Last December, The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red announced plans to end official support for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game in 2023. While the Polish publisher agreed to continue hosting tournaments and release three new expansions in April, July, and September, the plan was to transition Gwent "into the hands of the community" by 2024.

The plan was also to transition Gwent's developers to other projects within CDPR, but that plan appears to have changed to now include layoffs.

In a blog post, CDPR provided an update on Gwent's year-long shutdown. "Throughout the year we’ve been transferring some of the team members to other projects, but we have to part ways with some," the publisher wrote. "Until the end of the year, about 30 remaining Gwent team members are going to part ways with CD Projekt Red.

"It’s never easy to say goodbye. And even though decisions like this are unavoidable and a natural result of the transition, we’d like to express our sincere thanks for all the contributions these team members have made to Gwent — just like the community, you helped make the game what it is today."

A spokesperson speaking to IGN said that four people will be laid off in June with the remaining to trickle out over the coming months. Gwent's servers will still remain online, but the focus will be on community-run tournaments.

Gwent isn't the only division within CDPR hit with layoffs. Earlier this month, employees from Project Sirius developer The Molasses Flood announced they'd been let go amidst a reboot in development. The Witcher spinoff project is reportedly suffering from a troubled development, although the details of what went wrong remain scarce.

I promise me and @LionHart__ will dress up fancy to cast YOUR game in the finals! So who will become the next @PlayGwent Den Champion?

There's time till this Friday to join our community tournament - https://t.co/2IQ7r2IPkY

Don't forget to jump in the discord too! pic.twitter.com/EnD5QxOAXa

— GhostArya (@GhostArya_) May 23, 2023

CDPR's next big splash should be coming at Summer Game Fest. Cyberpunk 2077's upcoming Phantom Liberty DLC will not only be shown at the coming event, but it'll also be playable. At least, that's the assumption. CDPR said that Phantom Liberty will be at Summer Game Fest's Play Days, an industry-only event where journalists and content creators are invited to try upcoming games hands-on. This likely means someone will have their hands on a controller to actually play Phantom Liberty, although it could just be a CDPR representative in an extended demo. We'll find out when Summer Game Fest starts on June 8.

Posted: Jun 03, 2023 10:47 pm
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/cd-projekt-red-gwent-the-witcher-layoffs/