The studio behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk video game series is parting ways with a chunk of its staff. CD Projekt Red is laying off around 100 workers, which it estimates is roughly 9% of the entire team.
As announced in a letter shared on CD Projekt’s site from CEO Adam Kiciński, the layoffs will run up through Q1 2024. Its announced the layoffs now in the “spirit of transparency” and to give team members a chance to process. Additionally, CD Projekt assures that those affected have been offered a “comprehensive” severance package.
The reasoning behind these layoffs is CD Projekt Red’s new direction, it seems. Kiciński writes that CDPR has reshaped its development process and incorporated Agile methodologies, and is now turning its eye towards staff.
“We’ve carefully assessed all teams in the company in terms of their expected contribution to the delivery of our strategy,” said Kiciński. “There’s no easy way to say this, but today we are overstaffed. We have talented people on board who are finishing their tasks and—based on current and expected project needs—we already know we don’t have other opportunities for them in the next year.”
The future of CD Projekt Red
CD Projekt has quite a few projects in development, as the letter notes. There are new Cyberpunk and Witcher games in the works. Plus, CD Projekt is also working on a new franchise, under the codename Hadar. All that, plus the impending release of Cyberpunk 2077‘s first and only big DLC expansion, Phantom Liberty, in September.
With all these games in the works, it’s a little strange to see a cut like this. Especially since CD Projekt also made fairly recent cuts on other projects, like Gwent and Molasses Flood’s Witcher spin-off. Hopefully, those affected can land on their feet.
