CD Projekt Red announce another batch of layoffs affecting around 100 employees

CD Projekt Red have announced another batch of layoffs, this time affecting “around 100” employees, or roughly 9% of the company’s total headcount. The redundancies won’t take place immediately, according to CDPR, as some employees won’t lose their jobs until early next year at the latest.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but today we are overstaffed,” said CEO Adam Kiciński in an ‘organisational update’ posted to the company’s website. “We have talented people on board who are finishing their tasks and — based on current and expected project needs — we already know we don’t have other opportunities for them in the next year,” he continued.

“To meet our own high expectations and ambitions to create the best role-playing games, we not only want to have the best people but also the right teams,” says Kiciński. “What we mean by that is having teams that are built around our projects’ needs; teams that are more agile and more effective… After reshaping our development process and incorporating Agile methodologies, we’re now focusing on refining the shape of our teams.” Those projects in question include another Witcher trilogy, a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, and an all-new IP codenamed Project Hadar. That’s in addition to the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion called Phantom Liberty.

Back in May, the company previously laid off around 29 employees working at The Molasses Flood. CD Projekt Red bought the studio in 2021 after their work on The Flame In The Flood and they’re now developing a Witcher spin-off codenamed Project Sirius. Later that same month, another 30 employees who were on the Gwent team lost their jobs after CDPR scaled down support for the card game.

Kiciński’s rhetoric around efficiency echoes other studios’ recent downscaling announcements, which has been a common occurrence this year. Workers at Firaxis, Microsoft, Twitch, Riot Games, Relic, EA and more have all suffered layoffs this year alone.