CD Projekt is approaching the active development of the next game in the series “The Witcher” – it will begin this year, and by the summer more than 400 people will be working on the potential hit of the famous Polish studio. The company’s CEO, Adam Badovsky, shared an update on the game’s status with Reuters.

How the development of the new “Witcher” (Polaris) is progressing

For some time now, CD Projekt has been developing a new part of the famous Polaris series on the Unreal Engine 5 engine – it was first announced back in March 2022. In the near future, the project will enter a full-fledged (active) development phase. Then testing, polishing and release. CD Projekt Red has not yet named a specific release date, but analysts expect a new part in 2026 or 2027.

At the same time, Adam Badovsky confirmed that by the summer the team of developers responsible for the next part of “The Witcher” will grow to more than 400 people – this corresponds to the initial plans. A November report highlighted that 330 developers are already working on the game – half of the entire CD Projekt team.

Details about Polaris are not many yet, but it is known that it will be the beginning of a new trilogy. At the time of the announcement, it was positioned as an action-RPG in an open world like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. We were also shown art with Rishi’s medallion, and this is a clear hint that the main character will be a witcher (the actor who voiced Geralt in the games previously supported Ciri for the role, calling it the most logical choice). By the way, Rishi’s school is not part of the canon of The Witcher universe.

Currently, there are at least five projects in active development – a remake of the first “Witcher” (Canis Majoris), which is being created from scratch on Unreal Engine 5, and three more new games in the “Witcher” universe (the next parts after Polaris are planned to be released within six years), a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, codenamed Orion (it’s currently in the “concept design” stage, which is an early phase of development; the development team will grow to 80 people by the end of 2024), and a brand new IP.

In May 2023, sales of The Witcher 3 exceeded 50 million copies (the entire series – 75 million), giving the most popular game in the series a well-deserved place in the top 10 best-selling games in history.

About the use of artificial intelligence

Adam Badowski touched on the topic of artificial intelligence – according to him, CD Projekt has formed a special team that studies how AI can be used.

“We believe that AI can help improve certain processes in game production, but not replace humans”

Adam Bodovsky,

CEO of CD Projekt

A GDC study came out the other day, and video game developers, judging by a survey of more than 3,000 participants, are very concerned about the use of artificial intelligence and large-scale layoffs in the industry starting in 2023 and continuing.

Game developers worried about industry layoffs and AI, GDC survey