Today, CD PROJEKT revealed its financial results for the first half of 2024 and provided an update on the progress of its key projects, particularly The Witcher 4 (codenamed Polaris).
Michał Nowakowski, Joint CEO of CD PROJEKT, shared:
Work on Polaris (The Witcher 4) is progressing – its development team is nearing a major milestone which will mark the end of the preproduction phase. The first half of the year was also a busy period for our Boston studio, which is laying the groundwork for Project Orion – a new game set in the Cyberpunk universe.
The Witcher 4 is expected to enter production soon, supported by a team of 410 active developers, according to the latest infographics. CD PROJEKT as a whole saw a net gain of nine employees between April and the end of July, with an additional three developers joining the Polaris project, four joining Orion (the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077), and three joining Sirius (the rebooted multiplayer The Witcher spin-off being developed by Molasses Flood).
Project Hadar, a secret new IP, continues with a dedicated team of 20 developers, while another three are focused on shared services across all projects, such as AI, localization, and quality assurance. Meanwhile, only eight developers are currently assigned to other projects, down from twelve in April.
CD PROJEKT also addressed the recent release of the REDkit for The Witcher 3. Nowakowski commented:
It’s been several months since our dev tools were released to gamers, and there’s already a slew of interesting modding projects out there. We are happy to see the engagement of the gaming community, which is eager to share its ideas, bringing new strength to The Witcher 3 – a game set to celebrate its 10th anniversary next year.
The Polish company’s financial results were notably strong. Its net profit of 170 million PLN (approximately $44 million) marked an increase of nearly 90% compared to the same period last year. CFO Piotr Nielubowicz added:
“In H1 2024, we also observed an increase in our financial reserves. Despite distributing nearly 100 million PLN in dividends and allocating over 150 million PLN to new projects, our reserves still grew by more than 55 million PLN.”
While there’s no confirmed release date for The Witcher 4 yet, considering the scale of the project, it’s reasonable to anticipate at least two to three more years of development. This suggests a potential launch window between late 2026 and 2027.
By Andrej Kovacevic
Updated on 29th August 2024