CD Projekt Red May Have Wasted $10 Million On The Upcoming Witcher Game
CD Projekt has its hands full. The games company is hard at work developing mainline entries in its popular series, such as sequels to "Cyberpunk 2077" and "The Witcher" – but that's not all. CD Projekt is also creating a handful of spinoff titles.
One of the most talked about spinoffs is a title codenamed Project Sirius, an upcoming game set in "The Witcher" universe. But according to CD Projekt, despite the game being in pre-production, it has already cost the company millions of dollars. This is because, recently, CD Projekt took a step back and reevaluated Project Sirius.
After the company looked over the results of its investigation, it decided to pursue a major restructuring of the game to better align with the company's development and marketing strategy. This essentially sent the company back to square one on Project Sirius development, losing the company close to 10 million dollars and likely delaying the game's release.
The game is getting completely restructured
A recent CD Projekt investors report announced an impairment allowance for the "expenses incurred in the scope of development work related to Project Sirius," and the damages are no small number. It was reported that the money spent towards Project Sirius in 2022 amounts to 33.4 million PLN (7.6 million USD). And the value of expenses incurred in January and February 2023 amounted to 9.5 million PLN (2.1 million USD). This puts the total expenses on Project Sirius close to 10 million dollars. CD Projekt noted that this is expected to burden 2023's first-quarter financial results.
CD Projekt stated that this money is essentially down the drain, as the company is scrapping much of the project and will "work on formulating a new framework" for the future. The company noted that this decision was made "based on results of evaluation of the scope and commercial potential of the original concept." What the restructuring will entail is unclear at this time.
Although little is known outside of the report, CD-Projekt has stated that the game will differ from the mainline "Witcher" series by "offering multiplayer gameplay on top of a single-player experience including a campaign with quests and a story." Suppose project Sirius is indeed a live-service multiplayer title, as many have theorized. In that case, it's easy to see why so much money was invested in the project and why restructuring it would result in the company taking such a significant financial hit.