CD Projekt Red Plans to Expand Project Hadar Team to 50 by Year’s End
The secret new IP remains in its concept phase, with more than 30 people testing ideas and gameplay approaches.
Project Hadar is moving forward, but it remains nowhere near release. CD Projekt Red plans to grow the team working on its secret new IP to as many as 50 developers by the end of 2026, up from more than 30 currently assigned to the project. The studio also confirmed that Sirius, its multiplayer Witcher spinoff, remains in pre-production.
Vice president of investor relations Karolina Gnaś shared the update during CD Projekt Red’s September 2, 2026 H1 investors call. Both projects are still active, but the company did not provide a release window for either one.
Sirius is still testing its multiplayer direction
Sirius is further along than Hadar, although it is still in multiplayer pre-production. Gnaś described the project as unlike CD Projekt’s other games because it is built around multiplayer, so the team is using repeated testing to work out the right ideas and gameplay approaches.
The Witcher spinoff has already taken a winding path. CD Projekt acquired The Molasses Flood in 2021, and the studio began working on a game that was later revealed as Sirius. Development was eventually paused and rebooted, followed by cuts of more than 20% to the project’s development team. CD Projekt fully absorbed The Molasses Flood in 2025, while work on Sirius continued.
For now, Sirius is still being shaped rather than prepared for a public launch. The studio has not announced when it will receive a full reveal or reach release.
Project Hadar remains behind The Witcher 4
Hadar is even less defined. CD Projekt Red has been working on the original property since 2021 and first revealed it publicly in 2022, but it has kept nearly every creative detail private. The project is not another Witcher or Cyberpunk game, and the studio has not announced its setting, characters, or gameplay systems.
More than 30 people are currently assigned to Hadar, with the team expected to grow to as many as 50 developers by the end of 2026. The project has now moved into gameplay prototyping while remaining in the concept phase, as developers test different ideas and approaches. Earlier this year, joint CEO Michał Nowakowski said the team had established the foundations of the new IP and was ready to begin prototyping.
CD Projekt Red’s main production focus is still The Witcher 4. The upcoming RPG has hundreds of developers working on it and is targeting a 2028 release, as covered in our coverage of its 2028 target.
Hadar’s hiring goal should not be read as a release signal. The studio also posted job openings during the summer seeking developers for what it described as an emotional, open-world experience. Whether that description reflects the final form of Hadar remains unknown, but it fits the project’s current focus on testing different ideas before full production begins.
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