24 Devs, One Dream: CDPR's Secret Third Franchise

Twenty-four people. That's the size of the team currently building what CD Projekt Red hopes will become its third major franchise, sitting alongside The Witcher and Cyberpunk. For comparison, 513 developers are working on The Witcher 4 right now, and 163 are on Cyberpunk 2. Project Hadar, the studio's first fully original IP, is operating with a headcount smaller than most indie studios.

A job listing on CDPR's careers page for an engineering director at the Warsaw office, first spotted by GamesRadar, has given us the clearest description of Hadar yet. The successful applicant will "help push the envelope for the next, immersive game in the Hadar world, creating an emotional, open-world experience that will stay with gamers." The listing also confirms the project is being built in Unreal Engine 5.

If that description sounds like it could apply to literally any CDPR game ever made, that's because it could. Open world, emotional, immersive. It's the studio's entire identity distilled into a job ad. But they're using those exact words for a brand-new IP: CDPR isn't pivoting. They're not chasing a live-service trend or experimenting with a genre they don't understand. They're trying to build a third version of the thing they already do, just with an original setting this time. I think that's the right call, even if it's the safe one.

What Makes Hadar Different

Hadar was first announced back in October 2022, when CD Projekt laid out its ambitious multi-project roadmap. At the time, co-founder Michał Nowakowski said players should expect the game to fall within the same genre the studio is known for. "We do certain types of games and I think it's safe to assume that we want to continue to do the games within that kind of genre," he explained. The Witcher is fantasy. Cyberpunk is sci-fi. Whatever Hadar turns out to be, it'll be a third pillar, and the codename itself (named after a star, following CDPR's tradition) gives nothing away about the setting.

One earlier job listing from roughly a year ago, for a Senior Gameplay Designer, reportedly specified experience with melee-focused RPG and action games. If that requirement carried through to the current vision, it could suggest Hadar leans closer to The Witcher's combat philosophy than Cyberpunk's gunplay. But prototypes change, and CDPR has been open about nothing is locked in. During an earnings call in March 2026, Nowakowski said the team is "creating multiple prototypes and implementing them directly in Unreal Engine" to live-test mechanics that may or may not make the final game.

The scale of ambition here relative to the team size is striking. According to CDPR's most recent production report, Hadar had 24 staff by the end of April 2026. Even the studio's Witcher-themed multiplayer project, Sirius, has 83 people on it. Hadar is, by a wide margin, the smallest active project at the company. That number will grow as The Witcher 4 approaches release and developers free up, but right now, two dozen people are laying the groundwork for what CDPR wants to be a franchise that stands next to two of the biggest RPG series in gaming.

I find it interesting that CDPR is attempting this at all. Most studios of this size would focus entirely on their proven franchises. Ubisoft has Assassin's Creed and Far Cry. Rockstar has GTA and Red Dead. Building a third tentpole IP from scratch, with no existing book series or tabletop game to lean on, is a massive creative and financial risk. The Witcher had Andrzej Sapkowski's novels. Cyberpunk 2077 had Mike Pondsmith's tabletop RPG. Hadar has nothing but whatever CDPR's writers and designers come up with in a room in Warsaw.

Don't expect to see anything from Hadar for years. With The Witcher 4 as the studio's current priority and Cyberpunk 2 queued up behind it, Hadar is firmly a long-term bet. CDPR does publish regular production updates for investors, so we'll likely get incremental headcount updates and phase changes before any actual reveal. The next meaningful milestone will probably be when that 24-person team starts growing into triple digits.