What exactly is CD Projekt Red building when nobody’s looking? That question has circled the gaming industry since 2022, when the Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 studio first confirmed the existence of a brand-new, unannounced IP codenamed Project Hadar. Four years on, CDPR has offered another glimpse at its progress — and confirmed the team is about to double in size.
What CD Projekt Red Has Said About Project Hadar So Far
During its 2026 half-year earnings call on 2 September, CD Projekt Red vice president of investor relations Karolina Gnaś offered the latest update on Hadar — and confirmed it’s moving, if slowly.
“Hadar is still in the concept phase,” Gnaś told investors. “Right now, the team is mostly focused on testing different approaches, ideas, and prototyping some gameplay elements. This is it.”
Those words echo what joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski said during the March 2026 earnings call: that the studio had “established the foundations of this entirely new IP” and was ready to begin prototyping. What’s changed since March is concrete: the team has grown, and CDPR intends to grow it further.
Fifty Developers by Year-End
The Hadar team currently sits at over 30 people. CD Projekt Red is targeting a headcount of up to 50 developers by the end of 2026 — a meaningful step for a project that remains firmly in pre-production.
For context, the broader CDPR machine is enormous. As of July 2026, the studio’s total development team reached 1,045 people. The Witcher 4 alone has 519 developers attached. Cyberpunk 2 has 184. Songs of the Past — the Witcher 3 expansion handled largely by Fool’s Theory — involves around 220 people. Hadar’s team of 30-plus is tiny by comparison, but for a concept-phase project, that’s a serious allocation.
Emotional and Open-World: The Only Clues We Have
What kind of game is Project Hadar? CDPR hasn’t said — but its own hiring ads have hinted at the shape of it. Job postings linked to the project described the goal as building “an emotional, open-world experience.”
That phrase is vague enough to cover a lot of ground, but it does tell us something: Hadar won’t be a linear title. Whether that means a sweeping RPG in the Witcher mould, something closer to Cyberpunk 2077’s urban density, or a third genre altogether is unclear at this stage. The word “emotional” is doing a lot of work too — it suggests CDPR are prioritising character depth and story resonance over pure mechanical complexity, though the two are rarely mutually exclusive in their games.
Key point: Project Hadar is a brand-new IP — not set in the Witcher or Cyberpunk universe. It’s CDPR’s first attempt at building a world from the ground up since their early days.
GamesRadar, which first reported the earnings call details, noted that Hadar was revealed in 2022 and has been described as distinct from both existing CDPR franchises. No genre, setting, or platform has been confirmed. For now, it exists purely as possibility. The studio’s ambition with Cyberpunk 2077 was to build a genre-defining new world — with Hadar, it seems they’re attempting that same scale all over again.
Everything Else CDPR Is Juggling Right Now
Project Hadar sits alongside an already-packed slate. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered is due this month, free for existing owners. Witcher 3: Songs of the Past — a full expansion — is targeting 2027. The Witcher 4 is targeting 2028. Cyberpunk 2 is in active development. A remake of the original Witcher is on hold until Witcher 4’s foundations are in place. And then there’s Project Sirius — a multiplayer Witcher game currently in pre-production and focused on experimenting with online formats that are new territory for the studio.
That’s six projects across two established universes and one completely new world. Whether CDPR can deliver on all fronts simultaneously — particularly while navigating the enormous expectations set by Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 — is the question that will define the next decade of the studio’s history.
