Project Sirius Loses 18 Developers as CD Projekt Restructures Witcher Multiplayer Team
CD Projekt has reduced the development team behind Project Sirius, its experimental multiplayer game set in The Witcher universe, with 18 developers being removed from the project as part of a broader adjustment to its development strategy. According to Kotaku, 9 developers were laid off while another 9 are moving through internal recruitment processes that could place them on other CD Projekt RED projects.
"We adjusted the size of the Sirius team to reflect the project's needs at this stage of development."
— Quote by: CD Projekt
CD Projekt confirmed that 4 of the employees leaving the company were based in Boston and 5 were based in Warsaw. The other 9 affected developers have been invited to pursue positions elsewhere within CD Projekt RED, meaning the restructuring removes 18 people from Sirius itself but only 9 have been confirmed as leaving the company.
The reduction represents a considerable change in scale. CD Projekt's official Q1 2026 earnings presentation showed that Project Sirius had grown from 71 developers on February 28 to 83 developers as of April 30, 2026. Removing 18 people from that figure would leave approximately 65 developers attached to the project, although CD Projekt has not yet published a new official development team chart following the restructuring.
Project Sirius has already experienced a complicated development cycle. CD Projekt originally introduced it in 2022 as a Witcher project from The Molasses Flood that would combine single player and multiplayer gameplay, but the company reassessed its scope and commercial potential in 2023 and established a new framework for the game. Earlier this year CD Projekt described Sirius as its most experimental project and confirmed that it remained in preproduction while the team continued iterating and prototyping different solutions.
The new staff reduction therefore does not mean Project Sirius has been cancelled. CD Projekt continues to list the game within its long term development strategy, while its confirmation that developers are being redistributed suggests the company is recalibrating the size and requirements of the project rather than abandoning it outright. The timing is notable because Sirius had expanded from fewer than 40 developers in early 2024 to 83 by April 2026, making the latest adjustment another major change in a project that has already been substantially redesigned.
What Project Sirius will ultimately become remains unclear. CD Projekt continues to officially describe it as a multiplayer Witcher game, while a separate recent report claimed that a free to play cooperative Witcher RPG for PC and mobile is also being developed. CD Projekt has not confirmed whether that reported game is Sirius, leaving the exact gameplay structure, platforms, business model, and release plans for Project Sirius unannounced.
The important distinction is that Project Sirius has lost 18 developers from its team, but only 9 are confirmed layoffs. The other 9 may remain inside CD Projekt RED, making this look more like another production recalibration than a collapse of the project. Still, Sirius has already been rebooted once and remains in a relatively early development stage several years after its announcement. For CD Projekt, multiplayer represents unfamiliar territory compared with the studio's established single player RPG expertise, so reducing the team while refining the concept may be preferable to pushing a larger production forward before its core gameplay and commercial model are fully established.
Do you think CD Projekt should continue investing in Project Sirius and multiplayer Witcher experiences, or should those resources remain focused on The Witcher 4 and the studio's traditional single player RPGs?
