Recently, the co-CEO of CD Projekt Red, Michał Nowakowski, was interviewed by Edge magazine for their Knowledge Newsletter. During that interviewed, the joint CEO of the renown game developer touched on the reputation of the company in the last couple of years. While CDPR is remembered fondly by gamers due to their work on The Witcher series, an action-RPG series that is considered among the best the genre has to offer, Nowakowski expressed worry about the companies reputation. He says that the Polish studio has lost a great deal of trust from its community, and he has yet to be convinced that their reputation has been fully repaired in the present day. Nowakowski traces back this blow to the company’s rapport back to late 2020, back when Cyberpunk 2077 was originally released.
This might be a bit surprising to newer fans of CDPR and their work with the Cyberpunk IP — the game’s many updates, its Phantom Liberty DLC expansion, and the Studio Trigger anime adaption CDPR was involved with have all been well loved and successful. However, the original launch of 2077 was described by Nowakowski as “heartbreaking”: the state the game was released in was rife with technical issues, resulting in community backlash and ridicule. While CDPR has had a commercial rebound in the past six years since the initial failure of Cyberpunk 2077, Nowakowski expressed that the period of recovery was personally difficult for him as it significantly affected the company — it cannot be understanded how important the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 was for CDPR’s history. The negative impact that launch had on CDPR is considered great enough by Nowakowski that he not only believes that the company has fully recovered reputationally from it after all this time, but that rebuilding trust with some previous fans might even be impossible.
Thankfully, the interview does not linger on the negative view of the past, but thoughts of a hopeful future for CDPR. Nowakowski, believing that CDPR is still on a “redemption arc” to restore the trust the gaming community had in them, has spoken positively about the company’s future release, The Witcher 4. Nowakowski has stated his belief that the upcoming RPG can restore confidence among players who remain skeptical about the company’s future. Additionally, Nowakowski has stated that CDPR plans to release more games more frequently — while they do not plan to release games on an annual basis, they plan to increase their release cadence while continuing to prioritize game quality. Aside from The Witcher 4, CDPR is currently working on more Witcher games, a Cyberpunk sequel, and even a new IP codenamed Project Hadar.