CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has spoken candidly about the lasting fallout from Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous 2020 launch, admitting the studio still hasn't fully recovered its reputation and is hoping The Witcher IV can help close that gap.
"I'm not 100 per cent convinced we went through the full redemption arc," Nowakowski said in a recent conversation with Edge magazine. "I'm convinced that we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that's a fair thing."
That's a remarkably honest statement from a studio executive, and it lands harder when you remember what was at stake.
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What the Cyberpunk 2077 launch actually cost CDPR
Cyberpunk 2077 arrived in December 2020 carrying years of hype and the goodwill CDPR had built with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt back in 2015. That goodwill evaporated fast. Players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were hit hardest, running into game-breaking bugs, visual glitches so frequent they became memes, and crashes that made the game nearly unplayable on base last-gen hardware. The backlash was immediate and severe, with Sony pulling the game from the PlayStation Store entirely within days of launch.
Early pre-order sales had technically covered development and marketing costs before the game even shipped. But the company's stock took a significant hit, and the reputational damage ran deeper than any financial quarter could capture.
Here's the thing: Cyberpunk 2077 eventually became a genuinely great game. The 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty expansion transformed it into something worth recommending without caveats, and the title has now sold at least 35 million copies. Nowakowski acknowledges all of that. He just doesn't think it's enough to call the story finished.
The Witcher 4 as a trust-rebuilding exercise
"I do hope we will be able to make it back," Nowakowski said, "if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next."
That framing matters. He's not promising The Witcher 4 will be a flawless launch or a guaranteed slam dunk. He's expressing hope, which is a more measured and arguably more credible position than studio executives usually take when hyping upcoming releases.
The Witcher 4 still has no confirmed release date, with the earliest realistic window sitting somewhere in 2027 or beyond. The game stars Ciri as the new protagonist, marking a significant shift from Geralt of Rivia's decades-long run as the face of the franchise. For players who felt burned by Cyberpunk 2077, that fresh start could be exactly what CDPR needs.
CDPR's broader plan and what comes after
Nowakowski also pulled back the curtain on how CDPR thinks about its future pipeline. The studio isn't chasing volume. "Our dream is to be making more games, although we never want to turn into the studio that's going to be launching a big game every year," he said, adding that the goal is quality over output and that CDPR runs a rough 10-year rolling plan.
That pipeline is already taking shape. A surprise expansion for The Witcher 3 called Songs of the Past is expected in 2027. Cyberpunk 2 entered pre-production last year. A remake of the original Witcher is also in development. The studio is clearly building toward something larger, even if the individual pieces are still years away.
What this means for gamers is that CDPR is playing a long game, literally and strategically. The Cyberpunk 2077 launch hardened the team, in Nowakowski's own words, leaving behind "seasoned, battle-hardened veterans; leaders who were able to carry a different kind of challenge on their shoulders."
Whether that experience translates into a cleaner, more polished launch for The Witcher 4 is the question the entire industry will be watching. For everything we know about the game so far, the Witcher IV guide collection is the best place to track developments as they come.
