CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński on laying off 9% of employees: "Today we are overstaffed"

CD Projekt RED has announced its decision to lay off roughly 9% of its employees, or around 100 people. This move is part of deep transformations within the studio, as it currently doesn’t have opportunities for all current team members.

CEO Adam Kiciński shared an organizational update on July 26, saying that the layoffs at CD Projekt RED won’t be immediate. The process is expected to end as late as the first quarter of next year (ending March 31, 2024).

CD Projekt decided to announce the layoffs beforehand for more transparency and in order to give people more time to prepare for the changes. It also noted that all affected employees will get a comprehensive severance package.

The job cuts are part of transformations the company is going through under its new strategy shared last year. This includes the simultaneous development of several games, such as a new Witcher title (Project Polaris), a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel (Project Orion), and a brand new IP (Project Hadar), “on time and without crunch.”

According to Kiciński, it was time for CD Projekt to refine the shape of its staff. The company currently needs the “right teams”  — more agile, effective, and built around each project’s needs.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but today we are overstaffed,” Kiciński said. “We have talented people on board who are finishing their tasks and — based on current and expected project needs — we already know we don’t have other opportunities for them in the next year.”

Earlier this year, CD Projekt decided to lay off 30 remaining GWENT developers as content support for the game will soon end, leaving it in limbo (or, as the company calls it, Gwentfinity). Its subsidiary The Molasses Flood also lost 29 employees after defining a new framework for Project Sirius, a story-driven Witcher spin-off with multiplayer elements.