The Witcher “Polaris” project may enter production phase in 2024

CD Projekt aims to have 400 people on the project soon

Marco Wutz | Jan 22, 2024

The Witcher “Polaris” project may enter production phase in 2024 /

With Cyberpunk 2077 brought to a successful conclusion thanks to the Phantom Liberty DLC as well as several free updates, CD Projekt is fully pivoting its manpower back to The Witcher. The newly-appointed joint CEO of the company, Adam Badowski, told Reuters that it aims to get 400 or so employees working on project “Polaris” by the middle of the year.

“Polaris” is the codename for CD Projekt’s next flagship project, a completely fresh trilogy of The Witcher games that explores the popular fantasy world in a time after beloved characters like Ciri and Geralt. And that’s all we know about it, basically.

A necklace in the form of a metal cat head with red glowing eyes in the snow. — The official teaser image for Polaris / CD Projekt

With the first game entering full production phase in 2024, we are unlikely to hear anything more concrete about it for the next two to three years – and the launch may be further away yet.

Cyberpunk is not fully out of the picture, of course. According to the CEO, CD Project wants to have around 80 people working on project “Orion” by the end of the year, which is going to be a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. Badowski’s co-CEO, Michal Nowakowski, said that multiplayer was being considered for the next entry into the sci-fi franchise, but nothing is certain quite yet.

CD Projekt will keep expanding its North American presence this year and has formed a team to explore the use of AI during game development – though Nowakowski emphasized that “AI is something that can help improve certain processes in game production, but not replace people.”

While they’re waiting for fresh games from CD Projekt, fans can enjoy their time in The Witcher 3, which is going to get official modding tools in 2024 – almost a decade after release.

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Published Jan 22, 2024

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg