The Witcher 3 was released back in 2015, but CD Projekt RED’s open world masterpiece doesn’t seem to showing any signs of slowing down, even four years later.
CD Projekt recently took stock of how it’s been doing in 2019 so far, and it looks like the main earner for the company this year has, incredibly, been The Witcher 3. Geralt’s last adventure has managed to outperform preorders for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, which is incredibly impressive.
CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz said:
Our financial result for the first half of the year was again mainly affected by sales of The Witcher 3, which remain strong. This further confirms our belief that investing in top-quality games pays off, and that such games may continue to sell well for many years. In the first half of 2019 gamers actually purchased more copies of The Witcher 3 than during the first half of the previous year!
This uptick in interest around The Witcher 3 could well be to do with all the chatter about the upcoming Netflix series, and the big push forward the company has made with Cyberpunk 2077 reveals so far this year. But while that’s all well and good, CD Projekt teased something an awful lot more intriguing while discussing its business model going forward.
Here’s CD Projekt had to say regarding maintaining growth and expansion for the company:
Managing two separate major franchises (The Witcher and Cyberpunk), along with several independent development teams, enables the Company to conduct parallel work on several projects and smoothens its long-term release schedule. This migration towards a dual-franchise model supported by several independent product lines also permits optimization of manufacturing and financial activities, mitigates important risk factors and makes it easier for Company employees to seek professional fulfillment.
There’s a fair bit of business jargon going on in that quote, but it basically sounds an awful lot like CD Projekt will be adopting a model that alternates between The Witcher and Cyberpunk, not unlike the way in which Bethesda handles Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.
The above quote seems to confirm two things, then. Firstly, that we can expect more Cyberpunk titles somewhere down the line. Perhaps more excitingly though, it sounds like CD Projekt isn’t done with The Witcher as a franchise.
We know that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is coming to Switch in October, but a port here and a Gwent spinoff there surely isn’t enough to justify “dual franchise” status? It’s important to note that this isn’t a direct confirmation of The Witcher 4, but it is the most official word we’ve had on the return of the franchise yet.
Whether or not any potential future games in The Witcher series would focus on Geralt, a supporting character such as Ciri, or an entirely new character remains to be seen, but I’m incredibly excited to see what the future holds for CD Projekt and Geralt.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.