• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

CD Projekt has said it’s planning to release major games more frequently going forward

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
cyberpunk-2077-1024x576.jpg

Excluding expansions, the company’s flagship releases to date have been The Witcher (2007), The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011), The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) and Cyberpunk 2077 (2020).

During CD Projekt’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, the company was asked whether it has the bandwidth to focus on more than one large game simultaneously, with the goal of making its release schedule “less lumpy”.

“We already worked on two projects at the same time when we worked on [Cyberpunk 2077 DLC] Phantom Liberty because that was a game-sized project with almost 300 people working on it, and at the same time we have already been working on Polaris, so we’ve had an experience of working on more than one project,” said joint CEO Michał Nowakowski.
“And we are working on more than one project at this time as well. There is Cyberpunk 2 being developed in Boston, there is Polaris being developed predominantly here in Europe, and obviously we have other projects, with other teams like Project Sirius, also in Boston with The Molasses Flood.

“And there is The Witcher 1 remake done in cooperation with Canis Majoris, so you can definitely expect us to release more titles and the cadence of launches is something we definitely plan to increase, although I will obviously not comment on what is the space between the projects time wise.”
 

Dirk Benedict

Gold Member
Bet they are talking to stochholders.

Edit:

Read article.

"During CD Projekt’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday...."

Yep.
They should keep in line with what made them successful. I really hope it's just stock talk, because otherwise, they guys run the risk of ruining themselves, like they already did. They got lucky. Most companies don't get a second chance like they did.
 

Wooxsvan

Member
arent they going w/ UE5 for future games? could be part of the reason, if they are able to actually pull it off
 

Topher

Identifies as young
They should keep in line with what made them successful. I really hope it's just stock talk, because otherwise, they guys run the risk of ruining themselves, like they already did. They got lucky. Most companies don't get a second chance like they did.

Absolutely. They got their pro-gamer identity back after the horrible Cyberpunk 2077 release, but staying true to themselves and holding off investor's crying can't be easy. Hope they succeed.
 

Dazraell

Member
Working on two games at a time is like trying to have a threesome. Every guy wants to do it, but very few actually succeed.
They tried to do it post Witcher 1 and post Witcher 2, so I assume they learned a lot of lessons how to approach it. Three times a charm, I guess?

To me it's quite fascinating as a lot of current decisions made by CDPR are very similar to ones they did after Witcher 1. They not only tried to have two teams working on larger projects (The Witcher 2 and cancelled FPS called They), worked on Enhanced Edition update for The Witcher 1, outsourced a console version of The Witcher 1 (called The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, also cancelled). CDPR also wanted to have some smaller releases alongside larger games and were fascinated with a concept of premium modules for Neverwinter Nights 1. They outsourced two expansions to TW1 (first called Outcast, second called Scars of Betrayal) to devs who created two premium modules to NWN1. Both of these expansions were also cancelled

So yeah, hopefully similarities will end only on decisions itself and they won't share the fate of these cancelled projects lol
 

Dirk Benedict

Gold Member
Absolutely. They got their pro-gamer identity back after the horrible Cyberpunk 2077 release, but staying true to themselves and holding off investor's crying can't be easy. Hope they succeed.
Same. They are still a top tier studio, atm. But, their next game could make or break them. Working on 2 at the same time, after pivoting from possible demise is a crazy decision, to me. I hope the result matches the confidence.
 
Last edited:

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
That's totally possible, just dont aim for le open world 100+ hours games and instead focus for a dense well paced 30-50 hour RPG and it should work.
Yeah, I felt like the open world added nothing but padding to Cyberpunk. Having a few hub areas and mission areas like older RPGs would have been just as nice and quite possibly would have made devleopent 100 times easier.
 

Denton

Member
Then again they said similar things every year since the release of TW1 and they always ended being bitchslapped by reality, so we'll see.
They get bitchslapped by their own ambition. Originally C77 and TW3 were supposed to be developed concurrently but they just couldn't help but make Witcher 3 a huge giant open world handcrafted behemoth and to achieve it, redirect almost all C77 devs on it.

This time they actually have multiple teams in separate locations and it seems they will be hiring aggressively for Cyberpunk 2, but we'll see.

Yeah, I felt like the open world added nothing but padding to Cyberpunk. Having a few hub areas and mission areas like older RPGs would have been just as nice and quite possibly would have made devleopent 100 times easier.

Completely disagree. One person's "padding" is another's immersion. The city exists to immerse player in the world, as a connective tissue between storydriven missions. Same purpose it has in e.g. Mafia games. And all these games would be vastly lesser without it.

And yes, I love Deus Ex too with its smaller hubs. But would I love to explore Prague in MD the way I could explore NC? Fuck yeah.

That's totally possible, just dont aim for le open world 100+ hours games and instead focus for a dense well paced 30-50 hour RPG and it should work.

Not gonna happen. People expect 100+ hour large open world RPGs from CDP now, if they delivered anything lesser, there would be backlash. CDP is aiming to be on the same level as Rockstar and they are not gonna get there (or stay there) by delivering smaller games.

(of course Sirius will be smaller, but I am talking about their flagpole releases)
 
Last edited:

Braag

Member
Shareholders are like sheep, you need to herd them with the correct buzz words. "Faster releases", "AI", "Growth", "AAAA".

In reality everyone knows CP2077's 4 year development time was waaay too short, as was evident when the game released. Should have been cooking for around 6 years to get it out without major problems. I doubt they're gonna get any faster, if anything, it gets slower cause they don't want to repeat what happened with CP2077.
 

Phase

Member
I hope this is a turning point for the industry. Many studios are finally acknowledging that game cycles are too expensive and dev times too long. Smaller projects will benefit everyone, from devs themselves to us the players.
 

Laptop1991

Member
Well as a big fan of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk, if there's one of the few companies that i hope would achieves a quicker release schedule then CDPR is definitely it.
 
Last edited:

timothet

Member
So quality gonna suffer

Not happy about this at all
Why? They just established new studio in Boston to work on Cyberpunk games. Their main studio in Warsaw will be making Witcher games. They will probably stagger releases so instead of two games close to eachother every 6 years or so we will be getting one game every 3 years(I know it's not so easy, but it's the main idea).
 
Last edited:

Stafford

Member
Well, you would think the remake of Witcher shouldn't take incredibly long. I mean it wasn't nearly as large as 3 is, I think 2 was larger as well? Of course depends on how much new stuff they plan to put in this.
 

Sentenza

Member
Well, you would think the remake of Witcher shouldn't take incredibly long. I mean it wasn't nearly as large as 3 is, I think 2 was larger as well? Of course depends on how much new stuff they plan to put in this.
TW1 was definitely a larger game than the second, but it also had a far lower production value and a lot more repetition, so it's easy to guess that its production process was relatively leaner, too.

That doesn't hold particular merit on the dev cycle of its remake, since it's going to be an almost-entirely-different game, with a new engine, art style, new assets and a new combat system.
Apparently even some occasional rewriting here and there.
 
Top Bottom