CD Projekt Red's troubled Witcher spinoff is back on track

The new Witcher game that was internally rebooted earlier this year has found a "framework" for its new direction.

In a statement earlier today, publisher CD Projekt Red announced "the conclusion of work on defining a new framework for Project Sirius." Billed as a Witcher game for fans of the Netflix show to enjoy, Project Sirius is being developed outside CDPR, at the Boston-based The Molasses Flood.

Back in March, CDPR announced that, having evaluated the "scope and commercial potential" of the game's original concept, it was working "on formulating a new framework for this project." That added up to an internal reboot of Project Sirius, confirmed a week later when CFO Piotr Nielubowicz told investors that "we don't want to carry on with projects that we are not aligned with."

As part of its statement, CDPR said that it would be writing off some of the cost of the project - amounting to 2.7 million Polish Zloty (around $650,000). More money - 21.5 million Zloty ($5.15 million) - will be re-allocated to other costs. The entire cost of the project in 2022 amounted to 33.4 million Zloty ($8 million).

While Project Sirius has had a difficult year, the full list of upcoming CDPR games is a big one. As well as this co-op project, there's Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, Project Orion. Then there's The Witcher 4, part of a new Witcher saga, the Witcher remake, and the mysterious Project Hadar, a new IP.

That's a lot of games, but the most important thing is that Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is "at the final production phase" and that CDPR is finally, even accidentally, saying The Witcher 4.