CD Projekt's mysterious Hadar is 'progressing dynamically,' which means we're at least one step closer to finding out what it is

Today's CD Projekt earnings report didn't deliver any news on the heavily-rumored but doggedly-unconfirmed Witcher 3 DLC we're all hoping for. It did however share "an important development update" about the other big CDPR mystery, Project Hadar.

"Work on the project is progressing dynamically, and the team has established the foundation of this entirely new IP," CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski said during the investors presentation. "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 into Unreal Engine. This allows us to live-test and verify how selected mechanics and gameplay elements can perform."

As updates go, this one isn't exactly laden with detail, but it's notable for two reasons: One, Hadar will be CD Projekt's first all-original work—the studio described it as "a third, entirely distinct IP, created from scratch within CDPR" when Hadar was announced—and two, that announcement happened in 2022 and we still know literally nothing about it.

Some of that persistent silence may be attributable to hard lessons learned from Cyberpunk 2077 but I don't really care about that—I want to know what's going on with Hadar. So this is at least movement in that direction.

For now, though, the focus is clearly on The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2: CD Projekt has hired more than 200 new employees over the past 12 months, and while The Witcher 4 team is by far the largest, with 499 people working on it, the Cyberpunk 2 dev team has bulked up the most, growing from 84 employees as of February 28, 2025, to 149 a year later.

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