It sounds like CD Projekt Red is currently preparing to start production on The Witcher 4 this year, as long as everything goes to plan.
According to Reuters, production on The Witcher 4, currently known internally as Polaris, or whatever it ends up being called, should begin around this summer. CD Projekt CEO Adam Badowski told Reuters the studio “hopes to have about 400 employees working on the project by the middle of this year.” Beyond that, no new details were provided about the game’s status, nor any indication of when we can expect it to be released. In other words, you probably shouldn’t expect it for a long time, especially considering how long AAA production schedules are these days.
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A brief update was also provided on the Cyberpunk sequel, which is currently codenamed Orion and is apparently in the concept stage. Apparently, CD Projekt expects to have around 80 people working on the sequel by the end of the year. Beyond that, details are still thin, but multiplayer elements are clearly being considered. Badowski also expressed his belief that the release of the sequel to “Cyberpunk” will not be as difficult as “2077”. He said: “We believe that in the future we will avoid a premiere like “Cyberpunk 2077.” ”
Artificial intelligence, a somewhat hot topic at the moment, also came up during Reuters’ conversation with CD Projekt, but thankfully the studio has zero plans to replace its employees with the technology. “We think AI can help improve certain processes in game production, but it can’t replace humans,” Badowski said. Obviously that doesn’t completely rule out using it, which would be better, but at least it’s something like this – let’s hope they stick to this plan.