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CD Projekt Red’s Co-CEO Admits the Studio Still Has Ground to Make Up — and The Witcher 4 Is the Plan

Quinn Hall Updated:

CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has publicly acknowledged that the studio hasn’t yet recovered its reputation following the epically bad launch of Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020, and that The Witcher 4 represents the clearest path to winning back players who lost faith. Speaking to Edge Magazine, Nowakowski was candid about where the studio stands but suggests the new game could be the start of the studio’s redemption arc.

Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December 2020 amid enormous anticipation – and collapsed almost immediately under a melee of crashes, bugs and performance issues so crippling that Sony had no choice but to temporarily pull the game from the PlayStation Store. The trailblazing sci-fi adventure game we’d all come to expect turned into a dystopian disaster.

The damage to CD Projekt Red’s reputation has been lasting. The studio spent years rebuilding the game through the major 2.0 overhaul, patches, and the well-received “Phantom Liberty” expansion, efforts that started to deliver somewhat on the promises set out before December 2020, and which helped restore some player goodwill and contributed to the game selling at least 35 million copies to date.

Despite this, Nowakowski believes there is still some work to do before fans reconnect fully.

“I’m not 100% convinced we went through the full redemption arc,” Nowakowski told the media. He described the original launch as “heartbreaking” for the company, saying plainly: “I’m convinced we lost the faith of some people indefinitely, and that’s a fair thing.” Despite that somber acknowledgment, he expressed hope for what comes next. “But I do hope we will be able to make it back – if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next.”

The comments mean The Witcher 4 is seen, at least internally, as more than just the next game on the schedule. It will be a test of where the studio’s reputation lies right now. CD Projekt Red built enormous goodwill with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in 2015, a title widely regarded as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Cyberpunk 2077 undid all the good work. A strong Witcher 4 launch could redeem the studio but a weak one riddled with more bugs could set the studio back further.

Reaction to Nowakowski’s comments has been mixed, although – unsurprisingly, perhaps – the dominant sentiment is one of scepticism. After all, we have to remember that a buggy launch wasn’t the full extent of the Cyberpunk 2077 problem, with CD Projekt Red restricting launch reviewers from using their own captured footage, a practice that was arguably more troubling than the technical failures alone.

Naturally, there’ll still be plenty of eagerness to play The Witcher 4 but some may be prepared to wait a few weeks after it’s released before buying, treating caution as the new default regardless of the studio’s track record.

The “wait and see” position feels like the correct take here. Nowakowski’s honesty about the studio’s situation is refreshing, and the impulse to manage expectations rather than overclaim is a better look than false confidence. What actually matters, of course, is the launch.

The Witcher 4 is currently in development for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. No release date has been announced. Whether it delivers the clean, complete launch CD Projekt Red needs — rather than another round of promises followed by years of patches — will determine far more than any interview can.

And if it delivers? We could expect to see a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. Only this time around, fewer crashes and bugs, please.

About the author

Written by Quinn Hall , Video Game Writer

Quinn has been writing about games for New Game Network since 2022, covering AAA launches, live-service multiplayer, and the indie scene. He's logged thousands of hours across the genres he covers, currently sitting at 47 Mythic raid clears in World of Warcraft, a full completion run of every mainline Zelda title, and a Call of Duty K/D he'll defend in the comments. His reviews lean on hands-on time rather than press kits. If Quinn rates a 100-hour RPG, he's finished it. If he's writing about a competitive shooter, he's ranked in it. That player-first lens shapes how he weighs story, systems, and the communities that form around a game, the part he thinks most coverage underrates. Outside NGN, Quinn restores vintage pinball machines (currently mid-rebuild on a 1979 Gottlieb Buck Rogers) and collects retro hardware, which occasionally shows up in his retrospectives on older titles. He's based in Portland, Oregon, and can be reached at [email protected].

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