CD Projekt RED Kraków Studio Expansion Q&A

To better prepare for Cyberpunk 2077 and likely other as-of-yet unannounced titles staffing-wise, CD Projekt RED plans to significantly expand their studio in Kraków (along with some expansion in Warsaw, too), and that means they have a lot of hiring to do over the coming weeks and months. To learn more about these hiring plans and what it means for the future of the company, GamePressure chatted with studio head John Mamais:

Q: Do you guys slow down sometimes?

A: Well, we haven’t slowed down much in the last 5 years, perhaps except for a few long weekends, some raucous team parties, and a few personal holidays ;). It’s been The Witcher 2 straight to The Witcher 3 in parallel with Cyberpunk and then, after TW3 base game, straight onto 2 large expansions: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. To realize our ambitions regarding Cyberpunk 2077 we need to scale the size of the team working on it which means from 300+ to 500+. Kraków will play a critical role in that expansion and the intention is to grow that studio from 30 now to 100+ in the next year (representing about 20% of the dev team on CP). Kraków is already planned to work on some key areas of Cyberpunk. But it’s part of the goal to build a studio with its own identity and to give the Kraków team ownership. Thereafter in Kraków it will be more and more growth and a new independent full AAA game conceived, pitched, and developed in Kraków.

Q: How do you guys plan to do it?

A: Both Warsaw and Kraków need to grow rapidly. Given the critical success of Wild Hunt (many thanks to gamers supporting us!) and the positive perception of our development studio due to our core values (no DRM, free DLCs) there has been no shortage of great CVs. But it takes a great deal of scrutiny and time and effort to select the right candidates based on talent, experience, and attitude. So as Blood and Wine wraps, a larger part of the team can focus on this recruitment effort evaluating tests and sitting in for intensive interview sessions. Kraków played an important role in the development of Blood and Wine with the whole idea of Toussaint and some of the core story ideas and key art from the team there. And in terms of code, Kraków is continuing to play a vital role in the development of the the engine, with the entire programming team there tightly integrated across our engine and tools team in Warsaw. All this experience and this current level of integration has proven the Kraków team is working at the same level and in the same mindset as the Warsaw team. So there is already a very solid foundation for growth and synergy between the two studios.

In addition to that, I will be taking over as Head of Studio this autumn, with the primary focus on growth and management. We will also be moving some additional key development staff for a great er degree of knowledge transfer from Warsaw to Kraków. Having some veteran Warsaw developers in Kraków should also help us attract some additional senior level talent there.