The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 are still a long way off, but CD Projekt is slowly but surely ramping things up. The company said in its H1 financial report today that the development teams for both game have continued to expand, and that further "gradual growth" is expected by the end of the year.
A chart released as part of the H1 report indicates that The Witcher 4, which had 422 people working on it as of April 30, was up to 444 people at the end of July; Cyberpunk 2 has seen comparable growth, going from 96 people at the end of April to 116 people as of July 31.
For some fun random comparison, The Witcher 3's internal development team had around 240 people on it, while about 400 people were banging away on Cyberpunk 2077 a half-year before it was released.
All of CD Projekt's teams have grown, in fact, including those working on the Witcher spinoff codenamed Sirius and the even more mysterious Hadar, which is an entirely new thing.
"Our recruitment efforts have significantly sped up over the last three months and as a result the total number of talented developers working across our projects has grown by 10% reaching almost 800 people," CD Projekt joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski said in an investors presentation. "This growth was primarily driven by our two largest development teams.
"The Witcher 4 team grew to over 440 developers while the Cyberpunk 2 project which transitioned into pre-production recently in Q2 as you may remember added 20 new team members. We anticipate further gradual growth in our total developer headcount by the end of the year, particularly for the teams working on projects in the most advanced stages of production."
It's quite a turnaround from just two years ago, when CD Projekt announced plans to lay off around 100 people, representing roughly 9% of its workforce, as part of an organizational update aimed at making "teams that are more agile and more effective."
CD Projekt has previously said The Witcher 4 is the game in the "most advanced" state of development right now, and it's fair to assume that Cyberpunk 2 currently the runner-up. Don't expect either of them to show up anytime soon, though: The Witcher 4 may be out in 2027 but could be even later, while development timelines for the studio's previous games mean Cyberpunk 2 might not show up until late 2030 at the soonest.
