Lessons Learned: CD Projekt Red Adjusts Development and Marketing Strategies

CD Projekt Red, the Polish game studio behind The Witcher 3 and - more infamously - Cyberpunk 2077, announced its new strategy for future projects. This change in planning processes came as a response to the Cyberpunk 2077 debacle and CD Projekt Red’s very unhappy fanbase.

“While we remain as ambitious as ever, we are also aware of areas which call for improvement. Our new Strategic Development Framework will enable us to optimize intragroup processes – especially those which concern development of videogames – and will secure the Group’s further dynamic growth,” CEO of CD Projekt Red, Adam Kiciński, stated.

The RED 2.0 plan is supposed to be implemented starting from 2022 and concerns several new AAA titles, plus additional content for The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077. It reflects the lessons learned from announcing Cyberpunk 2077’s release more than eight years before the actual event and the consequences of overhyping. As a result, future titles from CD Projekt Red will have much shorter announcement campaigns.

What’s more, CD Projekt Red will now showcase its games on all supported platforms prior to release. The goal is to avoid surprise underperformance issues like the ones PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users encountered with Cyberpunk 2077.

The studio will continue working on the Witcher franchise and Cyberpunk 2077: The next-gen update for The Wild Hunt should add ray tracing and improve visuals on new GPUs. The upgrade will be free for current owners, no matter their platform of choice. The studio will also focus on Cyberpunk 2077 improvements and follow up with free DLCs.

The famous single-player-game studio announced that it would continue integrating online features into its new and existing titles, too. “Single-player RPGs have been, are, and will remain our priority. However, we also perceive the huge potential of both The Witcher and Cyberpunk, and we want to expand their reach to include new areas, media, and content types,” said Michal Nowakowski, the senior vice president of Business Development at CDPR.

“We don't want to go overboard or lose our single-player DNA. We want to take thoughtful steps to build robust online capabilities,” Kiciński added. In light of this decision, the launch of the multiplayer version of Cyberpunk 2077 is currently under reconsideration.