Cyberpunk 2077 in “Very Intensive” Development; Causes Large Spike in CD Projekt’s Dev Costs

Giuseppe Nelva September 7, 2017 12:35 PM EST

CD Projekt RED is very hard at work on its upcoming RPG Cyberpunk 2077, so much so that development costs have significantly increased.

CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077 is largely a mystery. It’s so mysterious that it has become a bit of a running joke at pretty much every presentation in which the developer is involved, with executives and developers mentioning as soon as they can that they won’t say a single word about it, and the audience laughing (often a bit nervously).

Yet, the Polish developer is working on it. During a financial presentation for investors held yesterday, President and Joint CEO Adam Kiciński mentioned (begrudgingly, since again, it was his intention not to talk about the game at all), that the team is working “very intensively” on the game, with a large number of developer involved. He also added that “There will be a moment in time” when the studio “will be able to unveil what they have achieved.”

We learn that there are over currently 300 developers working on the game, whereas over a hundred are working on The Witcher franchise (Gwent and updating The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s 4K support for PS4 Pro and Xbox One X). Cyberpunk is the bigger project in terms of team size and capital expenditure the developer is incurring for development.

Speaking of development expenses, earlier in the presentation we heard that they have ramped up by 56% year-on-year due to Cyberpunk 2077 and Gwent, as you can see in the table below.

That being said,CD Projekt ended the first half of 2017 with a significant net profit, as you can see in the table below (all numbers are in tens of thousands Polish Zloty), translating to $33,512,4,076.

Last, but not least, we hear that recruitment for new developers efforts are ongoing, and it’s “more or less on target,” but the previously announced target headcount of 800 employees is not set in stone.

Back in March, CD Projekt RED mentioned that it’ll be “quite some time” before Cyberpunk 2077 is ready. In the meanwhile, the studio is preparing to celebrate The Witcher franchise’s 10th anniversary.