Just don't expect to start seeing trailers anytime soon.
CD Projekt says Polaris, the next game in the new Witcher trilogy—which we are calling The Witcher 4 until somebody makes us stop—is now the studio’s biggest project, both in terms of the number of people working on it and how far along it’s come.
“Over 400 people are currently working on the game,” chief financial officer Piotr Nielubocwicy said in a financial presentation, “and we plan to move on to the production phase in the second half of the year.” There’s also a handy graph illustrating the breakdown: No, it’s not a huge shift in numbers from the previous report and for now it remains in pre-production, but even so work on The Witcher 4 is obviously dominating CD Projekt’s efforts.
(Image credit: CD Projekt)
It also fits with a statement made by joint CEO Adam Badowski in January, when he said CD Projekt would “like to have around 400 people working on [Polaris] by the middle of the year.” Given that number was hit by February, optimists might even say things are coming along a little bit ahead of schedule.
Alas, that progress doesn’t mean we should expect to start seeing what the studio has in mind for the next big Witcher game anytime soon. Perhaps still smarting from the massive eight-year gap between the original announcement of Cyberpunk 2077 and its release, CD Projekt said in 2021 that it won’t start marketing new games until they’re much closer to launch, and it’s apparently sticking to that plan.
“I would actually not look at Cyberpunk as the guidebook of how it’s going to be with The Witcher specifically,” joint chief operating officer Piotr Karwowski said during today’s investors call. Karwowski said it’s possible CD Projekt will do things like “teaser trailers or informative trailers” ahead of the marketing campaign, but the wheels won’t start fully spinning on that until there’s something “actionable,” such as when preorders are available.
“Anything that’s going to happen before is going to be more informative, it’s going to be more PR oriented and so on, and that’s something you can expect earlier than the actual kickoff of the marketing campaign,” Karwowski said. “But I would really not necessarily look to what happened, and at which moment in time, with Cyberpunk. That’s not necessarily going to match with what we’re going to do here.”
CD Projekt first announced Cyberpunk 2077 in 2012 while it was still hip-deep in The Witcher 3, leading to nearly a decade of hopes, disappointments, delays, and ultimately a very troubled release that took even more work to turn around. In light of that, the reluctance to get rolling too soon on the new Witcher game is understandable: Yes, we’re going to be checking quarterly financial reports for updates on a project we know is in development, but that’s a far cry from having a hot, fresh “Geralt is back” trailer dropped in our laps.
Speaking of which, CD Projekt also declined to comment on an apparent rumor that a Witcher 4 teaser of some sort will be released in June: “We don’t comment on speculation, doesn’t matter whether it’s regarding the timing or who’s working or not working on any possible, potential teasers or trailers.”
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