CD Projekt to shut down The Witcher: Monster Slayer in 2023, merger with Spokko on the way

CD Projekt has announced the discontinuation of its AR game The Witcher: Monster Slayer. It will be completely closed next year, as it no longer fits into the company’s updated business strategy.

What happened?

CD Projekt shared the news in a regulatory announcement on its official website. The company’s management board voted to end the development of The Witcher: Monster Slayer during an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting of its subsidiary Spokko.

Here are the key takeaways:

• The Witcher: Monster Slayer will become unavailable to new players on the App Store and Google Play on January 31, 2023;
• Access to the game will be disabled for all players on June 30, 2023;
• CD Projekt will carry out a reorganization next year by merging with Spokko, meaning the studio will cease to exist as a separate subsidiary and become a part of the Group;
• Spokko shares, which are now valued at PLN 32.4 million ($7.24 million), will be revalued. It will be reflected in CD Projekt’s upcoming financial report for 2022.

Speaking about the reasons for the game’s discontinuation, CD Projekt cited its updated strategy presented in October. The company plans to focus on its core business activities (i.e. story-driven single-player games), while partnering with third-party studios on non-core titles.

This means the next mobile games based on CD Projekt’s brands like The Witcher and Cyberpunk will be developed by external partners rather than in-house.

The Witcher: Monster Slayer revenue and other metrics

The Witcher: Monster Slayer came out on July 21, 2021 and generated $500k in its first week. According to AppMagic, it has reached $1.7 million in lifetime revenue and surpassed 1.8 million downloads.

As can be seen in the graph below, player spending has been declining since launch. In July 2021, the game generated $450k before dropping to just $53k in December. Over the past few months, Monster Slayer has been making less than $10k per month on average.

Poland remains the number one country by player spending, accounting for $418k or 24% of total revenue. It is almost on par with the US, where the game grossed $417k. These countries are followed by Germany (11%), Czech Republic (7%), and the UK (5%).

In terms of downloads, Poland is also the number one country, followed by the US, Russia, Germany, and Brazil.