Amidst the shock whirlwind of CD Projekt’s main bulletins as we speak got here a smaller however nonetheless very important piece of inner information. Marcin Iwiński, who co-founded the studio in 1994 and at the moment serves as its co-CEO, is stepping down.
“For me, this can be a big second. I have been at CD Projekt for nearly 30 years and I’ve seen it go from a handful of passion-driven rebels to an internationally acknowledged developer of story-driven position taking part in video games beloved by thousands and thousands globally,” Iwiński wrote in his farewell message. “Again when Michał Kiciński and I based the corporate, I do not assume both of us would have been capable of think about this unbelievable journey, not even in our wildest goals.
“After I take into consideration the way forward for CD Projekt, it’s so thrilling for me. At present, the corporate consists of over 1,200 individuals throughout places of work everywhere in the world. However CD Projekt has by no means been about bodily place or scale—it is all concerning the big quantity of expertise we have now, and the onerous work and dedication of everybody who chooses to work right here.”
Whereas Iwiński is stepping down from his chief government position, he is not leaving the corporate. As an alternative, he’ll turn out to be chairman of CD Projekt’s supervisory board (opens in new tab), which oversees the actions of CD Projekt Capital Group—separate from the board of administrators (opens in new tab)—and can after all additionally stay a significant shareholder within the firm.
“In my new non-executive position I’ll stay lively and engaged dedicating my give attention to supporting your entire administration board,” he stated. “I may also stay related to the core of what makes us particular, which is making the perfect storytelling video games on the earth and doing proper by avid gamers.”
A message from Marcin Iwiński ― co-founder and Joint CEO of CD PROJEKT. pic.twitter.com/NTp7F9RcFwOctober 4, 2022
That final level, “doing proper by avid gamers,” feels notably salient given CD Projekt’s latest historical past. The massively anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 was such a large number at launch that it utterly derailed the studio’s plans for updates and new content material (opens in new tab), and badly broken CD Projekt’s repute amongst followers. But it surely’s continued to work on the sport over the previous two years, bringing it to at the least some extent of respectable performance, and participant counts (opens in new tab) and gross sales (opens in new tab) have each bounced again accordingly. Cyberpunk 2077 continues to be no Witcher 3, but it surely’s now not a wholesale humiliation, both.
CD Projekt additionally introduced as we speak that it’s opening a brand new studio in Boston that, together with its present operation in Vancouver (opens in new tab), might be often known as CD Projekt Crimson North America. The brand new operation might be unbiased from The Molasses Flood, the Boston-based developer of The Flame within the Flood that CD Projekt acquired in 2021 (opens in new tab), and can allow CD Projekt “to totally faucet into the North American expertise pool.”
Continued development goes to be essential to CD Projekt’s long-term plans. The studio additionally introduced as we speak that it has plans for a brand new Witcher trilogy (opens in new tab) to be launched over a span of six years (which appears ridiculously optimistic), two extra Witcher spin-off video games (opens in new tab), a full-scale Cyberpunk 2077 sequel (opens in new tab), and a wholly authentic new mission (opens in new tab) of some kind—all of that on high of the present work being achieved on Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher next-gen improve, and no matter it’s that The Molasses Flood is doing. That is a hell of a slate for any studio, a lot much less one which’s traditionally struggled to complete one recreation at a time.
