Witcher Game Director Promises No Crunch Despite CD Projekt History of Crunch

CD Projekt Red announced Monday it had begun work on a "new saga in The Witcher franchise," lighting the fires of anticipation among fans of The Witcher 3. The director of the new game says there won't be crunch in the development of this new title despite his studio's history of crunch.

"I am super thrilled to announce that I have humbly been working to ensure the success of the next big AAA The Witcher game as its Game Director!" tweeted longtime CD Projekt developer and current Gwent game director Jason Slama on Monday. "Think you could join the team? We have tons of roles open with the possibility of remote work we could discuss!"

A Twitter user quote-tweeted that message and said Slama had left out the "sign on bonus of horrible crunch and being treated like a dog."

"Never on my watch!" Slama responded.

This isn't the first time a leading figure at CD Projekt Red has made a public commitment to avoid crunch during the development process. After widespread reports of heavy crunch during the development of The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwiński told Kotaku the studio would avoid mandating overtime in the development of Cyberpunk 2077.

"We've been working toward it for some time already," Iwiński said. "We've been communicating clearly to people that of course there are certain moments where we need to work harder — like I think the E3 demo is a pretty good example — but we want to be more humane and treat people with respect. If they need to take time off, they can take time off. Nobody will be frowned upon if this will be requested."

Iwiński reiterated that commitment a month later on a Kotaku podcast.

A year later, developers at CD Projekt Red were working mandatory six-day weeks through Cyberpunk 2077's release. Employees were working 13-hour days. The game launched a buggy mess, forcing even more crunch time to fix its myriad problems as players heaped criticism upon it and the team behind it.

Slama's commitment to an anti-crunch development approach is promising, but his power to prevent crunch ends when CD Projekt's executives and shareholders put the squeeze on. It remains to be seen if development on the new Witcher saga will be truly crunch-free.