Troubled Witcher multiplayer spinoff Project Sirius struck with new round of layoffs
Project Sirius, CD Projekt Red’s unsettled attempt at a multiplayer The Witcher spinoff, is facing further difficulties. Following a Kotaku report, the Polish dev-publisher confirmed to IGN that they were cutting 18 staff members from the project – believed to be around a quarter of the game’s overall team size, which was already dwarfed by the CDPR crew assigned to mainline singleplayer sequel The Witcher 4.
Of the affected developers, half have been made redundant, while half "have been invited to internal recruitment processes for potential roles on other CD Projekt Red projects." This is also the second time the company have slashed Project Sirius staff, with layoffs following an effective reboot in 2023.
We haven’t seen anything of the game – also rumoured to be an RPG – since then, nor indeed since it was originally announced in 2022. Its original development team, The Molasses Flood makers, were acquired by CDPR a year earlier, with the public assurance that they would "keep their current identity and will not be merged with existing teams." That commitment ended in 2025, when The Molasses Flood was fully absorbed into their parent company.
Regardless of the fortunes of any particular game, it remains deeply frustrating that mass redundancies have become an almost daily occurrence for the medium, particularly one where companies continue to rake in millions, if not billions, in revenues and profits. Supermassive Games just made their third big jobs cut in as many years, Crossfire developers That’s No Moon made 14 people jobless shortly after the game’s unveiling, and Halo Studios - of that famously niche and cash-strapped series, Halo - capped off a new remake by letting go of multi-game veteran contractors.
Developers themselves appear to be running out of patience. Also this week, unionised Bethesda workers erected a giant inflatable rat outside the company’s HQ, in protest of visiting Microsoft gaming chief Asha Sharma and her plan to lay off up to 3,200 staff.
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