New Witcher game enters production phase at Poland's CD Projekt

Cd Projekt headquarters is pictured in Warsaw · Reuters

By Adrianna Ebert

(Reuters) -Poland's CD Projekt said on Tuesday it had entered the production phase of its planned game in the blockbuster Witcher universe, as it posted a 61.5% drop in third-quarter net profit.

CD Projekt faces a couple of years without a major video game release and its revenue for the upcoming quarters will be mainly from sales of existing games.

As of the end of last month, it had some 400 developers working on the planned game, code-named Polaris, which will be the first instalment in a new Witcher trilogy.

"We have a big chunk of game made that proves certain concepts and now we need to kind of populate the whole game," joint CEO Michal Nowakowski said on conference call.

Nowakowski said it typically takes the company five to six years to develop a big ticket AAA game from the time early ideas are first discussed.

CD Projekt, whose net profit reached 78.1 million zlotys ($18.97 million), also said it had 64 developers working on a sequel, code-named Orion, to its flagship Cyberpunk game.

($1 = 4.1165 zlotys)

(Reporting by Adrianna Ebert; additional reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by David Goodman, Bill Berkrot and Alexander Smith)