game done, new game big
A new earnings report fromThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntmakers CD Projekt Red has revealed that the follow-up to the sorceress-courting, Nekker-thwacking, horse-reassuringRPGis currently being worked on by around 400 people, and plans to move into the production phase by the “second half of the year.” Elsewhere, the report shows that the studio’s previous RPG,Cyberpunk 2077officially ended all development at the end of April, at which time the remaining 17 staff still tweaking that game’s ray-traced chewing gum foil moved on to theWitcher 4, or ‘Polaris’, as they keep insisting it’s called.
Here’s a little graphy-graph below. I’m sorry I just wrote that. I was trying to make the graph sound fun. It’s on the page now. There’s nothing I can do about it.
An investors call was also made recently, in which joint CEO Piotr Karwowski spoke about the company’s market strategy going forward. “I would actually not look at Cyberpunk as the guidebook of how it’s going to be with The Witcher specifically,” Karwowski said. He added that CD Projekt won’t go full steam ahead on marketing until something “actionable,” is available, such as preorders, viaPC Gamer. You can come back to this article and call me a big doofus in a few years time if I’m wrong, but I have to assume CD Projekt won’t make the same mistake twice, especially when it comes to golden greyboy Geralt.
If you fancy reading some of the best words on bothCyberpunk 2077and itsPhantom Libertyexpansion this side of those nifty gaps in Keanu Reeves’ beard I promise I’ve never tried to replicate while shaving, our Graham has you covered. He reviewed both theoriginal releaseand itschunky expac, and also wrote about that expac’sheartbreaking ending- a genuinely moving bit of storytelling that contained the sort of subtlety and reserve you may not have previously assumed the game was capable of, say I.
My own contribution to the conversation that I’m sure everyone else has noticed by now but I’ve never read anywhere else is this: Did anyone else notice how the Grimes performance at Phantom Liberty’s party scene perfectly mirrors Songbird’s story arc? It does! It’s all there, told in expressive dance and lasers. Go watch it on YouTube if you missed it, assuming you still care enough about Cyberpunk easter eggs and/or Nic Reuben conjecture.
