As CD Projekt Red continues its work on behemoth RPGs like Cyberpunk 2 and The Witcher 4, studio co-founder Marcin Iwiński and joint CEO Adam Badowski say the company's focus will stay on its "niche" – the very genres housing gems like The Witcher 3.
Celebrating the third Witcher entry's 10th birthday in a recent podcast, Iwiński explains that CD Projekt Red has learned over time that its focus should remain on the games that made it great – AAA, open-world RPGs.
"In all that we're doing, we've learned that we have to be razor-sharp, focused," states the studio lead. "We cannot do so many things we would love to do, we are tempted to do. We tried, and it didn't work out."
He concludes that CD Projekt Red has "to focus on what we are good at and really put 100% into it." Badowski agrees, describing how this philosophy is why the studio previously shifted to more of a multi-project approach, with separate teams working on different games.
"That's why we switched from a single project company to a multiple project company," the head says. "But everything is in our strategy."
As Badowski puts it, these projects all fall into CD Projekt Red's "niche" – from The Witcher series to Cyberpunk 2077 – and developers are going to stick with said niche. "We're gonna develop AAA RPG, open-world narrative-driven games, and this is our – let's say – niche," the CEO concludes. "So the focus is there."
Marcin chimes in that, while "it sounds so simple" to stay in that niche, it's not all that easy to actually do.
"When you're growing," Marcin admits, "it's hard, because there are all these temptations and these people are doing this stuff online, and it's so cool, and we love to play it, and – you think, 'Okay, no let's take a deep breath and come back to what we're doing,' because if we spread ourselves too thin, we'll not deliver." If there's one thing I'd be willing to bet on as a longtime fan of CD Projekt Red's games, however, it's that they'll definitely deliver.
But if staying within the open-world RPG niche is how the studio does so, then all the power to its developers – after all, there are plenty of projects to look forward to thanks to their approach. From Cyberpunk 2 to The Witcher 4 and the mysterious codenamed Project Sirius, there are various upcoming CD Projekt Red games to anticipate – and I'll personally be waiting patiently for them all.
Need even more to look forward to? Here are other new games coming this year and beyond.
