‘We tried and it didn’t work out’: CDPR co-founder says it shouldn’t stray from AAA open-world RPGs
The Witcher and Cyberpunk studio should stay “razor sharp focused” on what it knows best, Marcin Iwiński says
The co-founder of CD Projekt Red says the studio has learned over time that it should stick to what it knows best.
In the company’s official AnsweRED podcast, co-founder Marcin Iwiński and joint-CEO Adam Badowski were discussing the biggest challenges which are faced during game production.
Iwiński noted that one of the most important things the studio has realised since its inception is that it should resist the temptation to experiment with other genres or features that the studio isn’t usually associated with, because there’s no guarantee it can deliver those to a similarly high standard.
“I want to add one more important thing which learned over time, and I think Adam will totally agree,” Iwiński said. “In all that we’re doing, we’ve learned that we need to be razor sharp focused.
“We cannot do so many things we would love to do, we are tempted to do. We tried, and it didn’t work out. We have to focus on what we are good at and really put 100% into it.”
Badowski added: “Everything is in our strategy. We’re going to develop AAA RPG open-world narrative-driven games and this is our, let’s say, niche. So the focus is there.”
“And it sounds so simple,” Iwiński explained. “When you’re growing, it’s hard because there are all these temptations. You know, these people are doing this stuff online and it’s so cool, and we love to play it and you think ‘okay, no, let’s take a deep breath and come back to what we’re doing. Because if we spread ourselves too thin, we’ll not deliver.”
“Ideas are great,” Badowski added. “Games are better and better, especially gameplay-wise. But you need to take it and adapt it to our concept. So it takes time. The initial excitement is great, but it doesn’t work in the long term.”
CD Projekt announced last week that the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 is now in the preproduction stage.
“Several weeks ago the CD Projekt Red team responsible for the next big game set in the Cyberpunk universe completed the project’s conceptual phase,” a statement from the company read. “As a result, Cyberpunk 2 – previously known under the codename Project Orion – has progressed to preproduction.”
