The Witcher and Cyberpunk developer CD Projekt Red is staffing up for its unannounced ‘Project Hadar’, as that team is currently over 30 people strong with plans “to hire more, up to 50 developers by the end of this year,” CD Projekt Red vice president of investor relations Karolina Gnas said on the company latest earnings call on Wednesday. The Project Hadar news was first reported by GamesRadar.
“Right now, the team is mostly focused on testing different approaches, ideas, and, you know, prototyping some gameplay element, and this is it,” Gnas added. “Hadar is still in the concept phase.” CDPR also confirmed that the remake of The Witcher 1 is on hold in favor of putting more resources into The Witcher 4, which the studio is targeting for a 2028 release, as well as the just-announced decade-later Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past.
But what is Project Hadar? It’s tough to guess at this point, as The Witcher is a third-person fantasy RPG, while Cyberpunk is a first-person RPG shooter. Hadar being an RPG of some caliber is the only reasonably safe bet at this point.
Regardless, CDPR is nothing if not busy, with The Witcher 3 Remastered due out this month (and thankfully, existing owners get upgraded free and, yes, your old save files will work), plus The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past, The Witcher 4, a Cyberpunk sequel, the aforementioned Witcher 1 remake, and Project Hadar all in development.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.