CDPR says the Witcher 4 is being 'intensively worked on' but Cyberpunk 2's still in the 'fairly early stages'

In a new interview with Aftermath CDPR's Pawel Sasko, associate director of the next Cyberpunk game (codenamed Orion, but we'll call it Cyberpunk 2 for now), discussed some of the changes in production the studio's made since the infamously botched Cyberpunk 2077 launch. The crunch in the run-up to release got so intense that some key team members left CDPR shortly after the game's launch, and the then-CEO had to issue an apology to employees after saying the situation was «not that bad.»

Sasko speaks to some of the internal changes CDPR has made following these experiences, before talking briefly about the studio's two largest future projects. Sasko says Polaris aka Witcher 4 is currently being «intensively worked on» while the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 is in the «fairly early stages.»

CDPR first announced a project called Polaris in October 2022. In March 2023 the company's then-CEO Adam Kiciński let the cat out of the bag on an earnings call. «We want to release three big Witcher games within six years,» said Kiciński at the time, «starting from the release of Polaris, which is Witcher 4.»

At the start of 2024, CDPR's joint CEO Adam Badowski said that production would be ramping up, and «we'd like to have around 400 people working on [Polaris] by the middle of the year.» That's a big team, but thanks to some 2023 quarterly results we already knew CDPR had around 300 people working on the project last year, so this game has been well and truly underway for a while now.

Cyberpunk 2's being developed across three studios (Boston, Poland, and Vancouver), and «most managers and most directors who worked on Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty are on Cyberpunk [2],” said Sasko. „We want to make sure that whole DNA is preserved and still in the game.“

Sasko also spoke briefly about CDPR's decision, which was not universally popular, to move on from Cyberpunk 2077 after the well-received Phantom Liberty. You can see both sides here. Phantom Liberty marked the end of the game's