CD Projekt, Huge W
CD Projekt, Huge W
E95: CD Projekt Red shared their epic long-term product outlook this week.
Good morning gamers! Last week CD Projekt Red shared some exciting news about five projects that are currently in development at their studios. Over the years to come CD Projekt Red will release games set in The Witcher universe, a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 and a new IP.
Project Sirius is currently in pre-production and it will be an innovative story from The Witcher universe. Project Sirius will be familiar to those who played the previous games and welcoming to new audiences. The game is in development from The Molasses Flood with support from CD Projekt Red.
Project Polaris is a story-driven open-world RPG that will be built based on the events of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The game is currently in the pre-production phase and it will mark the beginning of the new Witcher trilogy. The trilogy is expected to be released within a 6-year period.
Project Canis Majoris is a story-driven, single player open-world RPG set within The Witcher universe. The game is in development by a third party studio led by several ex-Witcher veterans.
Project Orion will be the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 that will take advantage of the Cyberpunk universe. It is being developed by the CD Projekt Red team. Phantom Liberty is a new Cyberpunk 2077 story-driven expansion and is currently in the final production phase.
Project Hadar will be a brand-new IP from CD Projekt Red that is separate from The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077. The IP has been developed 100% internally since 2021 and it is currently in the conceptual phase.
PlayStation is Busy
PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst was the major topic of discussion last week after interviews with Axios and Reuters were published. He made it very clear that PlayStation is aggressively expanding beyond consoles, but determined to stick to their single-player narrative adventure roots (which he confirmed to be their most profitable games). Here’s some of the most interesting tidbits from each interview.
Sony has more than 10 live-service games currently in development which are being made by newly acquired teams, partner studios and internal teams - they won’t all be original IPs.
Sony has plans to build up their internal capability to make mobile games, but will continue to heavily focus on PC games and continue to publish on PS4 on a case-by-case basis.
Sony’s minority stake in FromSoftware should primarily result in game collaborations, but they will explore tv/movie opportunities with PlayStation Productions.
PlayStation Stars is now live in North America. The four tier loyalty program has been a little controversial in that the highest tier offers subscribers priority customer support services and a hidden “invite only” fifth tier was found within the website files. PlayStation also hasn’t been clear about reward redemption ratios, so gamers figured out that PlayStation Plus subscribers earn 10 stars for every $1 they spend on games plus 50 stars for completing a campaign objective. Even though these are just tier 1 ratios, it means that purchasing a premium $69.99 game will require 17,500 stars.
Esports Corner
Danish professional CS:GO player Peter “Dupreeh” Rasmussen has become the first CS:GO player in history to earn $2 million in tournament earnings. Dupreeh has been a professional player for more than a decade competing on juggernaut teams such as Team Vitality, Dignitas, TSM and Astralis. He has won 53 events throughout his career (so far), and earned the majority of his earnings playing for Astralis.
DreamHack Atlanta is officially hosting 19 esport events, including a brand new $100k Fortnite tournament. The event takes place between November 18th to 20th, and will also host major competitions for Super Smash Bros., Rocket League, League of Legends and StarCraft 2.
Despite many professional esport leagues concluding by September, it was still a heavy hitting month for major tournaments. According to Esports Charts, these were the most viewed events (some of which are still ongoing).
Valorant Champions 2022 became Valorant’s most viewed event ever peaking at 1.5 million viewers during the grand finals game between LOUD and OpTic Gaming.
MPL Season 10 Indonesia (Mobile Legends) peaked at nearly 1.4 million viewers in a match between two of the league's most popular teams.
2022 League of Legends World Championships peaked at 1.12 million viewers during the event's opening match between Fnatic and Evil Geniuses.
Gaming Roundup
God of War Ragnarök’s main story will reportedly take 20 hours to complete with the addition of 20 hours of side quests (including another 1 hour of cinematics).
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare 2 is reportedly in development by Sledgehammer Games and it will be released in 2025.
Bethesda creative director Dinga Bakaba has confirmed that Deathloop from Arkane Studios is set within the Dishonored universe.
New Tales from the Borderlands by Gearbox Entertainment has gone gold ahead of its October 21st release.
Hideo Kojima has revealed that actor Elle Fanning will star in his next game. Kojima is teasing a second actor with a dark image that says “Where am I?”.
Need for Speed Unbound is EA’s newest instalment in the Need for Speed series and has been in development at Criterion Games since 2020.
Dead Space from Electronic Arts’ Motive Studio released a new trailer for their remake launching on January 27th, 2023.
Guerrilla Games is reportedly working on the remastered version of Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) and a Horizon online multiplayer game for PS5 and PC.
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