Witcher 3's New Expansion Has More Devs Than Cyberpunk 2

"The expansion is now in an advanced phase of production. Around 190 developers, most of them from our trusted partners at Fool's Theory, are currently working with us on the project." That's CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski during a recent financial earnings call, casually dropping a number that puts Songs of the Past's team size above the studio's own Cyberpunk sequel.

Let that sink in. As of April 30th 2026, Cyberpunk 2 (codenamed Project Orion) has 163 developers. The Witcher 3's expansion, a piece of additional content for an 11-year-old RPG, has roughly 190. According to former Witcher 3 game director Konrad Tomaskiewicz, the original Witcher 3 itself averaged about 160 developers during production, only climbing to around 205 when the Cyberpunk 2077 team pitched in near the end. Songs of the Past is operating at base-game scale for what CD Projekt Red keeps calling an expansion.

I think this tells us two things. First, Songs of the Past is clearly not some farewell victory lap or a glorified side quest pack. CD Projekt Red has been comparing it to Blood and Wine, and a team this size backs that up. Senior community manager Laura Beitzel said during a recent Blood and Wine livestream that "Songs of the Past will be aligned with what you're familiar with in Blood and Wine, and what you've come to experience and expect from us when we do our expansions." Blood and Wine gave us an entirely new region in Toussaint. If Songs of the Past is doing the same, the current fan theory pointing to Cidaris, based on the elven sword Melltith visible in the expansion's key art, makes a lot of sense.

Second, and more interesting: CD Projekt Red itself is barely staffing this project.

Where CDPR's devs actually are

Nowakowski's earnings call included a staffing breakdown slide. The Witcher 4 commands 513 developers, up from 499 in February. Cyberpunk 2 has 163. Project Sirius, the multiplayer Witcher spin-off now being built internally by The Molasses Flood, has 83. Project Hadar sits at 24. Shared Services (QA, localisation, mocap, data) accounts for 173. And then there's "Other" at 19.

Songs of the Past doesn't appear as its own line item. The only category it fits into is that "Other" bucket, which means CD Projekt Red likely has a maximum of 19 people working on it internally. Almost the entire 190-person team sits at Fool's Theory, the Polish studio staffed heavily by former CD Projekt Red developers. Nowakowski framed the arrangement as CD Projekt Red providing "creative oversight to safeguard the quality of the Witcher experience," but 19 versus 170-odd is less oversight and more handing someone the keys.

That's not automatically a problem. Fool's Theory knows this material; their team built chunks of the original game. But it does raise a question about what "a CD Projekt Red expansion" actually means when the vast majority of the work is happening at a separate studio. If Songs of the Past ships and it's brilliant, Fool's Theory deserves the lion's share of credit. If it stumbles, I suspect CD Projekt Red's name on the box will absorb most of the blame. The dynamic is lopsided either way.

Lead quest designer Paweł Sasko recently reflected on Blood and Wine's development on X, recalling how the team was "already hands deep into building the second expansion" when Hearts of Stone shipped in October 2015, with Blood and Wine arriving just seven months later. He described the production timeline as "pretty hardcore" and revealed the expansion's most expensive area, the Land of a Thousand Fables, was born from a pivot when environment artists said they couldn't afford the originally planned Druid's Forest. Songs of the Past has a 2027 launch window, a reveal confirmed for Gamescom, and a team nearly matching the original game's headcount. Whether Fool's Theory can channel that old Blood and Wine energy with CD Projekt Red steering from the passenger seat is the real test here.