The Witcher 4 Hits Nearly 500 Developers as CD Projekt Red Ramps Up Production

An Army of Developers

CD Projekt Red just put some very big numbers behind The Witcher 4. During the studio's FY2025 earnings presentation on March 20, the company revealed that 499 developers are now actively working on the next entry in the beloved RPG franchise. That is not a typo — nearly five hundred people are building this game. The studio added over 220 new hires in the past year alone, bringing CD Projekt Red's total headcount close to 1,000 employees. Development, the studio said, is "steaming ahead."

For context, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was developed by a team of roughly 250 people at its peak. Nearly doubling that headcount for the sequel tells us two things: CD Projekt Red is thinking bigger than ever, and the studio has the financial resources to match that ambition. After Cyberpunk 2077's rocky launch taught the company hard lessons about scope management and development timelines, the decision to staff up aggressively suggests confidence that the production pipeline can handle this scale.

What We Know So Far

CD Projekt Red has been characteristically tight-lipped about The Witcher 4's specific details, but the breadcrumbs we have paint an exciting picture. The game is being built on Unreal Engine 5, marking a departure from the studio's proprietary REDengine technology. The shift to UE5 gives the team access to industry-leading tools for open-world rendering, asset streaming, and lighting — all areas where The Witcher 3 set visual benchmarks that games are still measured against today.

The game will reportedly feature a new protagonist rather than continuing Geralt of Rivia's story, though the character has not been officially revealed. What has been confirmed is that the game will be a full open-world RPG in the tradition of The Witcher 3 — massive in scope, narratively ambitious, and designed to deliver the kind of choices-and-consequences storytelling that made the franchise legendary.

Why the Hiring Spree Matters

The 220-plus new hires represent a deliberate strategy. After Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red restructured its development processes and committed to avoiding the crunch culture and overextended timelines that plagued that project's development. More developers means more bandwidth to build content without grinding existing staff into the ground — a healthier and more sustainable approach to making a massive RPG.

The staffing numbers also suggest The Witcher 4 is well past the early conceptual stages and deep into full production. You do not hire 220 people in a year for a game that is still in pre-production. Artists, level designers, quest writers, and engineers at this volume means content is being built, iterated on, and polished at scale.

For the millions of fans who consider The Witcher 3 one of the greatest RPGs ever made, the scale of investment CD Projekt Red is pouring into its successor should be encouraging. The studio clearly believes The Witcher 4 needs to be its biggest and best game yet — and it is building the team to make that happen.

Sources: GamesRadar (March 20, 2026), GamingBolt (March 20, 2026), Gamereactor (March 20, 2026)