The director behind the recently-announced new The Witcher game has promised that there won’t be any employee crunch at CD Projekt Red when it comes to its latest project. Allegations of developers forcing their employees to work later hours and rush to get a game finished by a set deadline have grown more commonplace over the past few years, with studios like BioWare and Rockstar coming under fire for reports of crunch while developing games. In addition to fostering a potentially toxic workplace environment, employee crunch can prove to be counterproductive, as exemplified by reports of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga’s many delays allegedly being partially caused by pressure from higher-ups leading to staff working upwards of 80 to 100 hours a week.

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CD Projekt Red, the developer of critically-acclaimed The Witcher 3, has not been immune from employee crunch either, at least according to allegations surrounding the development of Cyberpunk 2077. Among the many issues surrounding Cyberpunk 2077’s long development cycle were reports of pressure from high-ranking executives at CDPR to get the game released by the end of 2020 to secure their end-of-the-year bonuses, leading to staffers being crunched despite previous promises not to engage in this highly controversial practice. The news of this ignited a firestorm of backlash against the studio, made even worse once Cyberpunk 2077 released with game-breaking bugs and glitches that lent credence to the popular belief that the game still needed more time to develop.

CD Projekt Red may have learned from the controversy surrounding Cyberpunk 2077, as the game developer behind the newly-announced Witcher project has promised that there won’t be any employee crunch during development. As reported by Game Rant, Twitter user octolingtime pointed out CDPR’s alleged history of “horrible crunch” after Gwent Game Director Jason Slama announced his involvement with the next AAA Witcher game. Slama responded to the tweet by promising that such practices will never happen “on my watch” – giving fans hope that CDPR will ensure a healthier work environment while developing its next, highly anticipated project.

The surprise announcement of a new Witcher game sent shockwaves throughout the internet yesterday, March 21, so much so that the official Witcher website crashed mere moments after the news went live. Fans have wasted little time in drawing their own theories surrounding the new title’s story and playable protagonist, fueled by CD Projekt Red later reveling that this latest Witcher game won’t be a direct sequel to 2015’s The Witcher 3. Further developments have indicated that CDPR will create the next Witcher title using Unreal Engine 5 instead of the in-house REDengine used for previous Witcher installments and Cyberpunk 2077, and that it won’t be an Epic Games Store exclusive on PCs despite CDPR’s partnership with Epic.

It’s going to take a long time for this new Witcher title to be developed, and most fans are willing to wait if it means that CD Projekt Red isn’t crunching its employees to meet deadlines. CDPR has broken its promise not to engage in employee crunch in the past, but hopefully, the backlash from Cyberpunk 2077 and its controversial development cycle will lead the company to treat its workforce better while creating the next The Witcher game.

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Source: Jason Slama/Twitter, octolingtime/Twitter (via Game Rant)

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J. Brodie Shirey
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J. Brodie Shirey is just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe, but aren’t we all? He currently lives in York, Pennsylvania. He is a big comic book, video game, and science fiction fan, and likes writing articles for ScreenRant or scripts for some of his crazy TV show ideas.

A graduate from York County School of Technology, he’s self-published several books on Amazon, and once won 1st place at a regional computer fair for a CGI animated short. He might post it on Youtube someday. He hopes that working for this site will be his first step into the larger universe of online writing, since Megazord technology hasn’t been invented yet and he doesn’t seem to have any Force powers. You can check out his work at The Uncanny Fox, purchase his books on Amazon.com, see his posted scripts on Script Revolution, or see his portfolio here or here. He can also be followed on Twitter @FoxUncanny.

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