The Witcher Developer CD Projekt Plans to Stick to its ‘Niche’ — And That’s AAA RPG Open-world Narrative-Driven Games

The co-founder of The Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt Red, Marcin Iwiński, has said the studio has learned to stick to its “niche.” That is: “AAA RPG, open-world narrative-driven games.”

In an interview on the studio’s AnsweRed podcast, Iwiński sat down with joint-CEO Adam Badowski to talk about life at the studio, reflecting on its games and admitting that while the team has been tempted to branch out into different styles and genres of games, open-world RPGs is what it’s best at.

“One more important thing which we learned over the time, and I think Adam will totally agree, [is] […] we’ve learned that we have to be razor-sharp focused,” Iwiński said. “We cannot do so many things we would love to do — we are tempted to do. We tried and it didn’t work out. We have to focus on what we are good at, and really put 100% into it.

“That’s why we switched from a single project company to the multiple project,” Badowski added. “But everything is in our strategy. We’re gonna develop AAA RPG, open-world narrative-driven games and this is our, let’s say, niche. So the focus is there.”

“It sounds so simple,” Iwiński agreed. “When you’re growing, it’s hard because there are all these temptations and ‘these people are doing this stuff online, and it’s so cool and we love to play it,’ and you think okay, no, let’s take a deep breath and come back to what we’re doing. Because if we spread ourselves too thin, we’ll not deliver.”

“Ideas are great, games are better and better gameplay-wise — especially gameplay-wise. But you need to take it and adapt it to our concept,” Badowski added. “So it takes time. The initial excitement is great, but it doesn’t work [over] the long term.”

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is now up to an incredible 60 million copies sold across base game sales and the GOTY version, and that figure doesn’t even include the separately sold expansions.

Last week we learned The Witcher 3 is getting one more patch later in 2025, bringing cross-platform mod support to the game and making mods available on consoles for the very first time. CD Projekt announced the patch as part of the celebrations of The Witcher 3’s 10th anniversary. It will introduce cross-platform mod support for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S later this year. “For the first time, creating, sharing, and enjoying mods for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be easier and more accessible than ever,” CD Projekt said.

As for The Witcher 4? That’s in full production now, but it won’t be out until 2027 at the earliest. CD Projekt is also working on Cyberpunk 2, Project Sirius (a multiplayer Witcher game), Project Hadar (an original game), and a remake of The Witcher 1.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.