CD Projekt Red says Project Hadar will be an emotional open-world experience

Only 24 people were working on Project Hadar at the end of April 2026, and that is the clearest way to read CD Projekt Red’s latest description of the game as an emotional, open-world experience. The language tells players what kind of world the studio wants to build, but not when they will see it, what platform it will land on, or how far along it is beyond the earliest planning stages.

Hadar was first announced in 2022 as CD Projekt’s first original IP. In the company’s own strategy materials that year, it was described as a new standalone IP distinct from The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077, developed 100% internally and still in the conceptual phase by a small strike team. A separate long-term outlook document said early conceptual work had begun in 2021, when the studio started laying the foundations for a third separate product line.

That makes the wording in the new job ad telling, even if it is still broad. The posting for an engineering director says the hire would help push the envelope for an immersive game in the Hadar world and create an emotional, open-world experience that will stay with gamers. It also places the project in a familiar CD Projekt lane, with a strong narrative focus and the kind of world-building the studio has used to define both The Witcher and Cyberpunk. The game is being built in Unreal Engine 5, part of CD Projekt’s broader shift announced in 2022 toward using the engine for new projects.

The scale of the company’s other work makes the Hadar update easier to read as a long-view strategy move rather than a reveal. In 2025, CD Projekt said it invested over 513 million PLN in future releases, mainly The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2. Its March 19, 2026 year-end results said the studio had begun work on a game based on its proprietary IP codenamed Hadar, and the 2025 annual report said conceptual work on Hadar had already begun. By late April, the team was still tiny compared with the company’s mainline productions.

That restraint matters. CD Projekt has sold more than 85 million copies across The Witcher trilogy, more than 35 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077, and 10 million copies of Phantom Liberty. Hadar is being framed inside that same franchise-minded business, but the latest language does not promise a showcase any time soon. It promises intent, and right now that is all it is supposed to promise.