The next Cyberpunk and Witcher games might include multiplayer elements, at least according to a new job listing at CD Projekt Red. Despite having one of the most infamous launches in recent memory, Cyberpunk 2077 has been slowly winning fans over with updates over the past few years. Meanwhile, CDPR’s The Witcher franchise remains one of the most highly regarded RPG franchises of all time thanks to the blockbuster success of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Last year, CDPR announced several follow-up games for both these franchises, some of which were stated to have multiplayer elements in contrast to the developer’s primarily single-player releases of the past.
The original Cyberpunk 2077 was going to have multiplayer, but this was later dropped due to the game’s troubled development cycle and the wave of necessary update patches brought on by Cyberpunk 2077’s notorious bugs and glitches. Last year’s slate of new Cyberpunk and Witcher games present a new opportunity to fulfill the first game’s lost multiplayer potential, though, with CDPR having reiterated its goal of providing memorable single and multiplayer experiences while announcing these projects.
A job listing for a Senior Quest designer at CD Projekt Red was posted on LinkedIn a few days ago, one that explicitly asks for experience with narratives in multiplayer games. This offer is tagged as “Cyberpunk 2077” on CDPR’s main career page, strongly implying that the successful candidate will work on either said game or the previously announced Cyberpunk 2077 sequel. They could also be working on a future Witcher game, as the offer also suggests that applicants be familiar with the Witcher universe in addition to Cyberpunk.
This last part is rather interesting, as while CDPR did announce a Witcher spin-off with multiplayer elements (codenamed Project Sirius) last year, the offered position is in Poland rather than in-house studio The Molasses Flood’s home of Boston. This implies that CDPR’s Project Polaris (which is being developed at the main studio in Poland) could have some sort of multiplayer component as well despite previous beliefs that it would be single-player only like past mainline Witcher titles.
Of course, any discussion about potential multiplayer for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher sequels is simply speculation at this point. Still, the fact that CD Projekt Red’s latest job offer explicitly asks for experience with multiplayer narratives could be a promising sign that the studio’s many projects might have an online component to go with their assumed single-player campaigns.