CD Project Red Announces Five New Games
Yesterday, CD Projekt Red took to Twitter to announce their bold plans for their next five games, apparently coming in the next few years. If you thought Bethesda’s earlier announcement of Fallout 5 was premature, this is taking it to another level. Of course, we already knew about one of these- with the new Witcher project being announced with a teaser image earlier this year. However, there are four others that we’d never heard of until these surprise reveals.
The first announcement was made for the new Cyberpunk game- code named Project: Orion. It’s likely that this comes somewhat because of the surge in popularity of the new Netflix ‘Edgerunners’ series, which was met with critical acclaim. In the announcement tweet, this is what the studio has to say:
As for the other four projects, these were not made via tweets but instead through quiet code-named press releases:
Project Hadar: This is the new IP that CD Projekt Red has been working on. This is in the very early stages of planning- meaning that it hasn’t even entered development yet. This is all the information we have on this so far- but it will be interesting to see what the studio does with a completely new idea- especially for a studio that has built itself on adapting books and board games into the video game space.
Project Polaris: This is the Witcher project announced earlier this year. Although we already knew it was set to be the foundation of the new saga set in the Witcher universe, it was also revealed that the new trilogy would not be released within a ‘six-year period. It’s important to note, however, that this likely does not mean that it will all be coming out within the next six years, but instead within six years of the first game’s release.
Project Canis Majoris: This is another Witcher game, but it is very unclear as to what this will be. It has been confirmed that this is to be separate from the new Witcher saga, although no other details have been announced about what this will look like yet. What we do know that this will be developed by a studio with previous experience in making Witcher games- which could certainly be a good sign given the series' track record.
Project Sirius: Finally, yet another Witcher universe project- also separate from the new Witcher saga currently in development. This is set to be very different from previous entries by combining single-player story content and multiplayer to form something new for the series.
Responses to these announcements were, to be blunt, quite negative. Although it's been a decent chunk of time since Cyberpunk, most people who bought into the idea of Night City still feel burned by the disappointment CD Projekt Red delivered. Twitter user @BadTasteFPS mirrored what a lot of fans were thinking when this was first announced:
Similarly, user @Zeara_00 echoed the sentiment of CD Projekt Red’s announcement being hollow when so many of the games are so far away:
Overall, these left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of gamers- even more so for those who bought Cyberpunk 2077 upon release. Even if you overlook this, it's hard to get excited over something that hasn’t even got a proof of concept as of yet. It’s already done more harm to CD Projekt Red’s reputation. It’s been almost two years since Cyberpunk 2077’s catastrophic launch and the studio is slowly making its way back into people’s favor. If even one of these projects turns out in any way similar to Cyberpunk (and by this announcement, it seems that may be the case), it's hard to see the studio recovering in the eyes of consumers.
