The coronavirus threat has put a damper on the gaming world especially since a lot of major gaming events around the world have been canceled.
To be fair, it’s not just gamers who are affected but it still sucks.
But a piece of good news still emerged when Polish studio CD Projekt Red announced that they are set to start work on the latest iteration of the acclaimed The Witcher series later in 2020.
CDPR President Adam Kiciński himself made the announcement and told journalists in Poland that a “relatively clear concept” has been set for the next installment in the Witcher game.point 310 |
He added that production would begin “immediately” once the studio’s work on the game Cyberpunk 2077 is concluded.point 115 | 1
The studio’s last Witcher chapter as 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, a global hit that sold over 20 million copies and earned several games of the year-type awards. The game was released on Switch in 2019 and sold even more copies. In December 2019, Steam player numbers climbed following the release of Netflix’s own adaptation of The Witcher.
The game’s success also helped drive interest in the books that inspired the game series in the first place. The books were written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. Netflix adapted the stories in the books into an eight-part series that starred Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia. Season two is set to come out in 2021 while an animated spin-off called Nightmare of the Wolf will be coming out later this year.
It only makes sense for CD Projekt Red to take advantage of the buzz that Netflix has generated for The Witcher series. This is despite the studio having wrapped up the story of Geralt of Rivia at the end of Blood and Wine, Wild Hunt’s DLC expansion. What is definite though is that the studio won’t be working on The Witcher until Cyberpunk 2077 has been published.
Cyberpunk 2077 has had a long development process. It was first announced in May 2012 and will be released on September 17 this year following several delays. With the amount of hype the game has generated, a lot of expectations need to be met. Gamers can only cross their fingers and hope it delivers.
With the majority of the studio’s resources devoted to Cyberpunk 2077, work on the next Witcher game is expected to start slowly. But development is expected to ramp up after September following the release of Cyberpunk 2077 (assuming there are no more delays).
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