CD Projekt stays cautious about utilizing generative AI in recreation improvement, seeing it as a help software relatively than a substitute for human creativity.
CD Projekt’s Cautious Stance on Generative AI
There is no such thing as a denying it anymore: synthetic intelligence is right here to remain within the online game business. Some studios are already embracing it brazenly.
Sandfall Interactive, creators of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, have acknowledged utilizing generative AI in what turned the GOTY 2025. Others, like Warhorse Studios (Kingdom Come: Deliverance II) or Larian Studios (Baldur’s Gate 3), consider it’s time to face that actuality head-on.
However the place does CD Projekt Purple, the studio behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, stand on this more and more divisive subject?
Throughout an investor-focused audio webcast tied to the corporate’s Q3 2025 monetary report, CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski addressed the studio’s place on AI and its function in improvement.
The manager, who oversees the upcoming The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, was requested a blunt query: Is AI liable for the wave of layoffs at present hitting the online game business?
His reply was clear, however measured.
“The provision of expertise could have elevated barely over the previous three years, however I’m not satisfied that AI is the trigger,” Nowakowski defined.
Layoffs Are Not an AI Downside, In accordance with CD Projekt
For Nowakowski, the current studio closures and mass layoffs throughout the business aren’t the direct results of synthetic intelligence changing builders, or at the least, not but.
“Some studios have gone by way of very troublesome occasions. Tasks had been shut down, which led to many layoffs throughout the business. We’ve all seen it, and in lots of circumstances it’s been dramatic,” he stated.
“However I truthfully can’t recall a single scenario the place AI was straight accountable. A minimum of not that I do know of. And the thought of employees reductions purely due to AI? I simply don’t see it.”
The place CD Projekt Really Makes use of AI
So what function does AI play at CD Projekt?
In accordance with Nowakowski, AI is used primarily for productivity-focused duties, serving to with secondary processes relatively than core inventive work.
“We primarily use AI in productiveness areas, and that’s the place we see the largest advantages. The good points are actual and significant,” he famous.
“However this isn’t a scenario the place AI can ‘sit down and create video games’. A minimum of not right now. And I don’t know of any case the place it will possibly.”
He went even additional, dismissing the concept that generative AI might construct future flagship RPGs.
“It gained’t be used to make The Witcher 5, or The Witcher 6, or something like that.”
Human Creativity Nonetheless Comes First
This philosophy intently mirrors feedback made by Swen Vincke, head of Larian Studios, who lately held an AMA session to make clear how his workforce makes use of AI with out compromising inventive integrity.
For now, followers can breathe straightforward. Neither The Witcher 4 nor Cyberpunk 2 are being developed with generative AI at their inventive core.
Whereas AI could help behind the scenes in restricted, sensible methods, CD Projekt is agency in its perception that human builders stay irreplaceable in relation to constructing worlds, tales, and characters of this scale.
A minimum of for now, the way forward for CD Projekt’s RPGs remains to be being formed by folks, not machines.
