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The Witcher 4: Half of CDPR Working on “Project Polaris”

Project Polaris became CD Projekt Red's largest development team as the studio moved staff from Cyberpunk 2077 toward the next Witcher saga.

By NexusArc Staff Published Dec 2, 2023 320 words

Image: CD PROJEKT RED.

Project Polaris became CDPR's largest development team

CD Projekt Red said nearly 330 developers were assigned to Project Polaris as of October 31, 2023. The studio expected that team to grow beyond 400 people by mid-2024 as work on Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty wound down.

Project Polaris is the codename for the next main Witcher game and the beginning of a new saga. CD Projekt Red was not officially calling it The Witcher 4 at the time. The project also marked the studio's move from its proprietary REDengine to Unreal Engine 5.

The staffing shift showed where CDPR was headed

The headcount made Polaris the clearest indicator of CD Projekt Red's next production priority. Moving hundreds of developers onto one project showed that the game was progressing beyond early planning even though a release remained years away.

The studio was also reorganizing around parallel AAA development. Its new Boston operation was assigned to the Cyberpunk sequel, codenamed Orion, while teams in Europe continued work tied to The Witcher.

Other projects remained in the pipeline

The Molasses Flood was developing Sirius as a Witcher project with single-player and multiplayer elements. Canis Majoris referred to a separate story-driven Witcher RPG from a developer with previous experience on the series. CD Projekt Red also had an original property, Hadar, in the concept stage.

Together, those projects showed a studio trying to support several productions at once instead of moving nearly its entire workforce from one release to the next.

The pressure on the next Witcher game

Polaris carries expectations created by both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Players want another dense role-playing game, but the difficult Cyberpunk launch also put more scrutiny on production planning, engine choices, platform performance, and communication.

The next Witcher game will test whether CD Projekt Red can begin a new saga while maintaining the trust it rebuilt through years of Cyberpunk updates and the Phantom Liberty expansion.