In March 2023, CDPR's then-CEO Adam Kicinski spoke out loud during a quiet portion of an earnings call, calling the studio's Polaris project (a new installment of the Witcher trilogy) "The Witcher 4." Naturally, the studio immediately went into damage control mode and denied that the first Polaris game was The Witcher 4, but here is what Kicinski said at the time: "Starting with the release of Polaris, The Witcher 4, we hope to have three major I want to release three big Witcher games within six years, starting with Polaris, which is The Witcher 4."

CDPR first announced Polaris in October 2022 and has mentioned it several times since (though the only information about the game comes from fan speculation about teaser images.) 2024 will start the same way, and according to Reuters production will begin in earnest this year.

"We hope to have about 400 people working on [Polaris] by the middle of this year," said co-CEO Adam Budowsky. That's a lot of developers, but we already know from recent quarterly results that CDPR had about 300 people working on the project last year.

Badowski and Michal Nowakowski will become co-CEOs in early 2024, and the former also revealed that a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, codenamed Orion, is still in the conceptual stages. Budowski said that CDPR is considering a multiplayer element for its next cyberpunk, but did not give details.

CD Projekt's employment is currently concentrated in its North American studio (where Orion is being developed), leading Badowski to the thorny issue of AI in game development. Badowski said, "We believe that AI can help improve certain processes in game production, but it cannot replace people."

Last year, the redemption arc of "Cyberpunk 2077" was completed with the excellent expansion "Phantom Liberty" (which was also a mini-overhaul of the entire game). Regarding the game's reputation, Budowsky believes that CD Projekt's change in process gave the studio confidence that "in the future we can avoid premieres like the one we faced with Cyberpunk 2077."

I think that situation is rather self-inflicted, since Cyberpunk 2077 suffered from a vastly drawn-out advertising cycle and we are already hearing small talk about Polaris, even though Polaris is definitely years away. I want Witcher 4, we all do, and CDPR knows it. But the next time we speak publicly about this game, even if it means not mentioning it for years, any new information would be welcome.