CD Projekt has financially written off and seemingly rebooted improvement on its Witcher spinoff game
On: March 24, 2023
First reported by TechPowerUp, CD Projekt revealed in a March 20 announcement to traders that it’s writing off bills associated to the event of Challenge Sirius, one in all its three Witcher video games at the moment within the oven, and seemingly rebooting the mission. “The aforementioned resolution relies on outcomes of analysis of the scope and business potential of the unique idea of Challenge Sirius,” the investor report reads, “and ongoing work on formulating a brand new framework for this mission.”
CD Projekt introduced three new Witcher video games in October, a little bit of a Witcher bonanza earlier than the discharge of its performance-intensive, however nonetheless fairly good Subsequent Gen patch for the Witcher 3. Two of these tasks aren’t affected by this announcement: Polaris, the upcoming “Witcher 4” mainline sequence follow-up being made by CD Projekt Pink, and Canis Majoris, the remake of 2007’s unique The Witcher in improvement at Idiot’s Principle, a studio using some CDPR and Witcher sequence veterans.
Sirius is being developed by The Molasses Flood, a Boston-based studio acquired by CD Projekt in April 2022. When Sirius was publicly introduced in October, The Molasses Flood described it as “providing multiplayer gameplay on prime of a single-player expertise together with a marketing campaign with quests and a narrative.” This struck us as a giant departure from the presumably bread-and-butter, capital-E Epic RPG fare promised by Polaris and Canis Majoris, however we have been fairly excited on the prospect of a multiplayer Witcher game setting itself other than the remainder of the sequence.
In CD Projekt’s write-off announcement, it described spending the equal of $7.75 million on Sirius’ improvement in 2022, with an extra $2.2 million in the beginning of this yr. A good chunk of change to make sure, and “formulating a brand new framework for this mission” definitely makes it sound like CD Projekt and The Molasses Flood are going again to sq. one with improvement. There isn’t any point out of the mission being shifted to a different studio.
If we take The Molasses Flood’s April 2022 acquisition as a tough begin date for the start of Sirius’ improvement and contemplate the ever-lengthening lead occasions for game dev, that is fairly early within the course of for a full reboot of labor on the game—a Molasses Flood job itemizing from again in October described it as being in “pre-production,” whereas the studio was in search of a Narrative director as late as December.
The Molasses Flood is searching for a seasoned NARRATIVE DIRECTOR! Right here is your likelihood to work on the earth of The Witcher! Come construct and guide a staff of designers and writers as they create a compelling world for our new title. https://t.co/A2ywd3jPHKDecember 20, 2022
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These positions have both been stuffed already, or the studio has instituted a hiring freeze with the shift in improvement—there are at the moment no open positions listed on The Molasses Flood’s profession web page. This example is definitely not ideally suited for the builders engaged on Sirius, however is maybe preferable to a late cancellation/reboot like Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2 getting taken from Hardsuit Labs and placed on ice virtually on the eve of its launch.
It is not like we have been anticipating to get Sirius any time quickly: we solely had the barest of particulars on this Witcher spinoff, whereas its cohorts are additionally an extended methods away. CD Projekt has said that we will count on Canis Majoris/The Witcher 1 remake solely after Polaris/The Witcher 4, which has no launch date and even many publicly accessible particulars. Our subsequent journey from CD Projekt is the Idris Elba and Keanu Reeves Cyberpunk Celeb Energy Hour, Phantom Liberty, which is ready to launch a while this yr.
