In October 2022, CD Projekt Red looked beyond the long shadow of Cyberpunk 2077's troubled 2020 launch to announce a constellation of new projects — a Cyberpunk sequel, three Witcher titles, and an entirely original IP. The studio's measured, codename-only approach to these revelations suggested an awareness that ambition, left unchecked by humility, had wounded them before. It was the announcement of a studio not celebrating arrival, but quietly recommitting to the craft of getting there.
CD Projekt Red Unveils Cyberpunk Sequel and Three New Witcher Games
The world felt less densely populated than promised
Mark
Why announce these games at all if CD Projekt Red isn't ready to say when they're coming out?
Mimi
It's a signal to investors and the industry that the studio is moving forward, not stuck in damage control. After Cyberpunk, silence would have looked worse.
Luke
But the announcements are so thin—just codenames and one-sentence descriptions. We don't actually know what any of these games will be.
Mimi
That's probably intentional. The studio learned that detailed promises made years in advance become anchors that sink you when reality doesn't match.
Mark
So Polaris is a new Witcher story with no connection to Geralt?
Mimi
Right. It's a way to keep the franchise alive without being bound to the books or the previous games' continuity.
Luke
Has the studio said who will be the protagonist, or what the setting is?
Mimi
Not yet. That's how early it is.
Mark
And Hadar is something completely new—not based on any existing property?
Mimi
Correct. It's the riskiest bet, but also the one with the most creative freedom.
Luke
Given what happened with Cyberpunk, should we expect these projects to actually ship on any reasonable timeline?
Mimi
That's the question everyone's asking. The studio has lost the benefit of the doubt.
Le Pouls
- The 2020 launch of Cyberpunk 2077 left a deep wound — a decade of promises met with an unstable, underdelivered world that became a cautionary tale for the entire industry.
- Rather than retreating, CD Projekt Red went wide: a Cyberpunk sequel codenamed Orion, three Witcher games at various stages, and a brand-new IP called Hadar all entered the conversation at once.
- The studio's deliberate vagueness — codenames, no release windows, minimal detail — signals a conscious effort to break the cycle of overpromise that defined the Cyberpunk era.
- The Witcher expansion is particularly ambitious: Polaris charts a new saga beyond Geralt, Canis Majoris brings in external developers with franchise roots, and Sirius ventures into untested multiplayer territory.
- The sheer breadth of these announcements reads less like a victory lap and more like a studio publicly staking its recovery on the discipline it previously lacked.
In October 2022, CD Projekt Red looked beyond the long shadow of Cyberpunk 2077's troubled 2020 launch to announce a constellation of new projects — a Cyberpunk sequel, three Witcher titles, and an entirely original IP. The studio's measured, codename-only approach to these revelations suggested an awareness that ambition, left unchecked by humility, had wounded them before. It was the announcement of a studio not celebrating arrival, but quietly recommitting to the craft of getting there.
In October 2022, CD Projekt Red announced a sweeping slate of future projects — a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 and three new Witcher titles — framed not with fanfare, but with codenames and careful restraint. The studio was, in effect, signaling that it had learned something from one of gaming's most public failures.
Cyberpunk 2077 had carried nearly a decade of anticipation into its 2020 release, only to arrive in a state that fell well short of what had been promised. The world felt thin, performance was erratic, and the launch became a defining wound for the studio. The years that followed were spent patching the game and managing a damaged reputation.
The Cyberpunk sequel, codenamed Orion, will return to the same dark future universe, though CD Projekt Red offered no timeline — a deliberate choice that seemed to reflect hard-won caution about announcing before the work is ready.
The Witcher plans were more elaborate. Polaris will begin a new narrative saga, stepping away from Geralt and the continuity of the previous trilogy. Canis Majoris will be developed externally by a team with deep franchise experience. Sirius will explore a blend of single-player and multiplayer elements new to the series. And beyond both franchises, an entirely original IP codenamed Hadar sits in its earliest creative stages.
Taken together, these announcements painted a picture of a studio attempting to rebuild trust through breadth and discipline — betting that a more honest relationship between promise and delivery might be the thing that restores what the Cyberpunk launch had cost them.
CD Projekt Red announced plans for a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 and three new Witcher games in October 2022, signaling the studio's determination to move forward despite the troubled launch of its most ambitious project two years earlier. The company revealed these projects through social media posts with minimal detail—mostly codenames and broad descriptions of what each game would attempt.
Cyberpunk 2077 had been announced a decade before its actual release in late 2020, but the intervening years brought repeated delays and fundamental rethinks of the game's scope. When it finally shipped, the result disappointed. The world felt less densely populated and reactive than the studio had promised, and performance on even high-end consoles and PCs was unstable. The launch became a defining moment of failure for the studio, one that shadowed everything that followed.
The sequel, currently carrying the internal codename Orion, will return to the same dark future setting. CD Projekt Red offered no timeline for its arrival, leaving the project in a state of deliberate vagueness. The studio appeared to be learning from the mistakes of the previous cycle—announcing nothing until the work was substantially further along.
The Witcher expansion was more elaborate. Three games are in development. The first, codenamed Polaris, will launch a new narrative saga separate from the storylines that followed Geralt of Rivia, the protagonist of the studio's previous trilogy and a character drawn from Andrzej Sapkowski's novels. Polaris represents a clean break from established continuity. The second Witcher project, Canis Majoris, will be developed by an outside studio staffed with developers who had worked on earlier Witcher titles. The third, Sirius, will attempt to blend single-player and multiplayer elements in ways the franchise had not previously explored.
Beyond these established franchises, CD Projekt Red is also developing a game codenamed Hadar—an entirely new intellectual property unrelated to Witcher or Cyberpunk. The studio described this project as being in its earliest creative phases, suggesting it remains years away from any concrete form.
The breadth of these announcements reflected a studio attempting to rebuild credibility and demonstrate forward momentum. The Cyberpunk 2077 launch had exposed gaps between what the studio promised and what it could deliver, and the years since had been spent patching the game and managing public perception. These new projects represented a chance to reset expectations and prove the studio could execute at scale again. Whether the more cautious approach to announcements—codenames, vague timelines, minimal detail—would prevent another cycle of overpromise remained to be seen.
Citations marquantes
Polaris is the beginning of a new saga unrelated to the previous storylines— CD Projekt Red
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