With all the excitement surrounding the flurry of announcements coming out of CD Projekt RED today, it’s easy to see how this one might’ve slipped under the radar. Alongside the news of a number of new games in The Witcher franchise and the announcement of a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel comes news of a further brand new IP from CDPR.
The biggest reveals of the day have arguably been that of the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel that’s in the works as well as those of five new games in The Witcher series, three of which will form a brand new mainline trilogy of the beloved open-world fantasy RPG titles. However, in amongst these announcements came the unveiling of a completely new game known as “Project Hadar.” Tagged on after the majority of today’s main announcements were made, CD Projekt RED also somewhat casually revealed that they’ve been secretly putting down the background work on an entirely new IP since the end of last year.
While there’s precious little information been shared so far about Project Hadar, it seems that the main reason for that is the fact that it’s still really early days for the new game. CD Projekt RED has been keen to stress this, taking to Twitter to clarify that Project Hadar is “in the earliest stages of the creative process.” It seems as though the game’s potential developers, which have been so far described as “a small strike team” are still doing the initial conceptual work on the new IP, which CD Projekt RED has also been eager to emphasise is completely separate from either The Witcher or Cyberpunk 2077 franchises.
It’s also been revealed that Project Hadar will be developed “100% internally” at CD Projekt RED, which means the studio will be taking on a lot more responsibility in addition to the new games it’s also just announced. The company has also revealed today that it’ll be opening up a brand new studio in Boston, USA. So, with this further expansion, it seems that they’re confident that they’ll have the resources and people power to make these ambitious-sounding titles into a reality over the next six years or more.
It’s clear that we probably won’t hear much more about Project Hadar for quite some time yet. However, it’s interesting to see where CD Projekt RED is planning to shift its focus outside of its two most well-known series. Having today announced at least six new games in the works today in addition to the reveal of Project Hadar, it’s also clear that they’ve given themselves a lot to do over the coming years. Until we know more about what Project Hadar will actually materialise into, we’ll just have to wait for more details as they become available.