CD Projekt Red will lay off remaining 30 members of Gwent team
Staff will be dismissed between now and the end of the year as development winds down on The Witcher's spin-off
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CD Projekt Red is laying off 30 people as it prepares to end development of Witcher spin-off Gwent.
The studio announced in a blog post dated May 24, 2023 that it is proceeding with plans for Project GWENTfinitiy, an initiative that will enable fans to continue playing the card-battling game with the active support of the development team.
As preparations for this transition have continued, the number of staff required has diminished with some of the team members moved to other projects.
Only 30 people are now working on the game. By the end of 2023, these people will "part ways with CD Projekt Red."
"It’s never easy to say goodbye," the company wrote. "And even though decisions like this are unavoidable and a natural result of the transition, we’d like to express our sincere thanks for all the contributions these team members have made to Gwent — just like the community, you helped make the game what it is today."
The news follows layoffs at The Molasses Flood, another CD Projekt studio. 29 people were dismissed from that studio due to changes in the project it was working on, a game codenamed Sirius.
The layoffs came less than two years after CD Projekt acquired the studio.
CD Projekt Red also reset Project Sirius and financially wrote off the development costs – over $7 million – earlier this year.
On Monday, the company released its latest financial results, showing that while net sales were down 20% to €37.2 million, profits remained flat at €14.8 million.