LogInCD Projekt Red has confirmed that a significant portion of the Phantom Liberty team will be transitioning to work on The Witcher 4 after the DLC's release.
Following the release of Phantom Liberty, CDPR plans to transfer a significant portion of the team working on the expansion to the highly-anticipated Witcher project, codenamed Project Polaris.
During CD Projekt's recent earnings call, Adam Kiciński, the president and CEO, revealed that the company is gradually allocating more resources toward the next Witcher game. A significant boost in development is expected to happen when the primary work on Phantom Liberty is completed. At present, there are around 250 developers engaged in the creation of Polaris, while even more are involved in the development of the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion.
"After releasing Phantom Liberty, we'll transfer a big part of the team to Polaris. Some remaining members will then focus on supporting other ongoing projects like Orion or Hadar, but bear in mind we'll also be supporting Phantom Liberty for some time," Kiciński noted.
Image credit: CD Projekt
Kiciński clarified that not all the developers currently working on Phantom Liberty will immediately start working on the next Witcher game. However, based on CD Projekt Red's development breakdown, it is likely that most of the staff will eventually transition to working on Polaris. The official numbers will be provided in the third-quarter financial update on November 28.
Regarding the other mentioned projects, Orion, the true sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, and Hadar, an entirely new game being developed by CD Projekt Red, are still years away, as Polaris and Sirius (the Witcher game developed by Molasses Flood) are expected to be released first, in 2025 at the earliest.
Phantom Liberty, launching on September 26, will introduce a significant amount of new story content to Cyberpunk 2077, along with various gameplay changes. It will include features like vehicular combat, a cyberpsychosis mechanic inspired by Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and more. However, these additions come at the expense of higher PC requirements for the game.
Image credit: CD Projekt, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
One way or the other the DLC is definitely going to be one of a kind, given that earlier, CD PROJEKT RED stated that it will be the only one they will make, commenting that it is, first and foremost, a "technological decision" that won't change no matter how good the Phantom Liberty sells.
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