"Project Sirius" Witcher Spin-Off Back on Track, CD Projekt Confirms Staff Layoffs at American and Polish Studios

[T0@st]

CD Projekt declared in an investor regulatory announcement (issued on May 11) that its troubled "Project Sirius" multiplayer game was back on track with a renewed development focus. Their briefing is titled: "New framework for Project Sirius, decision concerning partial reversal of the impairment allowance for 2022, and write-off of part of the development expenditures incurred in Q1 2023." As reported back in March, the Polish gaming group made the difficult choice to reboot its multiplayer focused Witcher title and write-off a significant chunk of the development budget. Last week's update seems to indicate that their North American studio, The Molasses Flood, is still involved in the making of Project Sirius and that a smaller chunk of project expenditure has been written off in the mean time.

The company's investor announcement coincided with emerging rumors of employee layoffs - gaming news outlets started to pick up on social media declarations last Friday (May 12). Yesterday CD Projekt confirmed that the refocused and restarted development process has resulted in a round of headcount cuts on both sides of the Atlantic. In a statement issued to PC Gamer, a company spokesperson says: "Because the project changed, so has the composition of the team that's working on it - mainly on The Molasses Flood's side. The concrete number of employees we parted ways with is 21 team members in the US and 8 in Poland (working on the project outside of the US)."



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[Vayra86]

Not so Sirius after all then...

 

[ixi]

Another disaster incoming. Stop killing game papa's...

 

[Readlight]

Witcher 1 system requirements are wrong, in 16 years they haw not fixed running speed, rain, camera, dors, text

 

[Deleted member 177333]

Ya I don't trust anything CDPR says anymore. And after watching their moderation teams censor people on the messageboards repeatedly when things weren't going so hot for them, I'm never paying for any game they release, and I say that as Witcher superfan that used to buy copies of the games for people at random on Steam during sales.
For the sake of the franchise, I hope things turn out okay and are true to the world but time will tell.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Ya I don't trust anything CDPR says anymore. And after watching their moderation teams censor people on the messageboards repeatedly when things weren't going so hot for them, I'm never paying for any game they release, and I say that as Witcher superfan that used to buy copies of the games for people at random on Steam during sales.
For the sake of the franchise, I hope things turn out okay and are true to the world but time will tell.

It's a shame they've gone down this route, GoG used to be my go to for games, and I'd willingly pay full price for them DRM free.

Now? I'll wait for a sale, just like I did on Steam. Or buy from the dev directly if they allow it.