Former Witcher, Gwent Designer Damien Monnier Joins Techland as Lead Designer of a New IP

Tyler Fischer December 12, 2016 2:49 PM EST

Earlier this year, senior gameplay designer of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and lead designer of Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, Damien Monnier, announced, via Twitter, that he had left CD Projekt Red.

The announcement came at a strange time, as Gwent was (and still is in development), and not only was Monnier the face of the project, but is credited as co-creating the card game in the first place.

Information about why Monnier left was, and still is, scarce. All we currently know is that both parties agreed to part ways.

While we may never know why Monnier left, we now at least know where he has landed: Techland, (the developer best known for developing Dying Light) as lead designer on a new IP.

What new IP you ask? The one Techland announced back in May. The new IP is said to be an open-world fantasy game with RPG elements, that has both single player and co-op multiplayer. Whatever it is, it sounds right up Monnier’s wheelhouse: after all, he worked on The Witcher series from 2012 – 2016 (before this he worked as a level and game designer at the now closed down Evolution Studios).

Techland accompanied the announcement with the following statement:

“As a whole, we’re extremely excited to welcome all the recent additions to the Techland family. We’ve got really big ambitions for our next internally developed games so people with ingenious ideas as well as the skill and knowledge to bring them to life are absolutely essential.”

Techland’s open-world fantasy team is located in Warsaw, Poland, the same city where CD Projekt Red is stationed.

In other news, Techland also announced back in June that it was branching out into publishing as well with a goal to release 2 major multiplatform titles, and 4 in digital distribution each year. One of these games it’s publishing, is inXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera.