The Witcher 4 Devs Not Chasing Trends And Committed To "Cutting Edge" Single-Player Games

Summary

CD Projekt RED remains committed to making single-player games over live service ones to maintain its successful formula.
Sony has also canceled live-service projects in favor of AAA single-player games, highlighting the industry trend towards single-player.
The Witcher 4 is expected in 2027, continuing the studio’s history of potential delays, while staying true to the single-player experience.

While more and more studios are looking to capitalize on multiplayer games with live service elements for a bigger slice of the video game money pie, The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED isn’t interested in that at all.

Even if the company is developing multiple games, don’t expect any of them to be live-service games since the studio wants to stick to its roots.

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CD Projekt RED Committed To “Cutting-Edge Single-Player Games”

The studio known for making sprawling, single-player games is not looking to deviate from the winning formula that has made The Witcher franchise a household name.

In the company’s latest earnings report (via Bounding Into Comics), CDPR Co-CEO Michal Nowakowski acknowledges that “the video game market continues to evolve,” with new trends such as live-service games. Still, CDPR plans to continue with “cutting-edge single-player” games it’s best known for.

Nowakowski adds, “Our experience, along with brands such as The Witcher and Cyberpunk, which it is our pleasure to further develop, help us build a strong position on the market and paint a positive outlook – while collaboration with global tech and innovation leaders enables us to keep abreast of technical developments in the industry and continue to deliver top-quality entertainment.”

I feel this is the studio’s right decision. Instead of chasing trends, they are bucking down on what made them successful. We’ve all seen what happens when a live-service game goes terribly wrong, and more often than not, when it crashes, it takes the studio along with it due to the sunk cost.

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It’s not just CD Projekt RED that seems to be focusing more on single-player games than on chasing trends. Sony has recently canceled two live-service projects and is still focusing on AAA single-player games like Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and Ghost of Yotei.

It’s also worth noting that with so many studios and publishers gunning for the next big live-service hit, there’s only so much people that can play these types of games, and once they find a good one, they tend to stick with it for quite some time. Case in point: PlayStation and Xbox gamers in the US spent 40% of their gaming time last month in just 10 live-service games. Unless you have something unique to offer, gamers won’t drop the games they’re playing with friends to test a new one out.

As for The Witcher 4, it’s expected to be released in 2027 at the earliest, and based on the studio’s past titles, don’t be surprised to see it delayed multiple times.