CD Projekt was founded in 1994 by Marcin Iwinski and Michal Kicinski in Warsaw, Poland. It started as a distributor of foreign games in the Polish market before pivoting to game development with CD Projekt Red, the studio that would go on to create The Witcher franchise.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, released in 2015, is one of the most celebrated RPGs ever made. It won over 250 Game of the Year awards, sold more than 50 million copies, and set a new standard for open-world narrative design. The game’s success, combined with the Netflix Witcher adaptation starring Henry Cavill, turned the franchise into a global phenomenon.
Cyberpunk 2077’s launch in December 2020 was a different story. The game shipped in a notoriously broken state on last-gen consoles, leading to refund programs, removal from the PlayStation Store, and a class-action lawsuit from investors. CD Projekt’s stock price dropped by more than 60% from its peak. However, the studio committed to fixing the game through extensive patches, and the Phantom Liberty expansion in 2023 was critically acclaimed. By 2024, Cyberpunk 2077 had sold over 30 million copies.
CD Projekt also operates GOG.com (originally Good Old Games), a digital distribution platform that differentiates itself from Steam by selling DRM-free games. GOG has a loyal niche following but hasn’t come close to matching Steam’s market share.
The company is publicly traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and at one point in 2020 briefly surpassed Ubisoft in market capitalization. New Witcher and Cyberpunk projects are in development using Unreal Engine 5, marking a shift away from their in-house REDengine.
