CD Projekt acknowledges that it has lost the public's trust

The executive took the opportunity to discuss the technological transition of the developer, which ditched its own graphics engine, the Red Engine, to adopt Unreal Engine 5 for the development of the anticipated The Witcher 4. According to him, the training and adaptation process for new employees with the old tool used to take six to nine months, something the boss himself called "crazy." The current partnership with Epic changed this dynamic: "Epic [allowed us] to peek into the black box of the Unreal Engine — I believe we are the only company now really doing this, outside of Epic itself — and tweak [it], so that [we] are genuinely co-building one of the major technologies in the market. The idea was to tell more stories without worrying about the engine's foundation. Epic gave us that backbone, and we can still build around it to differentiate ourselves."

This move to a third-party engine is a wise decision to avoid the technical bottlenecks that plagued the previous release, though it highlights how even major studios are becoming reliant on a single corporation's tools. The sci-fi RPG debuted at the end of 2020 to strong criticism due to its terrible technical condition on last-gen consoles, but the team managed to fix the most severe issues over the years, leading to the title surpassing 35 million copies sold worldwide.

During a presentation at the Knowledge's Edge in Person event, one of the CEOs of the Polish giant CD Projekt, Michał Nowakowski, openly admitted that the company ruined its relationship with some of its community due to the chaotic launch of Cyberpunk 2077. The director described the game's launch period as "painful" for the company's internal structure and reflected that, even with the product's market recovery, the brand still has a lot to prove.

"I'm not 100% sure we've completed the whole redemption arc," confessed Nowakowski on stage. He displayed a rare clarity for the role when assessing the impact of the mistake on the brand's reputation: "I'm convinced we've lost some people's trust indefinitely, and that's fair. But I hope we can regain it — if not with The Witcher 4, then with whatever comes next."

The management sees a silver lining to this entire forced restructuring process. According to the company's leader, the continuous effort to rectify the game's chronic issues has transformed the internal environment, leaving the studio more robust and prepared for future challenges in the industry: "We were left with seasoned veterans, battle-hardened. Leaders who managed to carry a different type of challenge on their shoulders." It's a relatable perspective from management's side, but it overlooks the physical and mental strain that the core developers surely faced to clear up the mess left by the rushed planning of the executives themselves. The hope now is that this supposed tough skin prevents further missteps in the studio's future releases.