Highlights
- CD Projekt Red has announced major layoffs affecting approximately 9% of its workforce, following the studio's conclusion that it is overstaffed.
- The company plans to offer comprehensive severance packages to affected employees and has communicated the cutbacks well in advance.
- The downsizing is part of CD Projekt Red's efforts to reshape its teams and development practices to produce high-quality games with no delays or crunch time.
Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red has announced major layoffs that will affect a sizable portion of the company's workforce. This bit of news that's likely to dishearten some CDPR staffers arrived mere months after The Witcher developer received widespread praise for offering menstrual leave to employees.
Workforce cutbacks remain a fairly standard practice across the gaming space, not least because the cyclical nature of game development frequently leaves studios with staff redundancies. Take-Two Interactive, Relic Entertainment, Team17, 343 Industries, and BioWare have all been hit with layoffs in 2023, among many other developers and publishers.
CD Projekt Red will soon be joining that list of downsizing video game companies, with CEO Adam Kicinski saying as much in a July 26 "organizational update." The executive explained that the studio concluded it's overstaffed following careful deliberation, having consequently decided to lay off some 100 people, which equates to approximately 9% of its workforce. The cutbacks are not going into immediate effect, with some of them being planned for as late as the first quarter of 2024. Nevertheless, CD Projekt Red decided to communicate them well in advance in order to provide the affected staffers with enough time to find other employment.
In the meantime, the company is planning to offer "comprehensive" severance packages to all of its workers that will soon find themselves out of a job. Kicinski framed the incoming downsizing as part of the studio's wider efforts to reshape its teams and development practices in order to produce high-quality games with no delays or crunch time. CDPR VP of PR and Communication Michal Platkow-Gilewski already hinted at that undertaking in late June, when he said that the Cyberpunk 2077 developer needs to repair its relationship with fans.
While it remains to be seen whether the studio manages to avoid further downsizing following this newly confirmed round of layoffs, the timing of its latest announcement suggests that the incoming cutbacks might also result from the cyclical nature of game development instead of just the company's ongoing team transformations, as meaningful as those might be. More specifically, CD Projekt Red has 6 projects in the works right now, but only one of them, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, is slated to hit the market in the foreseeable future.
Once that expansion releases on September 26, CDPR will be left with five early-stage projects: one original IP, three The Witcher games, and the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. While some of those titles might have already left pre-production, their combined requirements don't offer enough opportunities for the entirety of CDPR's existing workforce. Kicinski said as much in his latest public address, all the while wishing success to the company's soon-to-be-former employees in their future endeavors.
Source: CDPR