Multiplayer Witcher spin-off Project Sirius hit by layoffs again, in “broader shift in development strategy” at CD Projekt Red

UPDATE 12TH AUGUST 5.20PM: CD Projekt Red has confirmed the layoffs to Eurogamer.

“We adjusted the size of the Sirius team to reflect the project’s needs at this stage of development,” the company said. “As a result, four people in Boston and five in Warsaw are leaving the company, while nine others have been invited to internal recruitment processes for potential roles on other CD Projekt Red projects.”

Our thoughts are with the people affected.

ORIGINAL STORY 12TH AUGUST 4.18PM: CD Projekt Red has reportedly laid off nine people working on its mysterious multiplayer-linked Witcher game Project Sirius, and said a further nine are to be reshuffled to other teams internally.

Kotaku broke the news this afternoon, citing an unnamed source’s claims a “broader shift in development strategy” is the reason for the layoffs. CD Projekt Red noted in a financial report in May that there were 83 people working on Sirius, so should these layoffs be true, it still leaves a substantial team working on it.

Project Sirius is a game that’s never fully come into view. Sirius was announced alongside a raft of other projects – nearly all of which have proper names now, rather than codenames – back in 2022. Sirius was described as a Witcher spin-off that would include a multiplayer element as well as single-player, and it was in development at then-external studio Molasses Flood.

However, Sirius was rebooted the following year, after CDPR re-evaluated “the scope and commercial potential of the original concept”. Then in 2025, CDPR acquired Molasses Flood to work on the game internally.

Earlier this year, Sirius seemed to be gaining momentum, with CDPR hiring a Destiny 2 and Guild Wars 2 writer to work on the game. At around the same time, a second Witcher multiplayer project – a free-to-play mobile game – was reported to be in development.

The bulk of CD Projekt Red is currently at work on The Witcher 4, but a collaboration with Fool’s Theory – a studio made up of former CDPR developers – will bring us a Witcher 3 expansion called Songs of the Past before that, sometime next year. A sequel to Cyberpunk is also in development.

Eurogamer has contacted CD Projekt Red for comment.