CD Projekt Red Talks Cyberpunk 2077, Game Development

CD Projekt Red, the developers behind The Witcher 3, and other games that don't matter because The Witcher 3 was so damn good, are about to leave the Witcher IP behind (with the release of Blood & Wine, at the very least) and move on to new, possibly brighter shore in Cyberpunk 2077. While they've been keeping details on this project under wraps for the time being, in a recent interview with Gamesindustry.biz, CEO Marcin Iwinski kind of backed away from earlier statements, where they called Cyberpunk 2077 "far bigger than anything else that CD Projekt Red has done before. Far, far bigger."

Perhaps, he muses, they might have overstated things.

"We're paranoid about disappointing people. Even with a press release, we chew on it: What should it say? How should we say it? Is it fair? We have a test internally, which we use for the toughest cases: the 'explain it to a crowd of gamers test.' Let's say we need to make a decision on this or that piece of content in the package, and then we explain why we did that. If we convince ourselves...it's because it led to a better margin, it's probably not the right choice. It has to be about bringing value to the gamer."

Of course, just because they overstated things, that doesn't mean we can underestimate the size and scope of their next, mysterious project.

"The Witcher finished with 80 people, The Witcher 3 finished with 250, so Cyberpunk will probably be even more. Don't think about scale in terms of us doing 20 projects; no, we'll focus, we'll focus on certain things... We don't want to be a 10 project studio... Fundamentally, The Witcher 3 has proven that... and right now we have a lot of credit, so we should use that and take the time to make Cyberpunk something really meaningful for the whole industry. It has to reach the next quality bar, and I'm not talking just for us, but for the market."

Still. Consider me pumped. CD Projekt Red can be trusted to deliver on some damn fine games, we've found, and things should probably only get better as they grow in power and popularity. You can check out the full interview here, which is worth a read (they really like Rockstar, for example), and while it may not come out next year, or anytime soon, we can at least relax knowing that when it DOES come out, Cyberpunk 2077 will be a true labor of love.

Hopefully the love remains directed towards the art and the fans, rather than the money.