Nearly 260 developers are now working on the next mainline Witcher game
“A big part” of Phantom Liberty’s 300-strong team will also transfer to the game post-release
Over 250 developers are working on the next mainline The Witcher game, which is codenamed Polaris, CD Projekt has confirmed.
The company provided an update on the size of its development teams engaged on current projects as part of its quarterly financial results on Wednesday.
The team working on Cyberpunk 2077’s upcoming Phantom Liberty expansion is its largest, although that will soon change, according to CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński.
“At the end of July, the Phantom Liberty team working on the pre-release phase consisted of 300 people,” he said during an earnings call. “That’s fewer than at the end of 2022, but it still it remains our biggest team. On the other hand, the Polaris team has grown to almost 260 developers at the end of July.”
“After releasing Phantom Liberty, we will transfer a big part of the team to Polaris,” he added later.
Phantom Liberty is set for release on September 26, and it promises to entirely overhaul the way Cyberpunk 2077 is played, according to CD Projekt.
The company first announced in March 2022 that it was working on a Witcher game which would kick off “a new saga” for the franchise.
It also revealed at the time that the open-world title was being built with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, rather than its proprietary Red Engine, which powered previous Witcher games and Cyberpunk 2077.
Further reading
CD Projekt has explained why Phantom Liberty will be Cyberpunk 2077’s only expansion
The game entered pre-production last May, and in October CD Projekt confirmed that it would be the start of a new Witcher trilogy. It also said it was planning to release all three games within a six-year period after the first.
Elsewhere during its earnings call, CD Projekt explained why Cyberpunk 2077 won’t be getting another expansion after Phantom Liberty.
