Over 250 developers are now working on the next Witcher title

CD Projekt Red has confirmed that the next mainline Witcher game, currently codenamed Project Polaris, is being worked on by a team of nearly 260 developers.

The details:

• CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciski provided an update on the current size of its development teams during the company's recent quarterly earnings call (via VGC), revealing that while the team working on Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty has reduced in size, it is still the largest. The studio's second-largest team is currently working on Project Polaris, which has been accidentally referred to as "The Witcher 4" in the past.
• Kicinski also revealed that after the expansion's release on September 26, a “big part of the team” will be transferred to work on Project Polaris, which was said to be in pre-production as of May 2023. With an increased number of employees working on the title, we may see a release date sooner than expected, though given the state of Cyberpunk's launch, the studio will most likely take extra care in polishing the game.
• So far, we don't know much about the game other than it will begin a "new saga" and that CD Projekt Red has chosen to build the game in Epic's Unreal Engine 5 rather than the company's own REDEngine, which was used for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077.

More gaming news:

• A leaker who shared gameplay of Bethesda's upcoming space MMO Starfield has been arrested for theft after allegedly stealing copies of the game in its various editions from their workplace and reselling them via an online marketplace at an increased price.
• Takashi Iizuka, the head of Sega's Sonic Team, has expressed concern about the future of the traditional pixel art style used in its games, believing that it will no longer be a "viable" art style in a decade.