After years of exploratory development, CD Projekt Red has “established the foundations” of a brand new gaming franchise codenamed Hadar, the company has announced.
In an annual earnings call to investors, joint-CEO Michał Nowakowski said: “We have an important development update regarding our third franchise, Hadar. Work on the project is progressing dynamically, and the team has established the foundations of this entirely new IP. Now, we have clearly defined distinguishing features of this world, and established key pillars that will not only provide the foundation for the game itself, but also, potentially, for other future products.
“Of course, this does not mean the end of work on IP itself, which will naturally continue to evolve and develop on many fronts over time. The team is now actively designing specific elements that might be included in the game. We are creating multiple prototypes and implementing them directly in Unreal Engine. This allows us to live-test and verify how selected mechanics and gameplay elements can perform.”
A chart showing staff allocation across CD Projekt Red showed that 26 people were working on Hadar at the end of February this year.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard about Hadar. CD Projekt Red announced Hadar back in the autumn of 2022, sharing no more detail about it, and then steadily drip-fed brief updates about it in subsequent years. Chris heard how a “tiny” team was putting ideas on a concept board in 2023, and this time last year, CD Projekt Red told investors that “the vision of Hadar has progressed over the last year, becoming more detailed”. But beyond that we don’t know anything about it.
What of the name, Hadar? It’s the name of a star as far as I’m aware. But CD Projekt Red tends to codename all of its projects after stars – Cyberpunk 2 was codenamed Orion, for example – so I wouldn’t read anything into this. Still, CD Projekt Red will presumably want something significantly different to the fantasy world of The Witcher and retro futuristic world of Cyberpunk.
All eyes are currently on CD Projekt Red regarding a heavily rumoured expansion for The Witcher 3, but there was no revelation to be heard during the annual investor call regarding that.
