So, to recap, Destiny 2 studio Bungie was just smashed over the head with mass layoffs, certain Xbox Game Studios teams are reportedly moving toward the same fate, EA disposed of many Battlefield 6 devs despite selling over 20 million copies, and these are just some of the apocalyptic changes the video game industry has endured since spring. Naturally, even developers unaffected by layoffs are feeling the effects of all the carnage.

One such developer is Cyberpunk 2 associate game director and CD Projekt Red designer Paweł Sasko, who writes in a harrowing Twitter post, "Some days I feel our industry is imploding.

"Teams and game projects are getting slaughtered every second day," Sasko continues, "to the point it's hard to keep up. We are blessed to be still hiring, for all our games." The developer encourages others to browse CD Projekt Red's open job listings, which span multiple departments for titles like The Witcher 4 and the secretive, new IP Hadar.

CD Projekt Red began laying off about 9% of its staff in 2023, so it itself isn't impervious to the destructive past few years that gaming legend Brenda Romero described as "crashier" than the infamous video game crash of 1983. All the more reason, then, for CD Projekt Red developers to be as outspoken about the industry layoff trend as they have been; the studio's localization QA analyst Paula Mackiewicz-Armstrong also urged other devs this April to unionize in response to the "over 1,000" positions at Epic Games impacted by its recent, ruthless batch of layoffs.

Mackiewicz-Armstrong said at the time, "I've seen some hard times and some remarkable changes and improvements that make CDPR a great place to be right now. I just wish others in the industry could have the same." I'm sure many share that sentiment.

Bungie studio head reportedly leaves after 16 years with the company following mass layoffs and Destiny 2 death spiral.

After Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch, CD Projekt Red's joint CEO Michał Nowakowski believes the "faith" of some fans was lost "indefinitely," but he's hopeful that the studio "we will be able to make it back" with The Witcher 4 or whatever comes after it.

It's strange to look back on the state of Cyberpunk 2077 when it was first released, when you consider how popular and well-loved it is now. In the time since that fateful December 2020 launch, it's received many big updates, as well as its Phantom Liberty expansion, and it even surpassed 35 million sales in less than five years. But back then, major technical issues put a huge damper on things, and many players were understandably disappointed.

Speaking in an interview for Edge's Knowledge newsletter, Nowakowski calls Cyberpunk 2077's rocky start a "heartbreaking" time for CD Projekt Red. Of course, the devs did everything they could to turn things around for the RPG – he saw the studio's reputation as its "biggest asset," after all – but even though it's safe to say they succeeded with their fixes, he still believes the situation has left some scars.

"I'm not 100 percent convinced we went through the full redemption arc," he explains. "I'm convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that's a fair thing. But I do hope we will be able to make it back – if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next."

Currently, The Witcher 4 doesn't even have a release window, so it feels very futuristic to think what could be beyond that. The Witcher 3 is getting a brand new expansion next year in the form of Songs of the Past, though, so we're definitely going to have something Witcher-shaped then, and the studio is also hard at work on other projects including the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel and the mysterious new IP, Hadar.

There's no doubt going to be a lot of pressure on CD Projekt Red for the launch of its next game after what happened last time, though. It'll be a moment for the devs to dispel any remaining concerns about the quality of their work, and label Cyberpunk 2077 (or rather, that initial version of it) a true outlier rather than a sign of things to come. But to do that, you really do want everything to be immaculate – I certainly can't imagine The Witcher 4 being rushed out of the door before it's ready, anyway.

Don't expect a Witcher 4 expansion: CDPR says "it would be difficult" to make extra content when it's already trying to squeeze 3 Witcher games into 6 years.

With all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games, I wouldn't think to expect any sort of multiplayer mobile title in The Witcher series akin to Horizon Steel Frontiers – but that's apparently what we might get someday, if recent rumors ring true.

The supposed leaks circulating on the web stem from a new MP1st report that claims an inside source has confirmed a free-to-play, co-op action Witcher RPG is currently in development.

This could apparently be the already-known (albeit mysterious) Project Sirius, but MP1st notes the rumored game is planned for only mobile and PC platforms right now – "with no mention" of console launches.

The alleged game's free-to-play model and standing on mobile "could mirror the scale of Horizon Steel Frontiers," according to the report, and it will be set in the year 1230, when beloved series protagonist Geralt was still young.

We can supposedly also expect customizable Witchers in the rumored title, too, which would make it stand out quite a bit from predecessors… so honestly, I'm not sure I feel too excited about the prospect of... well, any of this.

I don't see how a multiplayer Witcher could mesh with Andrzej Sapkowski's already-established universe CD Projekt Red has expanded upon with its games, as so much of what makes titles like The Witcher 3 great is the immersion and the storytelling. I'm also curious about how the whole customizable Witcher thing would work, seeing as we've only ever played as canon protagonists – and we will continue to do so in The Witcher 4, which lets us play as Ciri.

Over on Reddit, a discussion surrounding the game rumors shows that other folks feel similarly worried. "Well… I mean, the silver lining is they aren't forcing any multiplayer shit into their main title games, I guess," reads one comment. "That's something." Another adds, "Can't wait to not play it and see it closed in less than two years after release." Largely, it seems fans aren't too thrilled.

It's hard to consider a free-to-play multiplayer game joining a series best known for its huge open-world, story-focused RPGs, after all. But I suppose that all we can do for now is keep our fingers crossed that somehow – should it be real – the rumored game is good.

Searching for something to wishlist? Here are some of the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

The first thirty seconds of The Blood of Dawnwalker's latest trailer had me begging for the end. Mostly because I, like many others, was successfully fooled into thinking it was a completely different game.

A doomed courier delivers a box to a high-rise apartment in some major city at the dead of night, and suddenly, I'm convinced this must be a Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 DLC. But Coen's sudden appearance – silver-streaked at the temples, strung out in an armchair, suckling on a bloodbag in the murky gloom – had me fully locked in. A modern-day scene in a late-medieval fantasy game makes absolutely no sense, but I should know by now to expect the unexpected when it comes to this upcoming RPG.

Catching up with developer Rebel Wolves at Summer Game Fest 2026, the beginning seems like a good place to start. Its modern-day teaser is a "promise" that The Blood of Dawnwalker's future extends beyond plans for a single game, game director and Rebel Wolves CEO Konrad Tomaszkiewicz tells GamesRadar+. "Our ambition is to create this series of games which will lead to this particular point and tell the story of Coen – not only Coen – and give players the opportunity to shape his character and see how it will end."

First blood

Outlining plans for a series before releasing its debut game is a strong sign of confidence. So much so that, much like in The Witcher and Mass Effect trilogies, players will be able to carry their Blood of Dawnwalker saves between each game, preserving their world state and creating seamless continuity.

"When you have the last save, your choices will go with you," Tomaszkiewicz confirms of The Blood of Dawnwalker's finale, citing expertise with similar systems while directing The Witcher 3 at CD Projekt Red . "From the beginning, we were telling people that we're planning a saga, and right now, this is the proof that we are doing it."

Coen's journey already sounds fraught. Turned into a half-blood vampire after a marauding vampire clan besieges his 14th-century village, his supernatural powers only come out at night. By day, he channels rune-based magic and more traditional melee swordsmanship to fend off the vamps – despite being one of them himself.

As an immortal being, at least partially (those grey hairs glimpsed in the modern-day sneak peek suggest a slowed-down aging process), it makes sense that Coen's story might break temporal boundaries. But driving towards that future of an epic vampire saga, one spanning hundreds of years, is no mean feat. It requires writers like Piotr Kucharski to employ their own near-supernatural abilities: the gift of foresight, working not only from the ground up, but from the top back down again.

"It's challenging, there's no getting around this, but it's also so much fun," Kucharski shares. "Because we already know some bits of the story – we have this big structure, we know where we want to end it, and so on – it gives you [a] good cohesive starting point to talk about things.

"Having this cohesive structure when talking about ideas, we can [tell when an idea is cool] but will make it really difficult for us to work [from] in the future." This gives Rebel Wolves the confidence to scrap those moments for something more reliable and future-proof. "The structure we give ourselves is also something that really helps us, because you know you have something to build on, and it sometimes helps you to answer some questions really quickly."

Whether a specific number of games are planned is something the team can't comment on just yet.

The Blood of Dawnwalker "saga", as Tomaszkiewicz puts it, is "not necessarily" going to be a trilogy. "But obviously it cannot be too long, because creating these kinds of games takes time." Even a trilogy might take Rebel Wolves "eight years" from now to reach a prospective end – "if we're really fast" – so the focus is on creating a branching narrative with plenty of future-proofing.

For Kucharski, that starts with offering players choice and consequence. "To us the basic question was, does [each] choice have impact? And it doesn't have to be something, you know, long term," he says, using something like a "gut punch" as an example of a lower-stakes consequence for your actions. But we all know that revenge is a dish best served in the final act. "I love those moments when you make a choice, then you play for like three hours, and then you realize that there is a consequence in a different quest."

Tall tales

No matter where the road ahead takes The Blood of Dawnwalker, I can already hear the synovial pop of bones clicking into place as something remarkable takes shape.

"I have a lot of hopes that we will bring a new fresh feel to RPGs," director Tomaszkiewicz rounds off. Dawnwalker's narrative sandbox appeal is key in that, functioning in a "totally different" way to the likes of Baldur's Gate 3, but immersive combat is the second feather in Dawnwalker's cap. While he hopes players enjoy fighting as Coen, the focus is on grounding players in the world itself. "The meaning of immersion [is] that 'I'm there, I'm inside, I'm doing it, I need to pay attention, and I'm having fun.' Sometimes I'm just running and fighting because I like to do that.

"Those two things will show that there is still huge space for RPGs to evolve, and it's worth trying things – this action, inaction, and so on. It's also giving you this feeling of urgency in a good way that you believe in." With only 30 days and 30 nights to complete his task, each of Coen's actions could push the clock hands forward. "I believe that this difference between us and other RPGs is important, because I hope that we will be an inspiration for [developers], and before we finish the sequel, we also will be inspired by them."

With The Witcher 3 on all our minds as the RPG's new expansion (no, not DLC, y'all), Songs of the Past, is underway, former CD Projekt Red developers remain as hopeful as we do that it'll prove to be well-done.

Speaking with GamesRadar+ in a recent interview at Summer Game Fest, Rebel Wolves – the team made up of CD Projekt Red veterans currently working on vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker – CEO Konrad Tomaszkiewicz shares his thoughts on Songs of the Past. It's an interesting statement for sure, seeing as Tomaszkiewicz approaches his words as someone who worked on The Witcher 3 and its two previous expansions.

"I've never played The Witcher games as a player," admits the dev. "Because, when you work on the first Witcher, second Witcher, third Witcher, both expansions," it's not the same as it is for normal fans.

"I was the developer playing it all the time," as Tomaszkiewicz puts it. "I couldn't play The Witcher 3 right now, even from the start, because I saw it too many times." Honestly, I get it – it must've been tiring to even consider.

When it comes to Songs of the Past, though, things are a bit different. Tomaszkiewicz didn't work on it himself, after all, so he finally gets to approach it as a player rather than a dev – and, in turn, he hopes the expansion is good… just like the rest of us do.

"I hope this expansion will be good," he says. "I will play it [for the] first time as a player. And I only have one request… how to say it politely… to do it good."

Again, I'd wager the majority of the community feels that way right now, too. CD Projekt Red has been hyping the expansion up as well, making it all the more exciting – for us fans and former devs of The Witcher 3, apparently.

We are discussing a title that's not just one of (if not the) best Witcher games, but one of the best RPGs to date, so it's unsurprising that expectations are high. For what it's worth, I'm thinking it'll deliver, personally.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

If you're familiar with The Witcher 3, you no doubt know what happens when you start killing cows – the Chort shows up to make Geralt's life harder. 11 years after launch, a quest designer on the fantasy RPG has explained what went into that decision, and it turns out we only have ourselves to blame.

It's actually a preventive measure, taken after CD Projekt Red noticed we could farm cow hides thanks to a fast respawn rate. "We could have fixed that cow hide farming exploit in few minutes bonbons, just kill the respawn or drop the price of the hides," Paweł Sasko, a quest designer on The Witcher 3, says on Twitter.

"But that's not how we roll," he adds. "Designer's job is to create fun, not delete it. So we added a Chort instead."

He adds this to a clip of Geralt driving his sword into unsuspecting cattle, only to be met by one of these ferocious beasts. As the saying goes, eff around and find out – the big bad Witcher himself is taken down in unceremonious fashion.

But let it be known, CD Projekt was technically doing you a favour. "Chort hide is double the price of cow hide, not by a coincidence. We saw you farming, so we raised the stakes," Sasko explains.

You want that gold? Get good. Earn it. Bovine prey is easy. Go for the real prize if you're on the hunt. This has long been a running joke within the community, and CD Projekt embraced the hilarity in suitable fashion.

"Later Bovine Defense Force became a Gwent card (cow leaves the battlefield, Chort arrives)," Sasko says. "And then, we made something special in Hearts of Stone. Taxman Walthemor Mitty shows up at 35K orens and asks Geralt point blank whether he was involved in the wholesale rawhide trade in White Orchard."

Sasko, who's now associate game director on Cyberpunk 2, reveals how this whole episode stems from his own philosophy on game development. "Don't patch the fun out, find a way to escalate it, engage with fun dialog with the players, surprise and delight," he finishes.

CD Projekt Red veteran answers for the crime of The Witcher 3's Skellige, says they tried to add more question marks but couldn't.

Between The Witcher 3's Skellige isles and the Trial of the Grasses, it's hard to say which caused Geralt more pain. The area is notorious among completionists for being both incredibly dense and remarkably fruitless – packed with question marks to hunt down to tidy up the map, including a lot in the freakin' sea, but not overflowing with interesting or valuable stuff to find.

Paweł Sasko, a CD Projekt Red veteran now known as associate game director of Cyberpunk 2 and previously as lead quest designer on Cyberpunk 2077, has been with CDPR since its Witcher 3 days. Back then, he was also working as a quest designer, albeit more junior. Sasko waded into a recent discussion among Polish fans chatting about Skellige, and I honestly can't tell if he's joking in his response.

A DeepL translation of a recent Twitter post reads, "Couldn't they have crammed even more question marks into Skellige?" Which is kind of like asking, couldn't they have put more sodium in this pork ramen broth?

Sasko pulled no punches in his reply. "We tried," a translation reads, "but it was no use." A separate machine translation differs slightly: "We tried, but it was no longer possible." Either way, this is a frightening read.

The thing is, Sasko is very active in the CDPR community, regularly replying to fans online when they share stories, criticism, questions, or jokes about The Witcher or Cyberpunk. His responses are a mix of interesting trivia and dev insights, and blatant but good-natured trolling. Gun to my head, I couldn't tell you where this answer falls. I would readily believe that CDPR tried to pack more bullshit into Skellige but feasibly could not, and the evidence is plain as day: they made Skellige. Once you've put 10,000 question marks in the ass end of nowhere, what's 10,001? The point where even the game engine starts to lose it, perhaps.

After CD Projekt Red announced a surprise expansion for The Witcher 3, over 29,000 Steam players booted up the RPG – the most in months.

The Witcher and Cyberpunk studio CD Projekt Red has teased a couple more details about its upcoming new IP, Hadar, which is set to be an "emotional, open-world experience."

Very little is known about Hadar, which was first announced back in 2022 when it was "in the earliest stages of the creative process." The team is clearly making steady progress, though – this March, CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski stated that "the team has established the foundations of this entirely new IP," with the devs "designing specific elements that might be included in the game, creating multiple prototypes and implementing them directly in Unreal Engine." Now, the company is hiring for multiple roles to bring Hadar to life, with one revealing a few more details about the project.

As stated in a job ad, the engineering director listing is looking for someone who "will help push the envelope for the next, immersive game in the Hadar world, creating an emotional, open-world experience that will stay with gamers." This isn't the first time that CD Projekt Red has hinted about Hadar being an "emotional" experience – last year, prospective quest designers were told that they should be "passionate about narrative-driven and emotional design" in another job listing, making it sound like the story will be of great importance, as it is in the studio's other games.

Interestingly, the reference to an "open-world experience" doesn't feature in the other Hadar job listings – given the studio's previous games and their own open worlds, it's not too shocking to hear the term crop up here, but it's another exciting nugget of information that can help us imagine what the game might look like.

It's all very intriguing, though I imagine it's still going to be some time before we see what Hadar is all about. In CD Projekt Red's latest financial results presentation last week, it confirmed that there were 24 developers working on the game as of April 30 – down two from the end of February this year. To put it into perspective, as of the latest count, there were 513 devs working on The Witcher 4, 163 on Cyberpunk 2, and 83 on Project Sirius, so it's comparatively a very small team right now.

We also now know that The Witcher 3 is getting a new expansion, Songs of the Past, next year, and CD Projekt Red also teased that "some of the other unannounced projects previously disclosed by the Parent Company in its past periodic reports are also at an advanced stages of development, which may potentially lead up to their release in the coming quarters of the current year and the following year." Needless to say, the team is very busy – fans have a lot to look forward to in the future.

Be sure to check out our roundup of all the upcoming CD Projekt Red games to get up to date.

The Witcher 3 still holds up as one of the best open-world games ever made some 11 years after its release, and arguably its best expansion, Blood and Wine, is exemplary of some of the game's finest quest design and writing. That's not just me saying that, by the way, as developer CD Projekt Red is on the record as saying the expansion itself is right up there with the studio's best work.

In a tweet celebrating 10 years of Blood and Wine, CDPR takes a trip down memory lane. "From the peaceful halls of Corvo Bianco to the battle under a full moon, Blood and Wine remains one of our most unforgettable projects," CDPR says. "Today, we raise a glass to the stories, characters, and battles that made Toussaint a place like no other. Thank you for joining us on this journey! Here's to a decade of adventure."

It's a testament to the gorgeous region of Toussaint and the writing itself that, even after Cyberpunk 2077 transformed itself from the janky mess it was at launch to one of the most celebrated open-world games of the 2020s, Blood and Wine is still widely considered one of CDPR's best projects.

Of course, it's old news by now that The Witcher 3 is getting a surprise new expansion next year, coincidentally 11 years after Blood and Wine, aptly titled Songs of the Past. We also know The Witcher 4 is on the way without an official release date, making The Witcher 3 (with or without Blood and Wine) the perfect game to play or revisit while you wait for those and all of the other upcoming CDPR games we know are in development.

After Witcher 3's new expansion, CD Projekt Red teases more "unannounced projects" are at "advanced stages of development" and could release this year

A new Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past, was hurriedly announced on May 27 after CD Projekt Red accidentally leaked its own reveal ahead of schedule. On May 29, the Steam player count for The Witcher 3 jumped to 29,166 – one of the highest points seen all year, and a peak ahead of several months as far back as 2020, according to SteamDB.

As CDPR superfan Alox noted, this is the biggest Steam spike The Witcher 3 has seen since February 22, back when it was part of the Steam Lunar Sale and discounted down to just $7.99.

There's a strong correlation between discounts and player counts on Steam, but big news or updates can also bring fans back. May saw no such discount for The Witcher 3 (technically, an April Medieval Fest discount lasted until the very start of the month), nor did it have new content ready to play, but it still managed a sharp jump in players for the 10th anniversary of the game's Blood and Wine expansion.

I'd wager that a small portion of those players were fans excitedly booting up the game to see if Songs of the Past was already out. It feels very much like the kind of thing a studio might shadow-drop, but the expansion is actually coming in 2027 and will serve as a snacky prologue while The Witcher 4 brews.

The studio has described Songs of the Past as a "trip down memory lane" for Geralt before Ciri takes the protagonist chair in The Witcher 4 and its trilogy. Somehow, CDPR hopes to have all three games in this new saga shipped within six years of each other, which would be quite a feat indeed, even if the company wasn't also juggling Cyberpunk 2 and multiple other projects. Cyberpunk 2 won't repeat the production mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077, studio veteran Adrian Fulneczek said, stressing that the company has "learned our lesson."

Don't expect a Witcher 4 expansion: CDPR says "it would be difficult" to make extra content when it's already trying to squeeze 3 Witcher games into 6 years.

The Witcher 3 fans think they have already figured out where the upcoming Songs of the Past expansion will take place.

After months of speculation, CD Projekt Red finally confirmed that The Witcher 3 will be getting a brand new DLC expansion over a decade since the game first released, with the announcement of Songs of the Past. This expansion is set to launch in 2027, and from the sounds of things, it'll be one last ride with the iconic RPG before Geralt leaves the protagonist role to Ciri in The Witcher 4… whenever that's going to come out.

But overall, we don't really know all that much about the upcoming expansion, except that it's going to herald a change to the game's system requirements and will, unfortunately, be leaving Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PS4 players behind. Also, that it's "an expansion," and a "major" release on par with the likes of Blood and Wine.

However, despite the lack of info, sleuths within the fanbase have seemingly already figured out major details about the expansion. YouTube creator Neon Knight noticed that the sword Geralt is holding in the Songs of the Past key art is Melltith, evidenced by its flower-like pommel. These swords are a piece of elven sword design, as they can be found on other elven swords throughout The Witcher 3, which in turn has led Knight to believe that Songs of the Past will be set in Cidaris, which was built on the ruins of an elven city.

On top of this, in April, CD Projekt Red released artwork featuring the same sword, celebrating Belleteyn (its own take on the Gaelic holiday Beltane), which, what do you know, is celebrated in the elven calendar in The Witcher. We're through the looking glass here, people.

"Not enough time, can't afford it": The Witcher 3 lead recalls "hardcore" dev timeline of the RPG's past expansions, says CDPR had to "change strategy" with Blood and Wine

The Witcher 3 is once again in the limelight after CD Projekt Red's announcement of the big RPG's new expansion (no, not DLC, guys), Songs of the Past – but before it, there were two others: Heart of Stone, and my favorite, Blood and Wine.

Blood and Wine stands as one of the pinnacles of The Witcher series as a whole, if you ask me, and it's evident that a lot of work went into it.

Lead quest designer Paweł Sasko is taking a look back at that work over on X, first revealing that Blood and Wine was actually called "Bells of Beauclair" until it was renamed "because we needed a captivating title that would grasp the spirit of the narrative, and be easier to spell out and articulate."

Sasko recalls how CD Projekt Red was "already hands deep into building the second expansion" when Hearts of Stone shipped in October 2015. That checks out, seeing as Blood and Wine launched just seven months later, in May 2016 – not very long, eh?

"That production timeline was pretty hardcore. A completely new country, main story, characters, monsters, mechanics, player's vineyard, and a narrative worthy of closing Geralt's journey."

This was no easy task, of course. "Oh, and it had to be better than the base game, and Hearts of Stone." Sasko says "the audacity" of the challenge – producing such a major expansion – "felt just right" to him. What was the most difficult part of Blood and Wine, though?

Amid the "handful of adjustments" developers made, "the hardest creative debate was about a forest." A forest that ended up being the Land of a Thousand Fables.

"Writers needed a Druid's Forest for a specific story thread, something the narrative couldn't breathe without. We went to the Environment Artists and got the answer that everyone feared: not enough time, can't afford it. So we changed the strategy: what if we build a fairy tale world? The kind where the fairy tales went rotten and savage. Twisted archetypes, corrupted stories, a visual language we hadn't touched before."

So, they did.

"The artists said 'yes,' because it stylistically intrigued and inspired them" – but, this fairy tale world "turned out to be way more expensive to build than the Druid's Forest ever would." Why did CD Projekt Red opt to take the pricier road, then, when it was already struggling?

Sasko explains in a reply that it "at first looked easier to build (it wasn't) and smaller (it wasn't either). You operate with your best judgment… trying to estimate."

The artists "really liked the idea," however, "and wanted to build it" – that's what really mattered, as it ensured that Blood and Wine would deliver on both devs' own expectations and fans' excitement… excitement I'd argue hasn't died down yet.

Even Sasko himself concludes fans "surpassed any expectation we had about The Witcher 3's longevity." Heck, I've got hundreds of hours in the RPG myself, and I'm not done with it yet.

Especially not now that we've got Songs of the Past to look forward to. The Witcher 3 isn't just one of the best Witcher games out there with all of this high-quality content, I'd argue – it's one of the greatest games to date.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

We've known since 2024 that Ciri is replacing Geralt as the protagonist of The Witcher 4, a move that carries huge implications for the fourquel's gameplay and story, but developer CD Projekt Red is giving Geralt one last hurrah in the upcoming Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past.

Being developed in tandem with The Witcher remake studio Fool's Theory, Songs of the Past is due to release on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC some time in 2027. Beyond those key details, we don't know a whole lot about the expansion, but CDPR has said it's a "major [piece] of content providing lots of hours of gameplay, including new story, characters, etc," which is why the studio doesn't want you to use the apparently reductive term DLC to describe it.

In CDPR's Q1 2026 earnings report, the DLC – sorry, expansion – is described as one last outing for Geralt as main protagonist before he hands over the reins to Ciri.

"The return of Geralt after more than one decade will be an excellent adventure, and a trip down memory lane, before we pass the baton to Ciri in the upcoming The Witcher 4," says CDPR joint CEO Michał Nowakowski.

Depending on your choices throughout the game, Geralt's story ends fairly decisively in The Witcher 3, and going off the name of the expansion, it seems there's a good chance it takes place before the events of the main game. Regardless, CDPR's senior community manager Laura Beitzel confirmed during a recent livestream that Songs of the Past will be "aligned with what you're familiar with" from the most recent Witcher 3 expansion, Blood and Wine, as well as "what you've experienced and come to expect from us when we do expansions." That suggests somewhere between 20 and 30 hours for Songs of the Past, which is pretty meaty indeed.

Here are all of the upcoming CDPR games we know about.

CD Projekt Red hopes to finish the new Witcher saga beginning with The Witcher 4 within six years, which is a tall order in its own right for a trilogy of hefty RPGs. Consequently, the studio doesn't see much room for expansions a la The Witcher 3's Blood and Wine or the newly announced Songs of the Past, suggesting the new games won't receive any major add-ons.

CDPR joint CEO Michał Nowakowski fielded a question about potential expansions for the new Witcher saga during the company's latest earnings call.

The question was: "Given the very ambitious project pipeline, does the company see room for developing expansions for the new Witcher saga?"

Nowakowski is doubtful. "As you mentioned in the question, the plans are pretty ambitious," he begins. "Specifically, it's to release three Witcher games within a six-year period. It would be difficult, to be very honest, for us to add an expansion to the upcoming trilogy. This is where we are here and now with this particular issue."

The Witcher 3 received numerous small add-ons over the years, as well as two major expansions. The game was released in May 2015, and its first expansion, Hearts of Stone, arrived in October 2015. In May 2016, the Blood and Wine expansion arrived. In this same call, CDPR suggested that Songs of the Past, set for 2027, is close to Blood and Wine in scope.

The expansions released for The Witcher 3 managed a pretty high attach rate and ended up delivering quests and moments that many call the peak of the series, so it may be a bit of a bummer to hear that The Witcher 4 and its follow-ups won't get the same room to breathe.

The obvious counterpoint is that, if CDPR can stick to its six-year plan for the new Witcher saga (and I'll bet my bottom dollar it cannot, purely because game dev almost never goes according to even the best of plans), we shouldn't go more than a few years without a whole new RPG. However it shakes out, The Witcher fans will hopefully be eating better than their fellows across the pond: The Elder Scrolls fans, perpetually hungry for something, anything new.

After Witcher 3's new expansion, CD Projekt Red teases more "unannounced projects" are at "advanced stages of development" and could release this year.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red still has more unannounced projects in the clip even after the reveal of the new Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past, the studio has confirmed.

ICYMI, there's a new Witcher 3 expansion coming out! It's called Songs of the Past! It's set to launch in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC! Obviously, that's all in addition to the upcoming CDPR games we already know about like The Witcher 4, Cyberpunk Orion, The Witcher remake, and the mysterious project Hadar. As if that all wasn't exciting enough already, the studio has teased even more to come that hasn't been announced, and some of it could be coming as early as this year. Whether these "projects" are full-on games or expansions is unclear, but CDPR confirmed their existence in its latest earnings statement.

"Some of the other unannounced projects previously disclosed by the Parent Company in its past periodic reports are also at an advanced stages of development, which may potentially lead up to their release in the coming quarters of the current year and the following year," reads one particularly enticing snippet from the release.

In an earnings call and Q&A accompanying the release of the financial statement, various CDPR executives referenced these unannounced projects several times and confirmed that two of them are gaming-related and one is a "non-gaming project," which could refer to a TV, movie, or comic spinoff of a CDPR IP.

We don't know a whole lot about The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past just yet, but CDPR has been very keen to call it an expansion and not just some DLC. The difference, according to community manager Marcin Łukaszewski, is that expansions like Songs of the Past are "major pieces of content providing lots of hours of gameplay, including new story, characters, etc." In other words, it sounds like CDPR sickos will have plenty to keep them busy while they wait for the studio's announced and unannounced projects, whatever those may be.

The Witcher 3 system requirements change for the first time in 4 years as CDPR wants "to ensure smooth performance and compatibility going forward" for Songs of the Past

Separating the goods from the greats is never easy, and the best DLCs prove why that is. This list began as a humble collection of five must-play video game expansions, but after careful (see: impassioned) deliberation with my colleagues here at GamesRadar+, we've expanded our rankings to seven.

If you're here off the back of the new Witcher 3 DLC announcement, you're in the right place. There's something magical about the transformative power of an excellent DLC, whether it sees a glorious journey come to a well-rounded conclusion (as per one of the best Witcher games) or a beloved FPS shown in a whole new light. Many games on this list count among the best RPGs, but rest assured: we're thinking broadly for this one, meaning no genre has been ruled out.

We'll be keeping this list updated as more new games deliver post-launch offerings, but for now, join us as we crown the best DLC of all-time.

7. Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser

Base game: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release date: September 8, 2015

Serving as an essential epilogue to Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Trespasser DLC was the final major expansion to come to BioWare's third fantasy RPG. With so many narrative threads still to wrap up in the main story – which left us with a major revelation regarding companion Solas' identity and motivations – the Trespasser DLC allows you to confront the complex elf and perfectly sets up what's to come in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Set against the backdrop of Thedas' political tensions, you also get caught up in a curious plot, and eventually determine the fate of the Inquisition in a satisfying conclusion. It's as necessary as it is enjoyable, with the bonus of being given the chance to spend more time with the loveable companions (and your chosen paramour).

6. Lies of P: Overture

Base game: Lies of P
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Release date: June 6, 2025

Lies of P charmed me as one of the most impressive and best action-RPGs of 2023, and Overture somehow managed to top it. Introducing difficulty levels in what has to be a first for the Soulslike subgenre, Lies of P: Overture sees our steel-armed hero sent back in time to the moment the city of Krat fell apart. The new map areas breathe life and dimension to the otherwise Belle-Epoque gothic vibe of the base game – think snow-capped mountains, mutated zoo animals in a deviation from all those puppets, new status effects, and brand new weapons to craft. It's a beautiful, engaging DLC that adds plenty of narrative backstory to the events of the base experience, and it really should be top of every Souls fan's list to try out.

5. Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwell

Base game: Dishonored
Platform(s): PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Release date: April 16, 2013

Casting you as one of Dishonored's antagonists, assassin leader Daud, Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall manages to both complement the main adventure and stand relatively alone. In fact, with three dense missions that the superpowered stealth assassin can complete in a variety of ways, the greater focus lends this side-tale more replayability – I've probably zipped through this one twice as much as the main game. This expansion allowed developer Arkane room to experiment as well, many of Daud's powers having their own twists on Corvo's moveset, like how Blink actually pauses time while you aim, allowing for ultra-precise assassin moves (can comes with its own charms, for further refining abilities, too). In fact, I'm redownloading it right now.

4. Mass Effect 3: Citadel

Base game: Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Release date: May 14, 2021

Saying goodbye is never easy, particularly when it comes to an RPG trilogy that made you fall in love with its characters so deeply. So, when Mass Effect 3 first came around, it was hard to let go of Commander Shepard and the Normandy crew. Thankfully, a year later, BioWare dropped the Citadel DLC to round off the adventure. Not only did it serve as a fond love letter to the series and its fans, but it also delivered the perfect, bittersweet way to bid farewell to the RPG's beating heart: the companions.

Centered around putting on a party on the Citadel during a much-needed spell of shore leave, you get caught up in an incredibly wild conspiracy involving your own clone (because Shepard can never catch a real break). Packed full of self-aware jokes, meaningful moments, and incredibly entertaining scenarios, it has everything you could ever want from an expansion.

3. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Base game: Cyberpunk 2077
Platform(s): PC, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X
Release date: September 26, 2023

How CD Projekt Red managed to turn one of the best first-person RPGs into a spy thriller is a feat in and of itself, but Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is proof of how well it works. As both a polished-up "do-over" of sorts that saw multiple in-game systems and processes reworked as part of the major 2.0 update it released with, Phantom Liberty has become essential material that no playthrough would be complete without.

There's new weapons, new characters, and a whole new district of Night City to explore – oh, and a couple of new endings, if collecting 'em all is your thing – and it's more than deserving of being one of the best DLCs ever made for the sheer magic of how it makes Cyberpunk feel the way it was always meant to.

2. Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree

Base game: Elden Ring
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Release date: June 21, 2024

A long two-year wait separated the base game from Shadow of the Erdtree, but the Elden Ring DLC was more than worth it. It offers a uniquely narrative-driven approach, offering a glimpse into the Land of Shadow and how Queen Marika rose to power – and yes, you need to touch a withered arm to make that temporal jump.

It's a suitably gruesome, fascinating expansion that peppers the already rich tapestry of Elden Ring with even more lore-bites, a new host of weapons, a reworked magic system, and some of the cleverest open world design among any of the other best DLCs on this list. It's easy to see why fans call it a vital part of the overall experience, so you don't want to miss this one.

1. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine

Base game: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Release date: May 21, 2016

Geralt's journey to Toussaint is an unmissable experience that truly completes the base game, and a decade later, I think our Witcher 3: Blood and Wine review was a little harsh on the best DLC of all-time. The lush expansion sees Geralt taking up the moniker of wine baron in a picturesque land – one with a vampire problem on its hands.

It stands out not only for its thrilling storytelling and worldbuilding, as is par for the course for CDPR, but for how beautifully it ties things up for our monster slayer (though you can still engage with the open world and clean up those side quests once the credits roll). Blood and Wine is everything a DLC should be, the definition of a must-play RPG expansion, and I won't hear a word against it.

The Witcher 3 is back in the limelight thanks to CD Projekt Red's announcement of its RPG's new expansion, Songs of the Past – an expansion that the developers stress is not just any old DLC, thanks to its sheer size.

If you're out of the loop, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is indeed getting new content, even as work on The Witcher 4 cracks on. A lengthy decade has passed since Blood and Wine, the game's previous expansion, launched in 2016, after all.

Many folks have understandably dubbed Songs of the Past "DLC," seeing as… well, it's technically DLC. CD Projekt Red feels differently, however.

That's because Songs of the Past is big – very sizable, in fact, it would seem. In an online post, community manager Marcin Łukaszewski teases as much, first stating, "It's real. It's coming. And for the last time – it's not DLC, it's an expansion!"
In the comments, a fan asks what the difference between the two terms implies for CD Projekt Red. "For us at CDPR, DLCs are small pieces of content we release for free," replies Łukaszewski. "Like the additional outfits for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt."

Unlike DLC, expansions are a bit wider in scope, apparently. "Expansions, on the other hand, are major pieces of content providing lots of hours of gameplay, including new story, characters, etc."

That makes Songs of the Past sound, well, massive. Or, maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part – but the community lead isn't the only dev that has me excited.

Paweł Sasko, associate game director on Cyberpunk 2, shares a clip of Phantom Liberty star Idris Elba describing the difference between DLC and expansions, writing, "Let me remind you the definition of the Expansion."

In the video, Elba clarifies – in this case, regarding Cyberpunk 2077's own Phantom Liberty, "Just to be clear, it's not a DLC. It's an expansion. You know why? Because we do expansions – big massive monster... We don't do DLC."

And when CD Projekt Red does do DLC? "We give them away." It's amusing, but it does make sense, I suppose… but more importantly, it also means that the new The Witcher 3 DLC – er, expansion, sorry – is going to be a heck of a launch.

The Witcher 3 system requirements change for the first time in 4 years as CDPR wants "to ensure smooth performance and compatibility going forward" for Songs of the Past.

The Witcher 3 is back in the limelight thanks to CD Projekt Red's announcement of its RPG's new DLC, Songs of the Past – an expansion that'll apparently follow some updates to the base game's hardware requirements.

That's right – one of the best RPGs to date is indeed getting brand-new DLC sometime in 2027, confirming long-standing rumors of a post-Blood and Wine expansion. Although CD Projekt Red hasn't told us much about Songs of the Past just yet, the developer did outline some hardware requirement changes in a follow-up post online.

Old technology can't support new software forever, after all, but thankfully, nothing discussed is too drastic.

"With new content coming to the game, we also need to update our system requirements to ensure smooth performance and compatibility going forward," the studio writes. "These requirements will become effective starting from the next update."

CD Projekt Red links out to a support page with the full details, setting the soon-to-be minimum requirements for PC players as follows:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600, Intel Core i5-8400
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB
• VRAM: 6 GB
• RAM: 12 GB
• Storage: 70 GB SSD
• OS: 64-bit Windows 11

Perhaps most notably, HDDs will no longer be supported, furthering the move to SSDs as they offer much quicker loading times and better performance overall.

Folks who are dead set on sticking to Windows 10 will need to bite the bullet for Songs of the Past, too: "Without ongoing security updates, official platform support, and continued GPU driver support, we will no longer test our games on Windows 10."

CD Projekt Red discusses a few other tweaks as well, like the fact that The Witcher 3 "will exclusively run using DirectX 12" to allow the team "to support ongoing technical improvements and modern hardware more effectively."

Keep in mind, every single one of these adjustments affects all players, seemingly, and not just those looking to get Songs of the Past. On the bright side, though, none of it will be forced onto unwilling fans.

You can always roll back to earlier versions of the game if you're not able to keep up with the hardware requirement changes. For those of us who can, however, it'll hopefully pave the way for a better-looking and smoother Witcher 3 experience overall.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

We were collectively blindsided this morning when CD Projekt Red decided to announce brand new DLC for The Witcher 3. The long-rumored Songs of the Past will arrive next year, but we weren't meant to hear about it quite so soon, as the studio's now admitted to.

On Twitter, in response to the posts revealing Songs of the Past, CD Projekt says this new chapter of The Witcher 3 was planned to be unveiled tomorrow instead. "We originally planned to make this big reveal during our REDstreams tomorrow," the studio posted. "But let's say we found something we didn't yet expect on RED Launcher."

Translation: the devs accidentally leaked it themselves. Whatever went on, this news was on the Red Launcher slightly ahead of schedule. Of course, CD Projekt could've ignored the leak and just waited until tomorrow. But unfortunately, the moment's gone now, because we all knew it was happening.

This is another collaboration with Fool's Theory, who're co-developing Songs of the Past with CD Projekt. Fool's Theory is no stranger to Geralt of Rivia at the moment, because it's also working on the remake of The Witcher that's been in development for a number of years now.

Moreover, members of Fool's Theory actually worked on and helped ship The Witcher 3, making it a strong fit for this DLC even before the current partnership. Not much else is known as of now, other than the expansion is being made for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S only.

We'll likely hear more tomorrow, during the REDStreams, where the news itself would've been the centrepiece. Hey, maybe there's a trailer we can watch - only one way to find out.

The Witcher 3 lead quest designer says the room fell into "wide eyes and silence" when he pitched one of the open-world RPG's biggest twists

11 years since it first launched, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is getting a brand new DLC called Songs of the Past. I can't believe it either, but after a flurry of awestruck "hell yeahs" in the GamesRadar+ Slack channel gave way to deeper thoughts (eventually), it's finally sinking in.

There's precious little to go on at the moment: so far we have a title, a release window (2027) and platforms (PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X), and the fact that it's being developed in tandem with Polish studio Fool's Theory.

That last thing catches my eye. Fool's Theory has worked on its own in-house games, like 2024's The Thaumaturge, and as a support studio for Baldur's Gate 3. But with a number of ex-CDPR devs on deck, it's also in charge of delivering a remake of the original Witcher game. That makes The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past the most important DLC in the RPG's already incredible line-up; it's the connective tissue between Geralt's past, present, and the series' future in The Witcher 4.

Back to the streets where we began

With a title that speaks to tales of monsters long since slain, Songs of the Past will likely be more of a prequel. Or at least feature snippets of Geralt's witchering days before Blood and Wine tied off his saga with satisfying, uplifting finality.

Perhaps the new DLC will be told in the vein of balladic retellings as per Reigns: The Witcher, one of the other best Witcher games out there. Maybe we will see a retired Geralt kicking back in a tavern, spinning tales of victory between high-stakes games of Gwent.

Either way, I'm not coming to Songs of the Past expecting massive changes to the overarching narrative of the core Witcher 3 games or DLCs, but a lively and action-packed collection of missions looked upon from behind nostalgia's rosy veil.

This would likely mean lower stakes for the DLC itself, but that's because there is something else riding upon this DLC other than the continuation of the RPG's story. As the lead developer for upcoming RPG The Witcher 1 Remake, Songs of the Past is Fool's Theory's chance to get behind the wheel and take Geralt for a test drive.

For that reason, I'll be appraising the new Witcher 3 DLC in an entirely different light. How does Fool's Theory handle CDPR's penchant for mystery, merging monster detective work and the forward-planning required to achieve victory with moments of nailbiting choice and consequence? How will the studio channel the character's complexity, from his voice to his attitude and the impact of certain narrative events that may or may not have happened yet? Most importantly, has it managed to secure Doug Cockle in reprising his iconic role in one of the best RPGs ever?

On the victor's path

The answers to all of these will no doubt influence a lot for the series going forward. The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past sounds like it will land during a particularly interesting time for both CD Projekt Red and Fool's Theory, in the leadup to Ciri's first leading role in a Witcher game as well as that all-important origin story remake.

With no release date confirmed for either at this point, it will serve to drum up some further hype around The Witcher as a whole while potentially being strategically placed to ensure a very steady stream of new Witcher content in the coming two years.

If Fool's Theory pulls this off the way I am confident it will, who knows what else might come of the partnership? CD Projekt Red is no stranger to recruiting a little co-dev help these days, having enlisted Virtuos Studios to handle the most recent slew of new Cyberpunk 2077 updates. More hands on-deck means more help in bringing players more of the games we love, meaning a little more money in CDPR's pocket and a little more insight into our favorite games.

It's a win-win in my mind, even if the die has yet to be cast. And just like Geralt playing his hand in Gwent, I'll be waiting to see where the cards fall.

The Witcher 3 is still one of the best third-person RPGs of all-time, but which others have you played too?

The Witcher 3, which arguably stands the test of time as one of the best RPGs ever created over a decade on from its 2015 release, is indeed getting a new DLC.

This big news follows months of rumors surrounding potential new Witcher 3 DLC, as CD Projekt Red confirms that it's co-developing the expansion with Fool's Theory – a studio the team has closely worked with in the past on The Witcher 3 and other projects.

It'll feature our first big return to Geralt's adventures since Blood and Wine in 2016, making this quite the monumental moment for us Witcher stans.

Dubbed Songs of the Past, the new Witcher 3 DLC is set to release sometime in 2027 – but has no specific launch date just yet. For now, it'll come to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

Notably, there's no word on any Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 version... or Songs of the Past's future arrival on older consoles, like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

There's no telling what direction it will take just yet, as CD Projekt Red hasn't given us any more information on Sons of the Past's actual content. The name is interesting, however, and it does beg the question – will it potentially center around some sort of prequel tale, as many of Ciri's early gameplay bits do?

Or, could it possibly somehow feed into The Witcher 4 as we approach its own release? Honestly, I'm not sure. What we do know is that Songs of the Past will follow an update to the base game itself.

As CD Projekt Red writes in a new online post, "With new content coming to the game, we also need to update our system requirements to ensure smooth performance and compatibility going forward. These requirements will become effective starting from the next update."

Boy, are these next couple of years shaping up to be something for one of the best Witcher games of all time, eh? Fingers crossed, we learn more about the DLC soon.

The Witcher 3 lead recalls having to watch his work "fall apart in front of me," as CD Projekt Red faced various setbacks while developing their legendary RPG

It's no secret that CD Projekt Red is working on a remake of The Witcher, the studio's first RPG centering around sword-wielding Geralt and his wild adventures as a monster killer – but it hasn't exactly been an easy road to go down for the studio.

GamesRadar+ recently had the opportunity to attend Digital Dragons, and it's during this event that lead technical writer Jarosław Ruciński goes over how difficult working on The Witcher remake has been – and it's all thanks to a lack of documentation from the production of the 2007 original.

"The true impact of our everyday documentation culture hit us in 2022 when we announced to the world that we want to make a Witcher remake," he begins.

"We were tasked to recreate the classic game for the modern audience, only to realize that we had little to no technical knowledge preserved from that time." CD Projekt Red did get a bit "lucky," as Ruciński puts it, since there are folks over at development partner Fool's Theory who are "veterans" and " remember the times of The Witcher 1," thankfully.

"That injection of this lost tribal knowledge was certainly uplifting, but even with their help, gaps exist." After all, "18 years does a lot to human memory," so it didn't fully tackle the issue.

"We find ourselves often doing professional guesswork, and sometimes [it] feels that we're trying to figure out a puzzle where half the pieces weren't even put in the box in the first place… the lesson from this era is quite obvious: some documentation is always better than none, and I personally would take the most horrible entangled chaotic mess of documentation over no documentation."

Ruciński explains, "You know you can spend time, you can spend some resources, and eventually figure out what the documentation was. If you don't have it, then you really have nothing. You can't really reverse engineer that."

In other words, some – any, really – documentation is better than none whatsoever. Taking the time to ensure you save some is the way to go, "because you're probably saving yourself a lot of trouble five years from now."

I mean, that checks out – I can't imagine that trying to recreate a game from the early 2000s with little to work with would be easy, but it's also not the first time that CD Projekt Red has had to deal with setbacks.

During the development of The Witcher 3, for example, there were plenty, with a lead recalling having to watch his work "fall apart in front of me" while creating what arguably now stands as one of the best RPGs to date.

Here's hoping that CD Projekt Red heeds Ruciński for future projects like The Witcher 4 – I'd like to think their preservation game is quite strong now, though.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

I'm often curious about how major plot twists are pitched. Did Darth Vader revealing he's Luke's father make sense to everyone else in the room? What about when Ken Levine told his team about where BioShock was going? In the case of one of the bigger moments in The Witcher 3, the writing team was slightly flabbergasted, according to the person who came up with it.

To mark the 11-year anniversary of The Witcher 3, Pawel Sasko, a quest designer on the RPG who's now an associate game director at CD Projekt, revealed he threw out an idea for The Battle of Kaer Morhen that rendered his team speechless.

Some spoilers follow! So be warned

"In a meeting, I propose that Vesemir dies," he says in a post on Twitter.

"First reaction is wide eyes and silence," he describes. "The weight of it is exactly what the act needs. Ciri's outburst, the moment she throws the Wild Hunt back, requires that the floor fall out from under her first."

He's got a point, and this particular scenario was begging for something dramatic. It's where the Wild Hunt storms the witcher school in search of Ciri, an attack, as Sasko points out, only ends due to a huge outpouring of her unrestrained powers.

To get to her unleashing those abilities, the story needed a catalyst. Vesemir, being an old, embattled witcher, was prime for a heartbreaking death on the battlefield, and so it goes that he does, and we all wept.

Sasko goes on to describe his ideation for the whole sequence. "I prototype meteors, rifts opening in the forest, Wild Hunt pouring out of them, the ride back to the keep on horseback," he recalls. "So much of it does not work. Technical issues. The quest flow is unclear. Review feedback I get is negative, so I rebuild."

He calls it the time of his life, and may we all be so creatively fulfilled at one point or another. If we're really lucky, it can involve a story-defining bit of writing, too.

The Witcher 3's best ending is the one where "everybody lives happily ever after," says Geralt actor – and he got it in his only-ever playthrough: "I didn't know the choices that would lead me there."

Although The Witcher 3 now stands the test of time as one of the best RPGs ever created, it doesn't boast such a simple origin story. CD Projekt Red had to try, and then try again.

And again, apparently. Lead quest designer Paweł Sasko recalls as much in a new online post commemorating the conception of The Witcher 3. "It's February 2012," he begins.

"A former factory in Warsaw. Red brick, wooden folding chairs, the smell of an old building that has been a hundred things before. Around 80 of us, the team that just shipped The Witcher 2. The lights dim." That's when The Witcher 3 was born.

"Game director and executive producer speak briefly about [the] new game we are going to make. Few sentences change the air in the room. The next game will be an open world. At the end, they show one image on the screen – it's Geralt, but older, with a beard. We will grow into 330 people before we ship. I am one of three quest designers under a lead. Pretty early, the story outline for No Man's Land arrives."

That's when things went a bit haywire.

"First mention of the Bloody Baron. I design my first quest for the project, walk into the review, and watch it fall apart in front of me. Nothing works. I sit there while it dies. Have two days to bring something new. I do not rest much. I read Slavic folktales until I find the poroniec, a stillborn child creature with [a] hideous appearance that later we are going to call Botchling. I come back with a first draft of Family Matters."

It's still not enough.

"The review outcome is a little better this time, but the fight is not over. The script grows to 40 pages. Cut it shorter, I am told. Need to do it numerous times. The discipline of removing what I like teaches me more than the writing and design ever did. After many reviews, it is approved."

It doesn't become any easier, however. "For the first nine months, all of us write the main story quests, because every other department is eagerly waiting."

There's not even grass yet, and the studio's game engine "is still finding shape," as Sasko says – "but we keep moving" nonetheless. "I write much more than we need for the game, because we pick only the best. Priscilla's concert in Novigrad is next. Then the The Last Wish. Some of it is designed last minute. Then comes [the] Battle of Kaer Morhen."

That's when the designer faces another hurdle – he proposes that Vesemir dies.

"First reaction is wide eyes and silence. The weight of it is exactly what the act needs. Ciri's outburst, the moment she throws the Wild Hunt back, requires that the floor fall out from under her first. I prototype meteors, rifts opening in the forest, Wild Hunt pouring out of them, the ride back to the keep on horseback. So much of it does not work. Technical issues. The quest flow is unclear. Review feedback I get is negative, so I rebuild."

But then, things finally take a positive turn. "Pieces start to hold," as Sasko puts it. "I begin to see why something works and why the thing next to it does not. Through repetition, I truly start understanding the craft."

Although the CD Projekt Red developers "still do not know if the open world will actually work," they "try anyway," he explains. "We push to [the] finish line and ship." A scary release, I'd say, but one that reshaped the studio's course forever.

The Witcher 3 has redefined the RPG genre and set standards I'd argue few other titles have, changing the way other devs approach open-world mechanics and the like. Now, it boasts over 60 million copies sold and a dedicated community looking forward to The Witcher 4.

It didn't come without its setbacks, but Sasko is thankful for them all: "I am grateful for the skills, the friendships, the failures that taught me more than any success ever could."

He concludes, "I am grateful for the lead who told me my first quest did not work. I am grateful for the rewrites that became Family Matters. I am grateful for every meeting that ended in silence and every review that ended in a yes. The Witcher 3 is a major part of my life. It always will be."

Ours, too, Mr. Sasko. Ours, too. I, for one, don't think I'll ever forget the first time I played the threequel – nor will I ever stop coming back to it.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

Years before Cyberpunk 2077 bailed on the idea, CD Projekt Red wanted The Witcher, the first RPG in the series, to have multiplayer.

Speaking at a Digital Dragons talk attended by GamesRadar+, CDPR senior technical writer Adrian Fulneczek discusses the dusty documentation that's home to the first scratches of what The Witcher would become.

"If the state of your documentation is this black hole, this means you have to reverse-engineer everything," he says, "and basically reverse-engineer your own legacy. Since I've mentioned legacy: we don't have much in digital form, but we have some physical documents, and we would like to show one of them to you."

Fulneczek brings up a notebook that "predates" The Witcher. "It lists the features we wanted to have in that game, among them a multiplayer mode, which didn't happen, but it shows ambition," he says.

Earlier in the talk, Fulneczek discussed how the early days of CDPR saw a small, tight-knit team of devs work out "our craft, our pipelines, and the logic as we went." This team was not, history has shown, up to the task of adding multiplayer to what was already a hefty RPG.

CD Projekt Red has an interesting history with multiplayer, which makes it doubly amusing that the original Witcher also had designs of its own at one point.

There's the Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer snag, obviously. The studio said years ago, following a disastrous launch and hard-fought recovery, that it had "decided to reconsider" making "a multiplayer Cyberpunk game". However, job listings for Cyberpunk 2 suggest it will fold in some kind of online play, though its scale and form are unknown.

Historically, any sort of online and/or co-op play has been reserved for spinoff or side games under CDPR. Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is the obvious pick, but there's also The Witcher Adventure Game digital adaptation, the MOBA-shaped Witcher Battle Arena, and the vaguely Pokemon Go-like Witcher: Monster Slayer.

Multiplayer in the mainline CDPR RPGs has thus come from fans, like the makers of Witcher Online and CyberMP.

However, the studio is now actively working on a new Witcher game with multiplayer, code named Project Sirius. It just added the narrative lead of Destiny 2: The Final Shape to its development team.

As it happens, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners characters Lucy and Rebecca will soon debut in Wuthering Waves through a collab, and that's technically an RPG with multiplayer. One small step for Lucy, one giant leap for Cyberpunk's roster.

"We learned our lesson": The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 won't repeat the development mistakes of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red says.

Well, here's an unexpected yet intriguing crossover. One of the central writers on Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion has been enlisted by CD Projekt Red for the upcoming, as-yet-untitled The Witcher multiplayer game.

Kwan Perng revealed his new employer himself on LinkedIn, but he makes it clear details are very hush-hush right now. "I've joined CD Projekt Red as the lead writer on Project Sirius," he says. "It will be some time before I can talk about the project, but in the meantime I've been immersing myself in the dark and eclectic universe of The Witcher. It's humbling to get the opportunity to tell stories in this world and in the company of such talented developers."

He made another post on Twitter, seemingly just to show off the swag he's received for joining. The spin-off is indeed codenamed Project Sirius, and it's been in the works for a number of years now. It was announced in 2022, before development was restarted in 2023. The Molasses Flood is the studio that's primarily handling the game, with support from CD Projekt, but it's unclear how much is being handled by either side in light of the slightly tumultuous journey thus far.

Though the multiplayer aspects are the central attraction, an early outline states single-player is still part of the structure. But again, how much or how little of that remains true is unknown.

Besides contributing to The Final Shape, as well as Warmind and The Black Armory during a previous tenure at Bungie, Perng spent some time as narrative lead on Guild Wars 2, working on the End of Dragons expansion. He clearly knows his way around storytelling for blockbuster MMOs, and it'll be intriguing to see what he brings to The Continent.

Project Sirius is one of several irons CD Projekt has in the fire surrounding Geralt of Rivia. There's a remake of the first The Witcher on the way, and The Witcher 4 is happening, though the current status of both is unknown. The first game turns 20 next year, and it seems like there could be plenty going on to mark the occasion.

Yet another Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 lead joins CD Projekt Red as it juggles development on The Witcher 4, Cyberpunk 2, and more

Summer Game Fest 2026 draws ever closer, and this might be GamesRadar+'s longest Wildcard Wishlist yet. The Summer Game Fest 2026 schedule grows more detailed by the week, with an Xbox Games Showcase and Gears of War special confirmed so far alongside Day of the Devs and a Wholesome Direct. But instead of being rational when it comes to specific game predictions, I've enlisted my most trusted dreamer colleagues in outlining all the new games we hope to see – no matter how out-of-pocket they might be. (I mean, I was right about Resident Evil Requiem's reveal last summer, after all.)

This is our third year of putting our hearts before our heads in the leadup to the showcase season. Here, you'll find everything from announced upcoming PS5 and upcoming Xbox Series X games we'd love to see more of, like The Witcher 4 and GTA 6, to upcoming Ubisoft games that have yet to be revealed despite reportedly entering development. They're all alike in one way: we have no real reason to be hoping for a major update from them at Summer Game Fest this year… but man, would we love to see it. Get the hopium ready, people. Here are the GamesRadar+ team's most-wanted wildcard games of SGF 2026!

1. Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platform(s): TBC
Release date: TBC

The leaks are out there now, which means I'm just waiting for some official Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe news to validate it. It's been a busy time for Ubisoft, with Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynched launching mere months from now, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for a rich, gloomy setting, and a game set during the European witch trials would definitely tick that box. After all these years jumping between RPGs and stealth action, it's high time Ubisoft injects some much-needed provincial magic into the mix. I saw Ezio Auditore with the devil!

2. Divinity

Developer: Larian Studios
Platform(s): TBC
Release date: TBC

We only just learned of Larian's new RPG at The Game Awards 2025, so maybe I'm greedy to hope for another peek so soon at Summer Game Fest. But can you blame me? The stunning reveal trailer introduces a far grislier side to the Baldur's Gate 3 studio than we've ever seen before, with a man getting burned alive inside a wicker effigy while townspeople celebrate around the pyre with rapturous glee. All eyes are on Larian as it quietly works to bring this sinister medieval fantasy to life, and while I'm more than happy to wait patiently, I really hope the studio doesn't leave too long before our next glimpse.

3. Haunted Chocolatier

Developer: ConcernedApe
Platform(s): PC
Release date: TBC

I know, I know, ConcernedApe (aka Eric Barone) has told us time and time again that he's still wrapped up in Stardew Valley and won't be showing off his upcoming RPG anytime soon. But it would be remiss of me not to include the elusive Haunted Chocolatier on this list, even as someone with admittedly little knowledge of his other works. The combination of its quirky setting, social sim elements, and a greater focus on combat this time around in this "way bigger" game is what grips me about it, and the fact that it's still so shrouded in mystery only piques my interest further. C'mon, Mr Barone - break off a square for us at Summer Game Fest?

4. Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

Developer: Naughty Dog
Platform(s): PS5
Release date: TBC

It's been two years since Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet was revealed at The Game Awards 2024, and Naughty Dog has been quiet for far too long. The Last of Us developer's latest looks like a stunning sci-fi adventure, with a brief cinematic reveal trailer the only thing we have to go on for now. It's the studio's "wildest, most creative story yet" according to Neil Druckman, but I'm most keen for a better look at its combat after a glimpse of its third-person melee action. Here's hoping SGF 2026 sees Naughty Dog reminding us of its upcoming PS5 exclusive in style – maybe even with a release window?

5. Marvel's Blade

Developer: Arkane Lyon
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X
Release date: TBC

The coolest vamp slayer in the Marvel universe is past due a temperature check, but with such little news of late, I'm not feeling confident we'll be seeing Marvel's Blade at Summer Game Fest 2026. Studio Arkane's upcoming Marvel game has been in the works for years now, and save for some stills shared in 2025, we really haven't learned much since its first reveal in 2023. But maybe that silence is soon to end, should Arkane appear during an Xbox showcase this summer to give the PS5's upcoming Marvel's Wolverine a run for its money? Again, I have no grounds for this supposition except… what if?

6. Mass Effect 5

Developer: BioWare
Platform(s): TBC
Release date: TBC

After Dragon Age: The Veilguard tied a bow on Dragon Age for what will likely be a long time to come, I have my sights firmly set on my other favorite BioWare series: Mass Effect. With Mass Effect 5 in the works, there's always a small part of me that hopes we'll learn more about the next space-faring adventure. With only crumbs to go off of so far – which amounts to cryptic teasers here and there – there are so many questions I have about what's in store. As the developer is busy working on the next entry, I don't expect we'll actually see it at Summer Game Fest this year… But hey, there's always N7 Day in November.

7. Cyberpunk 2

Developer: CD Projekt Red
Platform(s): TBC
Release date: TBC

What else is this list for but to wish for the day CD Projekt Red unveils Cyberpunk 2 for real? We've known about the existence of the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel for some time now, with some rumors (or leaks, considering they came from the IP creator himself) that it will be set outside of Night City in Chicago instead. This is about as wildcard of a wishlist item I could possibly think of, and there's as much likelihood of it being shown at Summer Game Fest as there is of Keanu Reeves breaking into my house to offer me a cigarette. But both are things I'd quite enjoy, so leave a girl to her dreams.

8. Far Cry 7

Developer: TBA
Platform(s): TBC
Release date: TBC

While I'm still high on complete fantasy, we need to talk about Far Cry 7. Ubisoft has been especially quiet about the followup to 2021's Far Cry 6, so much so that it hasn't even been revealed yet. The rumor mill suggests that it could be coming as soon as next year, but as Ubisoft goes through a period of restructuring, there's never been a murkier time to be a fan of its top IPs. Still, if a Ubisoft Forward is on the cards for this summer, maybe it's not so wild to imagine a Far Cry 7 reveal after all? Not sure how I feel about the 24 hour time-limit, though…

9. The Witcher 4

Developer: CD Projekt Red
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X, PS5
Release date: TBC

More than a decade after Geralt hung up his swords, The Witcher 4 seems tantalisingly close yet remains just out of reach. Last summer's tech demo suggests CDPR has been quietly making major strides, but since then we've heard almost nothing about Ciri's upcoming adventure beyond a promising series of hiring announcements. Unfortunately, we're not expecting to return to The Continent before 2027, which means a major announcement is unlikely, but a new trailer setting up Ciri's story or her adventure in the new region of Kovir could be the start of a major 18-month hype cycle.

10. The Elder Scrolls 6

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Platform(s): TBC
Release date: TBC

After a whopping 14 years of… well, not much of anything, I'm still unwaveringly hopeful we'll see The Elder Scrolls 6 make an appearance at another event, even if it hasn't since its very first reveal at E3 back in 2018. Sure, Todd Howard himself has joked that we should all "just pretend" that Bethesda never announced its long-awaited next RPG, but that's far easier said than done. I'd love to see a sneak peek of the setting – whether or not it's truly the ever-rumored Hammerfell or High Rock – or perhaps get an idea of when it's set. Will it take place after or before Skyrim? Will we see playable races we've never seen before, like the Falmer? I doubt it, but hey, a girl can dream – and dreaming is exactly what I'll be doing.

11. Grand Theft Auto 6

Developer: Rockstar Games
Platform(s): PS5, Xbox Series X
Release date: November 19, 2026

With Grand Theft Auto 6 set to launch on November 19 and no further delays in sight, expect to hear a lot more from Rockstar in the coming months. Although the game's two existing trailers have been released with little build-up or fanfare, Summer Game Fest 2026 could be the perfect stage for Rockstar to open the floodgates as the run-up to launch begins. After all, we still don't know much about what we'll be getting up to in Leonida, nor what to expect from GTA 6's multiplayer. Will anything from our GTA 6 wishlist come true at SGF 2026? Time will tell!

12. Persona 6

Developer: Atlus
Platform(s): TBC
Release date: TBC

As Persona 5 fast approaches its tenth anniversary, having complete silence on the next proper game in the RPG series is starting to make me sweat, but Persona 6 news might come soon. The fifth game propelled this teen drama series into the spotlight like never before, and as a (mostly) anthology-style series the big question is just how what will Persona 6 do next? Stick with its predecessors urban, Tokyo vibes? Return to a rural small town, like Persona 4? Will they age up teens to college students? Will it still be set in Japan, or span multiple locations? Will it be green?! It could be anything. Which also means, at the moment, it's nothing. I simply have to know what direction they'll be taking, so even a small teaser will do. But, like everyone else waiting, I demand to be impressed. No pressure now.

13. Wolf Among Us 2

Developer: Telltale / Adhoc Studio
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X
Release date: TBC

It's somehow been nearly seven years since The Wolf Among Us 2 was first announced at the Game Awards back in 2019. Fast forward to today, and we've seen a few trailers, screenshots, and story details. But after a string of delays and some radio silence, I have no idea what's happening when it comes to Bigby's longwaited return. Even so, I still yearn for the sequel to my favorite Telltale game to finally see the light of day. With Adhoc Studio's – who penned Bigby's return – releasing a fantastic episodic story-driven experience in Dispatch last year, my appetite for Wolf Among Us 2 only intensifies. May Bigby huff and puff this year down.

14. Witchbrook

Developer(s): Chucklefish, Robotality
Platform(s): PC, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series X
Release date: TBC 2026

Witchbrook has been at the top of every cozy gamers most anticipated list since it was officially announced back in 2018. However, it's almost been eight years now and we still don't have a firm release date for the magic centered life-sim. The good news is that after it was delayed last year, the new 2026 launch window hasn't moved from the game's store pages. And, considering that we haven't got any new dev blog entries via the title's website either since December, I have my fingers crossed that we'll see it make an appearance during the Wholesome Direct on June 6. I'm craving to live out my cute pixelated witch fantasy and after a decade of waiting, it's time that we all get our hands on this one.

The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings looks better than I remembered. The world is awash in color, hues of red and orange engulfing the burning city I'm clearing on behalf of Temeria's king. I take a moment to remove Geralt's sword from the chest of a La Valette soldier to admire it.

The game just turned 15, and it's been about that long since I played it. It's also one of the few remaining Xbox exclusives – something I only realized a few weeks ago – yet my 2020 HP Pavilion gaming laptop has it looking almost as good as a pre-enhanced Witcher 3. I don't know why so many of us forget about Geralt's second adventure. Myself included, unfortunately. But in the leadup to The Witcher 4, going back to the series' roots feels not only incredibly fulfilling and insightful, but has me more excited than ever for what might come next.

Good to be back

I'm incredibly sorry to inform all PS4 and PS5-only owners out there that The Witcher 2 is a blast and a half. Time has done nothing to diminish the polish of one of the best Witcher games ever, and thanks to the PC version's enhancements, it's a missed opportunity that CD Projekt Red never ported it over to Sony consoles.

It starts off right in the heat of battle, as King Foltest launches an assault on his mistress to retrieve his illegitimate children. It's a great way to remind myself of the events of the first game; much as in The Witcher 3, this can be done through carrying over choices from the previous game or going with the default settings instead. The developer's storytelling chops are sharp as ever, immediately hooking me from the get-go as Geralt pleads his case with Vernon Roche: he did not kill the king, actually, and really ought to be freed.

But the fact that CD Projekt Red has stellar storytellers on-side shouldn't be news to you. What should be, however, is that The Witcher 2 isn't hugely dissimilar to its successor. Here is where the studio ironed out the form and flow of The Witcher, complete with potion crafting, Witcher signs, sword combat, and toxicity. Really the only glaring moments of "oof" I experienced were in having to stand completely still to use my Witcher Senses and the brief loading screens upon entering and exiting even the smallest cottages.

There is one mechanic here that we don't see in The Witcher 3, though: persuasion. I try in vain to talk one of Foltest's men out of roughing up some villagers after selecting the green-eyed icon next to one of the dialogue choices. Maybe force would have been more appropriate, signified by the red-eyed icon next to another? I reload for a closer look and spot an interaction I'd missed completely: mind control.

Choose your Path

Or, more specifically, Axii. This was always one of my favorite witchering tricks to pull in Wild Hunt, bending softer minds to Geralt's iron will. Blessedly it works, and the soldiers scarper off.

While the persuasion, intimidation, and manipulation mechanic is refined in the third game, there's something about its simplicity in The Witcher 2. It's the building blocks for what comes next, the framework that CD Projekt Red tested out before doubling down on the series' now-iconic choice and consequence moments that can make or break a given situation.

But so too can sticky combat, my biggest gripe with this game. Geralt's forward rolls are slow and cumbersome, and his slower swordstrikes means that being ganged up on is a quick recipe for disaster. Crowd control is not his strongest suit, unfortunately, and with an unreliable target lock-on proving more of a hindrance than a help when focusing my attacks, I quickly get cut down. Swapping over to Igni is a welcome reprieve from Aard's sluggish refresh speed, but of course, I miss the quick sign casting feature added to The Witcher 3 post-launch.

As I roll my eyes at needing to meditate when making or using potions and bemoan the lack of in-combat heals, though, I remind myself that this game is a stepping stone. It's hard to imagine it now, but The Witcher 3 is more or less the same for The Witcher 4. Someday when I hold Ciri's adventure in my hands and am no doubt blown away by all the shiny new baubles the developer has planned for us, I'll probably replay Geralt's last hurrah and gripe over all the things I miss from the newer game too.

CD Projekt is good at delivering brilliance and somehow one-upping itself. Playing The Witcher 2 some 15 years on has reminded me that perfection is futile without the building blocks which take us there. Now if you don't mind, I have some Scoia'tael to slaughter or be slaughtered by.

Check out the best RPGs to play next... and you already know there's a Witcher game in here.

Over the past year or so, CD Projekt Red has welcomed quite a lot of talent – over 220 new developers, in fact – with a good few of them coming from RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 and, of course, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and its predecessor.

As work on The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 presses on, CD Projekt Red is pulling in a good few new devs from other legendary studios. In December, an ex-Baldur's Gate 3 dev joined the team, while a former Mass Effect lead hopped on board as AI director in February.

In between, there have also been a couple of Warhorse Studios veterans making their way to CD Projekt Red, like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 designer Karel Kolmann.

It appears another past Warhorse dev is joining CD Projekt Red's forces now, too, as Zdeněk Glatz – a senior Kingdom Come: Deliverance designer and writer – reveals in an exciting post on LinkedIn.

Although he only leaves a few exclamation marks himself, attached is an image that reads, "I'm happy to share that I've joined CD Projekt Red." Glatz's new title is visible as well: senior open world designer. Which RPG is he working on, though?

Well, it's not exactly clear. The picture does mention that CD Projekt Red is the creator of Cyberpunk and The Witcher, but Glatz's actual profile doesn't detail which game he's going to be focusing on as a senior open world designer.

I'd imagine it'd have to be either The Witcher 4 or Cyberpunk 2 – or perhaps both – as they're the studio's two "big" projects right now, but only time will tell what Glatz will be credited with in the end.

There is also, unsurprisingly, some discussion on what this could mean for Warhorse Studios, as multiple devs have moved on to CD Projekt Red now. Over on Reddit, folks question if it "spells trouble for Warhorse's next game" – but I wouldn't bet on it, personally.

It's not uncommon for people to move around in the industry, especially when there are so many new games underway to work on. CD Projekt Red just so happens to be one of many.

As for Warhorse Studios, there are talks of a Kingdom Come: Deliverance movie or TV show in the air, as Daniel Vávra, studio co-founder, has stepped down from his position to focus on bringing the RPG duology to the big screen.

The Witcher 4, Cyberpunk 2 developer CD Projekt Red scoops up more industry talent as a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 cinematics dev joins the team

Yes, there's more Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on the way, but no, it's not another season of the gorgeous Netflix anime series. Instead, it's a collaboration with the action-RPG Wuthering Waves, focusing on two characters in particular.

A trailer for the partnership gives a quick little bit of context: the Edgerunners have arrived in the futuristic city of Solaris-3, and they're causing a bit of a stir. If you're unfamiliar, Wuthering Waves is essentially a science fiction version of Genshin Impact – it's free-to-play, with gacha mechanics for new characters and the like, and you're encouraged to explore, complete dailies, and all that good stuff.

Heavily inspired by cyberpunk, not much change is required aesthetically for the cast of Edgerunners to fit into Solaris-3, being both anime-inspired and hailing from a total dystopia themselves. Lucy, the plucky netrunner of Night City who's a catalyst for much of the series, is involved prominently, as is gun nut Rebecca.

The latter's playable for free, and it's hinted the former's got a pretty big questline: she's targeting one of the city's moons for some reason. Frankly, I don't think we need any further reasoning, Lucy versus the moons of Solaris-3 is a mission I'll gladly accept.

There's no release date, but we get a release window of June this year. That's only a few weeks away now! This'll be just over two years since Wuthering Waves first launched on PC, and a month ahead of rolling out Xbox Series X/S. If you're going to celebrate, do it Cyberpunk style.

Cyberpunk 2077's best shopkeeper was originally a "vapid" side character devs had no idea what to do with, says actor, until a few redrafts made her "one of my favourite characters I've ever voiced."

Workiversaries in the game industry are bittersweet these days. It's tricky celebrating career milestones when it seems like every other week, hundreds of people lose their livelihoods all at once. For CD Projekt Red localization QA analyst Paula Mackiewicz-Armstrong, who recently hit eight years with the studio, it's simply a moment of gratitude for stability in a very unstable environment.

"It's quite strange reflecting on it, cause instead of celebrating achievements or releases, my thoughts turn to the situation in the industry," Mackiewicz-Armstrong writes in a recent Linkedin post. "Here I am, 8 years and counting, and over at Epic, 1000 people just lost their jobs."

Fortnite studio Epic Games is just the latest in a years-long industry reshuffling to undergo mass layoffs, letting go of more than 1,000 employees late last month. At the time, CEO Tim Sweeney attributed the cuts to "the downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025" and said "closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place."

Things might be more stable for Epic Games momentarily, but the industry at large is anything but. While there's hope that the wave of post-Covid layoffs that kicked off in 2022 is past its peak, 2026 has still been a comparatively volatile year for the industry, with Epic's latest downsizing following another big workforce reduction from the Embracer-owned Eidos Montreal, not to mention Highguard studio Wildlight Entertainment being stripped down to a skeleton crew.

"My main feelings are relief that I have a job that I enjoy, and that my company is stable, at least for now," says Mackiewicz-Armstrong. "I love my team, I love everything I've built here. I've seen some hard times and some remarkable changes and improvements that make CDPR a great place to be right now. I just wish others in the industry could have the same."

In Mackiewicz-Armstrong's view, employees aren't entirely helpless against corporate bodies desperate to please investors.

"If I can have one piece of advice for all of you out there, unionise," she says. "Collectively, we can influence things. Individually, we are at the mercy of the market." Mackiewicz-Armstrong specifically points to the Polish Gamedev Workers Union as a resource for Poland-based game industry workers. "Let's all look out for each other," she says.

While union contracts typically can't prevent an employer from laying off workers, they can stipulate how something like that is done. For example, union leadership can negotiate with employers to prevent layoffs due to AI, afford employees ample warning time in the event of layoffs, and ensure severance pay. That said, major studios including Ubisoft and Rockstar have been accused of union-busting in recent years, with Ubisoft shutting down Ubisoft Halifax in January just days after it announced the certification of its labor union.

Regardless, unionization is definitely one of the tools game devs have at their disposal that can help them regain some semblance of control amid ongoing turbulence. Unfortunately for all too many former employees now looking for work, that opportunity is taken from them before they can begin to organize.

"Fortnite's cultural moment is starting to fade," games analyst says amid mass layoffs, and its downturn is part of the "erosion of American leadership" in video games

Actor Erica Lindbeck hated Misty Olszewski, one of the characters she plays in Cyberpunk 2077, until developer CD Projekt Red gladly transformed her into someone completely different.

Before rewrites, fan-favorite tarot reader Misty was disappointing and completely "vapid," Lindbeck tells The Gamer in a new interview. The new age goth girl was limited to only a fistful of one-liners, and Lindbeck expected Militech manager Meredith to be the most significant example of her work on Cyberpunk 2077.

After all, "The character that I booked in Cyberpunk was Meredith," Lindbeck explains, "and then Misty was a random side character that they threw me." She made quips like, "Babe, your chakras are all out of whack!" and Lindbeck despised it.

"We recorded her several times because we didn't know what to do with her," she recalls. "I went, 'Oh, my God, what are we gonna do?'"

Then devs figured it out: the spiritually healing saleswoman Misty could just be a "soft, New Jersey Harley Quinn thing. And now she's one of my favourite characters I've ever voiced," Lindbeck says. "I love her so much. And they kept writing more and more and more for her, so that Misty became a much bigger character than Meredith."

I can't resist Ideal Misty, either (Lindbeck calls Cyberpunk's original Misty character "Punished Misty"). She provides the important counterbalance of old incense smoke in a city otherwise defined by cold, new technology. I just hope Lindbeck can forgive me for loving her Barbie: Dreamtopia voice a little more.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a better role-playing game than The Witcher 3.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has gone down as one of the most influential open-world games of all time, universally lauded for its writing and quest design. And while The Witcher 3 established CD Projekt Red as a powerhouse, the long and winding road of Cyberpunk 2077’s development isn’t quite the same story.

But years after its disastrous launch, perhaps the most remarkable thing I’ve found about Cyberpunk’s transformation is that it’s arguably a better “role-playing” game than The Witcher 3, in terms of the quintessential idea that the genre stands for. And that largely comes down to two key factors: strong world design and a truly inspired take on the malleable choice-driven protagonist.

Minor spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077 ahead.

Gonkbrain

The most important divergence between Cyberpunk and The Witcher 3 comes down to how the player themselves is integrated into the world, and how you experience and interpret your role in said world; along with V’s design as a character, and how Cyberpunk wants you to embrace its dynamic role-playing systems.

This is first realized with the three different background options (Lifepaths); Nomad, Street Kid, and Corpo. These aren’t simple background choices like in a tabletop campaign, but rather key inflection points that change how V interacts with the world, what dialogue choices you get, and your understanding of their role.

For example, Nomad makes your V a serious outcast, starry-eyed at the overwhelming metroscape of Night City. Meanwhile, Corpo makes V far more cynical, someone who’s seen the darkest depths of the city and lived to tell the tale, with the scars to show for it.

Each Lifepath integrally, and brilliantly, shifts your understanding of V’s role in the world. The extra wrinkle that makes V even more fascinating is the ghost trapped in their head, the spirit of Johnny Silverhand – constantly judging your actions from a specific moral, anarchist standpoint.

From there the game starts to layer in your details and choices. But perhaps the most crucial difference between Cyberpunk and The Witcher is how the game integrates you into the world.

In first-person, you’re seeing the world of Cyberpunk through V’s eyes, with the entire direction of the game built to strengthen that viewpoint. Early story beats, like the death of your partner Jackie, feel so much more visceral because you're seeing him bleed out in your arms. It gives everything a sense of immediacy. If a negotiation in the middle of conversation goes wrong, there’s no fade to black or cutscene transitions, the dialogue simply ends as characters immediately start gunning you down.

The first-person viewpoint is brilliantly used to reinforce the brutality of Cyberpunk’s world, but also plays into V as a character. There’s even some fun subtlety in how you never see V’s face except for in reflections and two key moments at the beginning and ending of the game – illustrating how much “your” V has changed. Cyberpunk’s writing and storytelling simply wouldn't work the same in third-person, it’s integral to the game’s vision.

Sword at the gunfight

Both Geralt and V adhere to the style of protagonist popularized by Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard, pre-designed characters that have their own pasts and personality, but give you some degree of freedom in their morality and how they interact with the world.

But what’s remarkable about V is how well they build on the idea of Geralt – a character that has a defined history with the setting of Night City, but allows for incredible levels of freedom in how you build that story.

While Geralt can make world-altering decisions across The Witcher 3, it’s all within a certain framework that can’t betray his morality. The same isn’t true for V. Cyberpunk's lifepaths give you tangible backstories that percolate over time, affecting the world, your intrinsic idea of who V is, and even more interestingly, who Johnny Silverhand thinks V is.

Take the game’s very best quest, Sinnerman. One of Cyberpunk’s most harrowing side stories, and a prime example of how the game’s side content not only enhances the game’s themes, but V as a character. In Sinnerman you’re tasked with helping a death row inmate named Joshua Stephenson, who’s found god and wants to make a braindance that recreates the crucifixion of Jesus Christ – so that others can experience it.

The questline explores heady ideals like penitence and faith, telling a harrowing self-contained story while also making V, and the player, question their own thoughts on faith and religion. But perhaps the most affecting moment comes in the final quest, when V can decide if they’ll help nail Stephenson to the cross themselves.

It’s a moment that’s treated with extreme reverence, highly affecting whether you choose to do it or turn it down – and crucially that decision heavily influences who V is as a person. As someone with only a few days to live, V naturally questions faith and ideas of what comes next, and this moment is an encapsulation of the headcanon created for your own version of the character. But Johnny himself also has heavy thoughts on your actions, providing an extra layer of critique that forces you to confront how other people might interpret your actions.

It’s these little moments that add up to make V who they are – crucial little decisions that call morality and introspection into question, rather than just changing the state of the world. In The Witcher 3, those moments are delivered with a more authorial direction, telling you what Geralt or other characters believe. But in Cyberpunk, you’re the author.

The icing on top is how the levelling and skill systems, especially the updated Phantom Liberty version, help reinforce that role-playing as V. A gruff no messing around V might invest in heavy weapons and strength, letting you obliterate enemies quickly when negotiations fall through.

A more tactful V might invest in their Cyberdeck and hacking abilities, relying on subterfuge to set enemies up for failure before they even know it. Cyberpunk, crucially, gives you vastly different gameplay options, all with the intention of reinforcing each player’s unique narrative interpretation.

It’s that variance that makes Cyberpunk feel like such a massive step forward for CD Projekt Red, even after the impressive job the studio did with The Witcher. It’s a game that truly, completely embraces the very idea of role playing, even if it took all too long to get there.

Check out these thrilling games like Cyberpunk 2077 if you're itching for more futuristic RPG mayhem.

CD Projekt Red just confirmed during its 2025 earnings conference that its shadowy project Hadar has entered preliminary pre-production stages.

The Witcher 4 studio first revealed Hadar in 2022, providing hardly any details on the title aside from the fact that it would be made "entirely from scratch" from within CD Projekt Red and – the studio stressed – was brand new. At the time, the developer confirmed that Hadar was only in the concept phase, or "the earliest stages of the creative process." This latest update, years later, marks definite progress.

That's a relief, since CD Projekt is so busy with The Witcher 4 – apparently, nearly 500 of its 933 developers are currently tinkering on the upcoming RPG. But no one's forgotten about Hadar… whatever it is.

CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski said during the studio's earnings conference, as shared by the official CD Projekt investor relations Twitter account, that "the team has established the foundations of this entirely new IP." An accompanying presentation slide reiterates that Hadar has its "IP foundations set," and developers are "shifting focus to the game."

Nowakowski explains, "Now, we are designing specific elements that might be included in the game, creating multiple prototypes and implementing them directly in Unreal Engine." It all still sounds too uncertain to really be called a "development period," but it's clear CD Projekt Red is at least heading toward pre-production – which is exactly where fans want them to be.

The Witcher 4 will cost CD Projekt almost $800 million between development and marketing, estimates analyst who also predicts new The Witcher 3 DLC this year.

CD Projekt is rapidly expanding as development of The Witcher 4 continues. Alongside the company's latest financial report, executives have offered details on that development. CD Projekt Red now employs nearly 1,000 people, and more than half of them are working on the upcoming RPG.

"Over the past year more than 220 developers have joined our teams," CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski says in a comment shared to Twitter. "Most of new hires are working on The Witcher 4 where they help to improve quality and scale up solutions presented in the Unreal Fest tech demo across the entire game."

CD Projekt Red now has 933 developers in total, with 499 of them assigned to The Witcher 4. You can see the full breakdown of how the devs split across all of CD Projekt Red's upcoming games, but it's clear that the new fantasy RPG is the studio's biggest focus – just as it has been for the past handful of years. Even in 2024, when the game hadn't even entered full production, the company said over 400 people were already working on it.

As chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz puts it in a video overview of the company's financials, "the production of The Witcher 4 is steaming ahead." He, too, cites last year's big engine demo, which showed off tech that the devs are using to "create worlds with an unprecedented level of detail."

While that demo is the closest thing we've seen to The Witcher 4 gameplay, CD Projekt has been keen to emphasize that it was "a technological demo and not an actual game, or gameplay." Still, it was an impressive first look, and if production truly is now "steaming ahead," hopefully it won't be too much longer before we get a real, concrete glimpse at the long-awaited RPG.

Here are all the new games for 2026 and beyond you need to know about.

No, it's not just you. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those weird yet wonderful RPGs that, unless you've come prepared, seems to fight you at every turn. I'm not talking about the Tyger Claws running rampant on the streets of Japantown; rather, the mechanics themselves are a lot to wrap one's head around as a Night City newbie.

I first stepped into CD Projekt Red's thrilling open-world in 2024. A couple of weeks later, I ended up dropping it entirely for two months. There was nothing wrong with the game itself – I'd picked it up alongside then-new DLC Phantom Liberty, with Patch 2.1 very much intact – but something about it pushed back against my every attempt to fall in love.

Fast forward to 2026, and I called Cyberpunk 2077 the best RPG of all time, no exceptions. I thrive on a challenge, and that is precisely what Night City presented me with. It just so happens that challenging games are what Xbox Game Pass needs more of if Microsoft wants to justify that ever-climbing price tag – which is why I need you to give Cyberpunk, which is now on Game Pass, a shot.

Tinkering

Grind is life in some games, but a good game should not come with a reading list. No one should have to research the best builds for a given playstyle, or watch endless explainers to suss out an RPG system – not immediately, anyway. That's one area where, despite how much I love the overall experience, Cyberpunk 2077 falters.

I've mentioned in the past how Night City throwing you into the deep end resonates with the overwhelming muchness of life in the city. Everything is familiar yet alien in this dystopian future. If that just applied to worldbuilding itself, that would be one thing. But I had no idea how cyberware, crafting, Sandevistans, or the skill trees themselves truly worked or synergized until about halfway through the RPG. Nothing is explained, and very little is inferred. I pondered whether that is because so many returning players will have hopped back in (warily, most likely) following Cyberpunk's super buggy initial 2020 launch, but after reading up on how much of the game's systems have changed in the last 6 years, the lack of even basic signposting still strikes me as strange.

But therein lies the fun. For me, at least, having to prove myself to the game was incredibly satisfying. My two-month break was predominantly occupied by Gamescom 2024 prep, and once I'd cleared my plate of Work Games, I could return to a Fun Personal Challenge. That challenge was partly fueled by a refusal to have wasted £80 on a game I would never play, I'll admit. But it's also just how my brain works. I love to prove others wrong, and that includes myself.

Before long, I was able to lock into the game and stop fighting back. Instead, I used my damn brain for a change – and reminded myself how, since this is a CDPR game, it was bound to come with layers of lore-intensive systems to unpick. I had a similar issue with The Witcher 3's mutagen systems. If I could work out what to do with my many-colored monster samples, surely I could conquer a few bits of tech in Cyberpunk 2077?

Cyberhexed

The grind was worth it. I ended up playing four complete Cyberpunk playthroughs one after the other, utterly spellbound by the story, the place, and the characters I'd come to love so much. That makes it one of the best value for money games I've ever picked up, right alongside Baldur's Gate 3.

Cyberpunk 2077's launch on Game Pass has me excited for others to finally give it a go, too – especially if you're still paying for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate following the recent round of price hikes. With Cyberpunk joined by fellow grind-a-thon Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, dare I say that the subscription service actually sounds like pretty decent value again for meaty RPG fans?

Well, maybe. I'll admit right now that I dropped my own subscription down to the cheapest tier almost immediately, and since I already own Cyberpunk 2077, I have no intention of changing that. But I hope this move means that Microsoft is keen to bring longer, denser, more time-intensive experiences to Game Pass atop the slew of shorter entries, if only to reinforce why that extra $10 a month is necessary.

So fear not, fellow stubborn skeptics. Cyberpunk 2077 is extremely, eye-wateringly, mind-blowingly good, and it deserves your full attention – though don't be afraid to give maybe one or two guides a peek if you want to give yourself a cybernetic leg up in those punishing early hours.

Check out all these other games like Cyberpunk 2077 if you're hankering for some other futuristic tales.

The surging interest around Crimson Desert is as fascinating as it is telling. Due to launch on March 19, Reddit is awash with would-be players caught in Pearl Abyss' chokehold, eagerly awaiting the combo-heavy third-person adventure.

Some are "more hyped for this game than GTA 6", according to one Reddit thread. And honestly? I'm not surprised. With Fable and The Blood of Dawnwalker also among the upcoming RPGs slated for 2026, and a new Witcher game not too far off either, I too dream of worlds unspoiled by the messy, overfamiliar touch of the modern day. 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the medieval RPG – and Crimson Desert is first up to bat.

The great outdoors

Don't get me wrong – I'll be the first to bite off CD Projekt Red's hand when Cyberpunk 2 comes a-calling. But until that day arrives, and with my Game of the Year already booked with Resident Evil Requiem, I'm all in on yesteryear when it comes to RPGs.

Whether pining for the days of Skyrim or your first outing in The Witcher 3, there are many reasons to anticipate Crimson Desert. The Reddit page is currently running full pelt at the game's graphics themselves, for example, marveling at its gargantuan 80km-squared map size that makes it even bigger than Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2. "It looks like what Dragon's Dogma 2 should have been," one commenter remarks. Despite how much I adored the combat in Capcom's 2024 epic, I see what they mean.

Pearl Abyss' attention to specifics makes its hyper realistic world a joy to behold, even in mere videos. Bolstered by our own glowing Crimson Desert preview, it's clear the developer has managed to recapture that yearning for a sense of adventure that many of us have been craving. "Don’t even care if the story is mid," one Redditor says. "Just get me lost in this world."

That right there is the golden kernel, the root of the fascination. Games espousing huge open worlds are ten a-penny in 2026, but more often than not, you'll find a beautiful hollow shell instead of a deep, immersive sim.

Hogwarts Legacy always holds the player at arm's length, for example. There's no relaxing at the dinner table with housemates, as our Editor-In-Chief notes in his Hogwarts Legacy review, with the whole world lacking the responsiveness of something like Skyrim or The Witcher. Meanwhile, Starfield is a gigantic game that nobody can successfully explain to me, because it's a whole lot of empty space.

The reactivity and liveliness of a video game is one of the most prominent player expectations at the moment, and for good reason. A huge map is less necessary – Dying Light: The Beast boasts a modest yet incredibly interactive survival horror playground, for example – but Crimson Desert seems to promise both size and substance in one.

Okay, maybe it's not the golden kernel, the "one great thing" drawing players to Crimson Desert in their droves, but it's certainly a key factor. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Digital Foundry's new gameplay deep dive for the hundredth time and dream about killing beasties.

We've rounded up the best RPGs - how many have you played?

Although Cyberpunk 2077 did get its big Phantom Liberty DLC back in 2023, developer CD Projekt Red allegedly had other expansions planned for the futuristic RPG – expansions that may or may not have topped the spy-thriller adventure.

Or, at least, that's what Cyberpunk 2 creative director Igor Sarzyński thinks – the success of any potential post-Phantom Liberty DLC, like the rumored "Moon" expansion, would just be dependent on various factors.

Sarzyński explains as much in response to a fan on Bluesky, who asks the lead, "Do you think the canceled DLCs could have topped Phantom Liberty?" He draws a comparison to a TV series' different seasons.

will the next season of your favourite series be better or worse than the current one? :) in other words, who knows, it depends on so many things

— @srznsk.bsky.social (@srznsk.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-03-03T16:45:56.402Z

Sarzyński replies, "Will the next season of your favorite series be better or worse than the current one? :) In other words, who knows, it depends on so many things."

That checks out – although it never came to fruition, there's no real way to know how any conceptualized DLC would've performed as it… Well, it didn't at all. It might have been better than Phantom Liberty, which sits on Steam with "Very Positive" reviews, but who knows?

In a follow-up to the creative director, the fan asks something else about the scrapped DLC for Cyberpunk 2077: "I have a final and most important question, hope you can answer for this one. In canceled DLCs, would Songbird be a romance option?"

Interestingly enough, Sarzyński basically says yes – albeit in a roundabout way. "Let's just say we try to never tread the same path twice," he writes, adding a cheeky smiley face at the end.

let's just say we try to never tread the same path twice :)

— @srznsk.bsky.social (@srznsk.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-03-03T16:45:56.539Z

Interesting… interesting, indeed. It does beg the question – just how will Cyberpunk 2 look and compare to 2077? Will its own DLC one-up Phantom Liberty, should there be any?

We sadly don't know too much about the mysterious sequel, aside from the fact that, you know, it actually exists. I'd wager it'll be downright massive myself, though, and any expansions to follow (if they follow, that is) probably will be as well.

Cyberpunk 2 lead says first-person POV "was better" for Cyberpunk 2077, as third-person is "for more defined characters" like The Witcher 3's Geralt and God of War's Kratos

Lucie Hennet, one of the cinematic animators who worked on Sandfall Interactive's record-breaking J'RPG, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, has joined CD Projekt Red's Warsaw studio under the same job title.

Hennet spent two years on-site with Sandfall, first as an intern and then as an independent contractor, working on the game's gorgeous cinematics. Among the turn-based RPG with a distinctly French twist's long, long, long list of awards, you'll find prizes for cinematic categories like Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, and Best Art Direction.

As noted on her LinkedIn page, Hennet joined the team at CD Projekt Red as of this month, specifically working as a cinematic animator at the studio's Warsaw branch. This is the head office of the Cyberpunk and The Witcher creator, and as such has people working on every game in the developer's upcoming and ongoing library.

The post does not specify which project Hennet is working on, and we couldn't find mention of any particular game on other platforms. The Witcher 4 is exclusively developed at CD Projekt Red's Warsaw studio, but Hennet isn't necessarily working on this game. However, the other major named project currently in development, Cyberpunk 2, is mostly worked on at the company's Boston studio.

There is also currently a contracted position open at the Warsaw office for a gameplay animator showing that there's a recruitment drive for the upcoming fourth entry in similar roles. Though recently, CD Projekt Red has been bolstering all of its teams, filling roles on every game.

If Hennet has not been placed on development of The Witcher 4, then it is likely that she is working on the game currently codenamed Project Hadar. This is a completely new IP that's primarily being developed at CD Projekt Red's Polish studios.

CD Projekt Red welcomes new AI director, who joins The Witcher 4 studio "after 8 years of building memorable RPGs at BioWare" like Mass Effect 2 and 3

Doug Cockle, the talented voice actor behind protagonist Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher 3 and its predecessors, has a favorite ending in the third RPG – somewhat, anyway.

Speaking in a new interview with Goated Synro on YouTube, the actor reveals as much, first explaining that even though he didn't know every Witcher 3 ending – there are like 36, after all – he did know what he wanted to see happen in the game's finale.

"I knew the ending that I wanted, and I didn't know all the endings. I didn't know what exactly CD Projekt Red had in store for us, depending on the choices we make," he admits.

"But, I knew that one of the possibilities was that Geralt would end up with Triss and that Ciri would be a Witcher, and everybody lives happily ever after – and that is the one I got." Cockle states he "couldn't remember all the choices" he needed to make to get that ending, but "was working towards it" regardless.

"I didn't know the choices that would lead me there. I just made the choices that I thought would be helpful in getting me towards that ending."

He concludes, in awe of the sheer number of endings in The Witcher 3, but solid on what he wanted to happen: "There's something like 20 different endings possible or something like that? Insane. I knew I didn't want Ciri to become the empress, and I certainly didn't want her to die."

It's certainly interesting to hear what the actor hoped to see, and also what he ended up experiencing. As he later says, he never actually got to replay the RPG, either.

So, the ending he got is the ending for him. While I'm personally a Yennefer truther myself, I'm sure the Triss stans will be thrilled to hear Cockle agrees with them on who Geralt should end up with.

It does all make me curious, though – with Ciri as the brand-new Witcher in The Witcher 4, how will the next part of the saga wrap up? Only time will tell, I suppose, but I can't wait to continue from where The Witcher 3 canonically left off.

Excited to see more upcoming CD Projekt Red games come to fruition? Browse through our roundup for other great new games arriving this year and beyond, too.

Many The Witcher 3 fans consider its Bloody Baron quest to be not only one of the most narratively astounding of the whole fantasy franchise, but also one of the most satisfying quests in general across all RPGs. But Geralt's veteran voice actor Doug Cockle is not one of those fans.

"The Bloody Baron, that quest drove me bonkers at the beginning," Cockle tells YouTuber GoatedSynro, in a new video where he ranks The Witcher 3 locations and romance options. The Bloody Baron's home in the Velen province sits at an unremarkable number five spot out of seven for Cockle, and it likely doesn't help that Velen's Baron made Geralt do so much legwork.

"It was before I had access to, or before I discovered the ability to, fast travel in the world," Cockle continues to say about completing the Bloody Baron questline. "I was just riding my freaking horse up and down that hill, and you have to leave [your horse] Roach at some point, and then you're just running up the hill."

Where's Kate Bush with an assist when you need her? "It was just up and down, up and down, up and down. It drove me crazy," Cockle says. "I hated running up and down that hill."

Really internalizing the challenge of the hill, discarding all metaphor, Cockle reflects and decides that Velen actually does only rank at number five because it was a bad place for Geralt's feet.

"His pedometer was just, like, off the charts," he says. "His legs are sore."

"That is extremely stupid design": The Witcher 1 story lead, frustrated playing the epilogue he largely designed, says "I got only myself to blame for everything that's happening here."

Although we have The Witcher 4 to look forward to, another exciting prospect is the remake of the first The Witcher that's also coming from CD Projekt Red. Details are relatively limited as of now, but a prominent writer on the original game believes a couple of alterations will be necessary, particularly around the Wild Hunt.

In a video providing commentary on The Witcher in real-time, Artur Ganszyniec, the game's lead story designer, speaks about how the current team will likely revisit the mythological group's physical form. "In the first Witcher, the Wild Hunt is more like the Wild Hunt from the legends," he says.

"We didn't know yet they are elves in armor," he continues. "We really thought of them as wraiths, and omens of death, and tools of destiny. This part will probably need to be changed a bit in the remake."

He's playing through the ending of The Witcher, where the Wild Hunt is teased as "an omen of war and tragedy." This description carries over from their mythic roots, wherein a godly entity leads a cavalcade of spectral warriors, all on horseback. Versions iterate across European folklore, and they tend to be a mixture of awe-inspiring and terrifying to think about.

This perception is woven into the lore of The Witcher - see their title on Skellige, the Wraiths of Mörhogg - but then, as Ganszyniec points out, we learn in The Witcher 3 that they're actually powerful elves who're trying to find a way to stop a magical infection known as the White Frost. Back during 2007's The Witcher, those narrative decisions hadn't been made yet.

"Here the King of the Hunt is the personification of death," he says, during a scene where Geralt comes face to face with the Hunt's leader, "and that will take some retrofitting in the remake, I think."

True enough, this version of the King of the Hunt is ghostly blue, with a hulking body and a skeletal face. Some elements were kept for The Witcher 3, but it transpires this look is all part of his armor. CD Projekt will probably aim to create more consistency in redoing the first installment.

Personally, I hope the original look is kept. He looks different because he's the King of the Hunt, what further explanation would you need?

"That is extremely stupid design": The Witcher 1 story lead, frustrated playing the epilogue he largely designed, says "I got only myself to blame for everything that's happening here"

The Witcher's lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec has finished a playthrough of the original CD Projekt Red RPG on YouTube.

Despite The Witcher being one of the biggest gaming series on the planet now, a majority of the attention is placed on the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and what's left over gets left to The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, but rarely do I see anyone talk about the original game. And granted, the original is somewhat rough to go back to, with some dated mechanics and overall jank, which is probably why it's getting a remake in the future. But the game's lead story designer may have given people a great reason to return to it now instead of waiting.

About five months ago, Ganszyniec started his "The Witcher with a designer's commentary" series on YouTube (thanks, PC Gamer), almost working like a commentary track found on DVDs, and this isn't a half-assed video, its 26 videos – each lasting an hour or two – encompassing the entire game from start to finish. In the first episode, he explains it's his first time playing it in "almost 20 years."

Late last week, Ganszyniec finally reached the end of The Witcher and thus the end of his series, calling it "a very satisfying half of the year." The series has shockingly low views considering how popular The Witcher is right now, but those who have watched the entire thing have praised the playthrough, with one commenter saying, "It's been amazing to follow your playthrough and to listen to your insightful commentary." So if you fancied revisiting The Witcher before its remake but don't feel like playing it, this may be the move for you.

CDPR welcomes new AI director, who joins The Witcher 4 studio "after 8 years of building memorable RPGs at BioWare."

I no longer flinch at seeing movie stars in video games. On the contrary: I fangirl scream when I realized that Keanu Reeves is reprising his role as John Wick in the upcoming PS5 game. It doesn't matter whether you're a Cyberpunk 2077 fan who's excited to have Johnny Silverhand back on your console or a John Wick aficionado buying your first PS5: Reeves' digital likeness has become an accidental figurehead, the modern day advocate of game-movie crossovers and their faded but fascinating legacy.

The symbiotic relationship between the two has proved that developers and film studios have finally worked out how to make Hollywood IPs work as video games – and all it took was a generation of trial runs.

Nostalgia reloaded

I've waxed lyrical in the past about the halcyon days when every new blockbuster hit came with a PS2 tie-in video game. These near beat-for-beat recreations of the films themselves were everywhere in the early 2000s, released alongside one another to build out the participatory layers of filmgoer subculture to varying levels of success.

Ubisoft tried its hand at a game-film simultaneous launch for 2023's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – which was intended to release a year earlier alongside Avatar: Way of Water. The publisher ultimately had to delay the companion piece, citing a need for "additional development time," which absolutely tracks. Video games take far longer to make in the 2020s than they did in 2004, and the volatile nature of game development makes it challenging to align co-release schedules.

Which is where Indiana Jones and the Great Circle cracks the whip. Instead of launching alongside 2023 blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny as a movie tie-in, Bethesda and MachineGames' collaborated with license holder Lucasfilm to make a brand new instalment that still fits into the film canon. The Great Circle launched a year later, riding the wave of the franchise's enduring popularity in the wake of a hit new movie, to critical and commercial success.

Similarly, Hitman developer IO Interactive's upcoming 007 First Light has been gaining traction thanks to its cinematic roots. Super spy James Bond is no stranger to the video game world (if you've never played 007 Nightfire I am sincerely sorry for your loss), but seeing a young Bond reimagined for the modern day in all his suave action hero glory brings a unique brand of prestige to the new title. With full backing from film publisher MGM Studios, First Light will deliver an original Bond story with an original take on the character himself, linked to no film in particular, but drawing from the entire film franchise.

To me, that's what the John Wick game looks like. The trailer revealed at February's Playstation State of Play tells us virtually nothing about the game's plot itself, instead treating us to action shots of Wick beating the everloving crap out of enemies – a pencil here, a frying pan there, a few guns for good measure – all underscored by classical music.

By the time we actually get a closer look at the eponymous hero's character model and have all suspicions confirmed – that Keanu Reeves is coming to another game, this time as a beloved action movie hero – I don't even care about the story. All I know is that I somehow feel like it's 2003 again and I get to pick up a new video game after watching the hottest new movie so I can keep the movie theater experience going long after my popcorn runs out.

Saber Interactive has clearly been paying attention. The John Wick series is recognizable enough that a game doesn't need to be beholden to a specific movie release date. Having Reeves reprise his role is another huge benefit, especially for the legions of Cyberpunk 2077 fans who have been pleading for CD Projekt Red to find a way to bring his character back for the sequel. Rights holder Lionsgate is also on board for the untitled video game, and with the developer already adapting an iconic horror franchise in Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, Saber seems to have cottoned on a very clever pattern.

Movie tie-in games died long ago, and from their ashes, a new generation was born. John Wick, James Bond, and Indiana Jones all prove that game adaptations work best as additive rather than derivative entities, elevating and extending the experience past what a non-interactive one might offer. It's the prime evolution of the PS2 tie-in; games that aren't tie-ins any more, but entrants of equal standing in a particular IP. The only thing more satisfying than connecting those dots is watching Keanu Reeves jab pencils into eyesockets in 4k. I'll enjoy the latter even more knowing that each stab is continuing a faded (but never forgotten) tradition.

Relive some of the best PS2 games of all time

As work on The Witcher 4 continues to press on, CD Projekt Red opens the door to new faces with plenty of experience under their belts – like Dorian Kieken, the studio's new AI director and a hardened BioWare veteran boasting credits on gems from the Mass Effect series.

Kieken worked at BioWare for a solid eight years, as per his LinkedIn profile, starting as a producer on titles like Sonic Chronicles before moving on to act as development director and co-founder of the company's Montreal studio.

He then undertook projects like Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 – DLC included. Since leaving the team in 2015, he's gone on to found his own AI startup: AI Redefined, also known by the acronym "AIR."

Now, he's returning to game development, it seems – and he's not just going to any studio. Kieken is working with CD Projekt Red as the company's new AI director, as he reveals in an online post.

"After eight years of building memorable RPGs at BioWare and eight years of building cutting-edge AI solutions at AI Redefined, it is finally time to bring all of that together in my new role at CDPR as AI Director," he writes.

The new AI lead then explains that he'll be "responsible for the company's AI vision and strategy," and is "so excited" to be there. It's pretty cool, honestly, especially as it's not the first instance of CD Projekt Red welcoming knowledgeable devs recently.

Two months ago, former Baldur's Gate 3 developer Felix Pedulla joined CD Projekt Red as the team's newest senior cinematic designer, with other positions opening shortly after. As for Kieken's AI startup, AI Redefined, he posted late last year that it had been "acquired by CM Labs."

Fingers crossed that Kieken settles in nicely, and the next few years are just as bright for The Witcher masterminds as the past decade.

The Witcher 4 will cost CD Projekt almost $800 million between development and marketing, estimates analyst who also predicts new The Witcher 3 DLC this year

Replaced looks like everything you could want from a retro-futuristic side-scrolling beat-'em-up (yes, that's a lot of hyphens), but its developer isn't worried about players coming in with expectations set by Cyberpunk 2077.

"It's a very thin line where you have to convey the narrative right," Sad Cat Studios co-founder Igor Gritsay tells GamesRadar following a hands-on preview of the twice-delayed action platformer. "You can definitely feel that there is a retro-futuristic cyberpunk [feel], but at the same time, there's post-apocalyptic vibes."

Set in a gritty sci-fi reimagining of 1980s USA, Replaced tells the story of an AI that finds itself transplanted into a human body. If that already sounds a little bit Johnny Silverhand to you, I can't fault you for making the jump – but the clincher here is that Replaced envisions a world where humanity has become divided following an apocalypse-level biological event some twenty years prior. Phoenix-City has walled off its outer territories, creating a breeding ground for lawless behavior and gang-like factions sprouting up to seize control.

"You also have this in Cyberpunk 2077 – they have this area outside of Night City related to that," Gritsay says. He's either talking about Nomad stomping ground The Badlands or Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty's militaristic city-state, Dogtown. "But basically, I would say that we think that it's actually not a concern. It's actually something of a trump card," Gritsay says, allowing Sad Cat to play on but also defy players' expectations to avoid offering a "super traditional" cyberpunk story.

After just a few hours with the demo, I have to agree. Sure, Replaced also deals with some heavy, philosophical themes – in Gritsay's own words, it's a game "about what it means to be human" – but the land beyond the wall feels far more optimistic than CD Projekt Red's thoroughly bleak Night City. Humans band together in solidarity, finding sanctuary amid the chaos, and our AI-out-of-water protagonist discovers that perhaps not all people objectively suck.

"It's something that we can use to our advantage," Gritsay says, "where we show that this is not your cookie-cutter [cyberpunk] thing. So yeah, I think we can use it to our benefit."

Replaced launches on Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC platforms on March 12, 2026. Check out the other upcoming Xbox games landing this year while you're jotting things down!

The first-person perspective CD Projekt Red employs in Cyberpunk 2077 works pretty well – and a large reason why, according to Cyberpunk 2 creative director Igor Sarzyński, has to do with the game's overarching narrative design.

It's difficult to grapple with the first-person perspective if you're used to other games like The Witcher 3, in which you view things from a third-person point of view, but Sarzyński thinks it was the best option for Cyberpunk 2077.

"Purely from narrative design POV, I think subjective FPP works well with '77 story, genre, and world," Sarzyński says in a Bluesky post According to the developer, it pairs nicely with the whole… you know, being V thing.

Also there's a digital ghost in your head that only you can see; a thing existing only in your subjective perception - rather than both of you being seen equally by an external, objective TPP cam.

— @srznsk.bsky.social (@srznsk.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T17:31:13.372Z

"You're a mind trapped in a decaying body with only means of leaving it being through technological consciousness processing (cyberspace; soulkiller; projection into external devices; braindaces)," as Sarzyński puts it. "Also, there's a digital ghost in your head that only you can see; a thing existing only in your subjective perception – rather than both of you being seen equally by an external, objective TPP cam."

That doesn't mean a third-person perspective never works. In fact, there are plenty of games and characters that it does mesh well with. Sarzyński notes The Witcher 3, God of War, and The Last of Us as examples.

"Generalizing, imho, TPP is better for more defined characters – Geralt, Kratos, Ellie – where you play-replay someone else's story. FPP lends itself to more avatar-like player characters." V is "somewhere in the middle of this spectrum."

Disclaimeir to anyone wanting to spin this for clicks: this is about a specific narrative setup of Cyberpunk 2077. Not in any way a statement or suggestion or anything regarding Cyberpunk 2. It might be a play-doh stop-motion RTS for all we know.

— @srznsk.bsky.social (@srznsk.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T17:31:13.408Z

He restates, however, that he feels first-person "was better for '77" – and, no, that doesn't mean anything about Cyberpunk 2 or what perspective it might feature. "This is about a specific narrative setup of Cyberpunk 2077," Sarzyński stresses.

"Not in any way a statement or suggestion or anything regarding Cyberpunk 2. It might be a Play-Doh stop-motion RTS for all we know." Now, that would certainly be something to see.

While you wait for more Cyberpunk 2 news, have a browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond.

Don't expect Cyberpunk 2 to suddenly feature elaborate cinematic cutscenes or shift into third-person, as creative director Igor Sarzyński prefers the immersion of first-person cutscenes.

Over on Bluesky, Sarzyński posts some screenshots from the development of the first game's Phantom Liberty expansion, saying "gotta admit setting up cutscenes in this game would be extremely pleasant (coz everything looks mindblowingly amazing) but in the end I value our uninterrupted immersion more."

However, one user isn't entirely a fan, saying the choice to stick to first-person limited gamers who prefer third-person viewpoints, and that they disagree with the idea that experiencing a world from a character's point of view is crucial to immersion. Sarzyński explains that in his view, "when something is for everyone then it's for no one," while assuring that "it's OK to not vibe with our choices!"

Sarzyński also explains that the choice to make the game third person isn't exactly a simple task either, saying, "That simple 'choice' in terms of narrative / scene design and direction would add 75% scope." He adds that it's "not feasible."

Of course, as with almost everything, if you're playing on PC you can get around this. At the moment there's a work-in-progress third person mod for Cyberpunk 2077 that was first published back in January 2021 – less than a month after its original release, when the game was still somewhat of a flaming mess. So with a community on top of things like that, I wouldn't be shocked if the follow-up gets a mod of its own fairly soon after release.

Prolific modder behind Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring VR conversions pulls all his work offline after another DMCA strike

The developers behind The Witcher spinoff game Reigns: The Witcher may shyly tell GamesRadar+ it's only a "fan-fiction simulator," but, crucially, it's fanfiction that IP holder CD Projekt Red approved.

Reigns narrative designer Oscar Harrington-Shaw and design director Francois Alliot explain in their joint interview with GamesRadar+, saying CD Projekt Red devs have "been extremely generous with their time. Every scenario you face in the game has been read by multiple loremasters, writers and producers on their end to ensure that all of the content is in keeping with the tone and lore of the Witcher universe."

Previously, Reigns developer Nerial collaborated with HBO for a Game of Thrones version of the "swipe 'em up" strategy game – which anoints you as a monarch who decides their next move by swiping left or right on scenario cards, turning the fate of your kingdom into an RPG dating app.

But while "Reigns: Game of Thrones is still a light management simulation through the eyes of the ruler, as the original Reigns was," Harrington-Shaw and Alliot say, "In this game you play as Geralt in his role and position as a witcher. It's not so much about the fate of the Continent as it is about being an outcast who needs to strike a balance between the factions he encounters – humans, nonhumans and mages – while also maintaining his reputation as a monster hunter."

Originally, Nerial thought about using "a structure which involved the re-discovery of the [alchemical experiment] Trial of the Grasses, leading to new witchers and perhaps even resurrection." But CD Projekt Red swooped in as Reigns: The Witcher's true overlord. Harrington-Shaw and Alliot say, "Hordes of zombie witchers was considered a step too far…!"

Geralt "dies a lot" in the new Witcher game out next month, a "Witcher fan-fiction simulator" narrated by Dandelion the bard and published by Devolver Digital.

After almost four years, the newest Reigns game is coming, and this time the card-based royalty sim is centering on Geralt of Rivia himself in a crossover with The Witcher. The aptly titled Reigns: The Witcher has you handle quests on behalf of the White Wolf as you navigate the RNG looking for the most desirable outcome possible.

But there's an important distinction to be made, because although the subject of the new Reigns is Geralt, the narrator is actually Dandelion, everyone's favorite bard. Or he’s mine, at least - and I know a few! Anyway, this means there’ll be a musical quality to your readouts, letting you hum along to the increasingly distressing situations you find yourself in.

Yen, Triss, and Vesemir will make appearances, along with many other names and faces from across the Witcher canon. There are minigames to keep Geralt sprightly, because he’s hardly going to let himself be confined to some cards, is he?

For the uninitiated, Reigns involves assembling runs based on luck of the draw. Your deck includes characters and encounters, and each one requires a singular decision that'll impact your stats one way or another. Collapse is inevitable, but you learn something each time that helps the next run.

Developer Nerial has made several installments so far, including ones based on Game of Thrones and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Each has distinct mechanics tailored to the setting, and Reigns: Three Kingdoms even included multiplayer. This time, narrative designer Oscar Harrington-Shaw and design director Francois Alliot say the formula is more combat-forward.

"In the fight scenes, we tried to recreate the feeling of the Witcher dancing with a sword around his enemies within the simple format of our game and the swiping mechanic," the devs tell GamesRadar+. "The fights are inspired by Crypt of the Necrodancer, swiping left and right in rhythm to avoid the enemy’s attack while preparing to strike."

Asked how to describe the game to fans of the main RPGs or books, the pair says, "It’s fundamentally a Witcher fan-fiction simulator. You play as Geralt, trying to survive on the Path, but within the songs of Dandelion. So the scenarios which you face stay true to the confines of the Witcher universe; they’re quests which Geralt plausibly could have gone on, but they’re also storylines which Dandelion has written to entertain an audience, perhaps after one or two drinks.

"Players can expect to see humorous riffs on familiar tales alongside brand new adventures! It will feel both familiar and new to anyone who knows this world."

If it looks and sounds like Geralt dies a lot, that's because he does. "He dies a lot, in very creative manners," the devs say. "Each run is revealed to be Dandelion trying to tell a new story of the Witcher, endlessly making up his adventures and his demises."

Reigns: The Witcher will arrive on February 25, so not long to wait. It's going to be a while for The Witcher 4, but at least we have this to help keep us busy.

"Absolute idiocy" killed The Witcher game that never was, OG dev says, but he's happy CD Projekt Red landed the series in the end: "I love what they've done"