CD Projekt Red to Lay Off Around 30 Employees as Gwent Development Winds Down

CD Projekt Red will lay off around 30 more employees by the end of 2023 as development on Gwent: The Witcher Card Game winds down.

Revealed in a blog post on Gwent’s website, CD Projekt Red confirmed that “about 30 remaining Gwent team members are going to part ways” with the studio.

This contradicts a statement from December when the developer told IGN that a small number of employees would be kept on to keep the game running while the remaining staff would be moved to other projects at CD Projekt Red.

A spokesperson told IGN that four team members will be laid off in June, with CD Projekt Red gradually increasing this number throughout the year until around 30 staff have been laid off in total.

“It’s never easy to say goodbye,” the developer said in the blog post. “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.”

This announcement from CD Projekt Red follows two other waves of lay-offs. The Molasses Flood, which is owned by CD Projekt Red and currently developing the troubled Project Sirius Witcher game, saw 29 team members laid off earlier in May.

CD Projekt Red also announced the closure of The Witcher: Monster Slayer in December last year, revealing that lay-offs would be made at developer Spokko as a result.

Development on Gwent is currently being switched to a community-focused approached. CD Projekt Red announced the change in December though assured the game will remain online for years to come, with final “official” updates being made from the development team between now and the end of 2023.

Gwent celebrated its five year anniversary of entering open beta in May 2022, but was first released in closed beta back in October 2016. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales was released as a full RPG spin-off in 2018 and a single-player standalone expansion called Gwent: Rogue Mage was released in 2022.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.