The director behind the recently-announced new The Witcher game has promised that there won't be any employee crunch at CD Projekt Red with regards to its latest project. Allegations of developers forcing their employees to work later hours and rush to get a game finished by a set cutoff time have developed more commonplace throughout the course of recent years, with studios like BioWare and Rockstar experiencing harsh criticism for reports of crunch while creating games. In addition to fostering a potentially toxic working environment, employee crunch can end up being counterproductive, as exemplified by reports of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's many delays purportedly being partially caused by pressure from higher-ups prompting staff working upwards of 80 to 100 hours every week.
Disc Projekt Red, the engineer of critically-acclaimed The Witcher 3, has not been insusceptible from employee crunch either, at least as indicated by allegations surrounding the development of Cyberpunk 2077. Among the many issues surrounding Cyberpunk 2077's long development cycle were reports of pressure from high-ranking executives at CDPR to get the game released before the finish of 2020 to secure their year's end bonuses, prompting staffers being crunched despite previous promises not to take part in this profoundly controversial practice. Exacerbated Cyberpunk 2077 released with game-breaking bugs and glitches that lent confidence to the prevalent view that the game still required more opportunity to create.
Disc Projekt Red might have gained from the controversy surrounding Cyberpunk 2077, as the game engineer behind the newly-announced Witcher project has promised that there won't be any employee crunch during development. As reported by Game Rant, Twitter user octolingtime pointed out CDPR's supposed history of "horrendous crunch" after Gwent Game Director Jason Slama announced his involvement with the next AAA Witcher game. Slama responded to the tweet by promising that such practices won't ever occur "on my watch" - giving fans trust that CDPR will ensure a healthier workplace while fostering its next, profoundly anticipated project.
The surprise announcement of a new Witcher game sent shockwaves throughout the internet yesterday, March 21, so much so that the official Witcher website crashed simple moments after the news went live. Fans have wasted little time in drawing their own theories surrounding the new title's story and playable protagonist, energized by CD Projekt Red later delighting that this latest Witcher game won't be a direct sequel to 2015's The Witcher 3. Further developments have indicated that CDPR will create the next Witcher title using Unreal Engine 5 instead of the in-house REDengine used for previous Witcher installments and Cyberpunk 2077, and that it won't be an Epic Games Store exclusive on PCs despite CDPR's partnership with Epic.
It will take a long time for this new Witcher title to be created, and most fans will wait in the event that it means that CD Projekt Red isn't crunching its employees to meet deadlines. CDPR has broken its promise not to take part in employee crunch in the past, but ideally, the backlash from Cyberpunk 2077 and its controversial development cycle will lead the company to treat its workforce better while creating the next The Witcher game.