The Director Behind The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 Has Severe Doubts About AI

CD Projekt stays cautious about utilizing generative AI in sport improvement, seeing it as a help software reasonably than a substitute for human creativity.

CD Projekt’s Cautious Stance on Generative AI

There isn’t a denying it anymore: synthetic intelligence is right here to remain within the online game trade. 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 position in improvement.

The chief, who oversees the upcoming The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, was requested a blunt query: Is AI chargeable for the wave of layoffs at present hitting the online game trade?

His reply was clear, however measured.

“The supply of expertise might 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 Drawback, Based on CD Projekt

For Nowakowski, the latest studio closures and mass layoffs throughout the trade aren’t the direct results of synthetic intelligence changing builders, or a minimum of, not but.

“Some studios have gone by means of very troublesome occasions. Tasks have been shut down, which led to many layoffs throughout the trade. We’ve all seen it, and in lots of circumstances it’s been dramatic,” he stated.

“However I actually can’t recall a single state of affairs the place AI was instantly accountable. No less than not that I do know of. And the concept of workers reductions purely due to AI? I simply don’t see it.”

The place CD Projekt Truly Makes use of AI

So what position does AI play at CD Projekt?

Based on Nowakowski, AI is used primarily for productivity-focused duties, serving to with secondary processes reasonably than core artistic work.

“We primarily use AI in productiveness areas, and that’s the place we see the most important advantages. The positive factors are actual and significant,” he famous.

“However this isn’t a state of affairs the place AI can ‘sit down and create video games’. No less than not at the moment. And I don’t know of any case the place it could.”

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 carefully mirrors feedback made by Swen Vincke, head of Larian Studios, who just lately held an AMA session to make clear how his group makes use of AI with out compromising artistic integrity.

For now, followers can breathe straightforward. Neither The Witcher 4 nor Cyberpunk 2 are being developed with generative AI at their artistic core.

Whereas AI might help behind the scenes in restricted, sensible methods, CD Projekt is agency in its perception that human builders stay irreplaceable in the case of constructing worlds, tales, and characters of this scale.

No less than for now, the way forward for CD Projekt’s RPGs remains to be being formed by individuals, not machines.