CD Projekt Red is a well-known video game development studio. The company has produced incredibly popular works, including The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077. Now, Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t have a strong start right out of the gate. Instead, there was a bit of a stumble as the development team spent years getting the bugs and optimization just right for consumers. Of course, now the game is painted in a much better light, and fans have an expansion to play through. Phantom Liberty is available, giving some players another reason to return to Night City. However, the question on some players’ minds might be if expansions will continue to be a staple from CD Projekt Red.
The team behind CD Projekt Red is also known for bringing out massive expansion packs for their games. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had some big notable releases, and the same was likely planned for Cyberpunk 2077. But since Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t have a strong launch, most of those ideas were likely scrapped to ensure time was spent getting the game up to players’ expectations. Fortunately, for fans of Cyberpunk 2077, there was one single expansion released, and that’s all that is planned for the game. Phantom Liberty brought in several hours of new content for players to go through and even a new base game ending.
However, IGN recently had the chance to speak with Pawel Mielniczuk. For those unaware, Pawel is a developer at CD Projekt Red who helped not only bring out Phantom Liberty but also other expansions from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. During their conversation, IGN asked about whether we would see the same huge investments and time spent on expansions in the future with the company. Of course, it’s hard to judge quite now about what the future holds in terms of post-launch support.
According to Pawel, the time and effort spent on Phantom Liberty wasn’t as lengthy as some might have expected. It wasn’t a project that took three years. Likewise, Phantom Liberty was noted as not the typical approach to producing expansions, such as providing players with another base game ending.
It’s worth noting that the production of Phantom Liberty didn’t last for three full years, certainly not at full capacity. Throughout 2021, the vast majority of the team worked on the Cyberpunk 2077 Next-Gen Update and provided support for the base version of the game. After that update was released, production on Phantom Liberty hit full momentum and was carried out in parallel with work on Update 2.0. The expansion itself is really big, providing many hours of gameplay and offering two completely exclusive paths — and an additional ending for the base game. I think this is not a typical approach to producing expansions.
Personally, I love working on expansions for our games — I had the pleasure of working on Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Phantom Liberty of course. These smaller and shorter productions are created with greater confidence and freedom because they expand on an existing game that players already know.
Pawel Mielniczuk – IGN
Right now, the development team is working more towards full-scale productions for their games. This includes new experiences and sequels to games that players know and love. So, only time will tell if we’ll see the same level of expansion efforts for future games from CD Projekt Red.
