BioWare Veteran Warns CD Projekt Red's Biggest RPGs Face Rising Financial Pressure

CD Projekt Red has some of the most ambitious role-playing projects in development, with The Witcher 4, a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, and the original IP known as Project Hadar all part of its wider plans. That scale may be exciting for players, but it also raises a difficult business question: how large does a game need to become before its potential reward is outweighed by the risk of making it?

Mark Darrah, the BioWare veteran who served as co-director on Dragon Age: Origins and as executive producer on Anthem, has expressed concern about that question. In comments published in the Summer Eternal Anthology, Darrah argued that the industry's pursuit of ever-larger blockbuster games can create an unsustainable financial environment. He singled out CD Projekt Red as a company that may now be operating in that especially high-stakes space.

Darrah's central argument is not that large games cannot succeed. The biggest games plainly can, and CD Projekt Red has already demonstrated that it can build globally recognized RPG franchises. Instead, his concern is about the size of the threshold a project must clear to be considered viable. When production costs and expectations climb far enough, selling several million copies is no longer a triumph. It may not even be enough to break even.

The blockbuster trap

Darrah discussed the influence of games such as Grand Theft Auto 6, whose scale has helped define the upper end of modern big-budget development. A project at that level is an extraordinary commercial event, but its visibility can also encourage publishers and developers to chase a similar kind of cultural and financial dominance.

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That is a tempting goal. A successful blockbuster can remain relevant for years, generate enormous revenue, and turn a studio's name into one of the industry's most powerful brands. Yet the pursuit of that outcome comes with consequences. Larger teams, longer schedules, more detailed worlds, expensive technology, extensive performance capture, localization, marketing, quality assurance, and post-launch support all add to the total cost.

For Darrah, the healthier alternative is a business where more projects can succeed at a lower sales target. He suggested there would be more room for games that need to move roughly three to four million units, pointing to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as the kind of title that makes that proposition appealing. In that range, a developer can still make a major, polished game without tying its future to a near-impossible commercial target.

"I don't want to be working on something like GTA, where if this thing doesn't sell 50 million units, it's going to lose money," Darrah said. "That's insane."

The exact sales point at which any individual game becomes profitable is rarely public. Development budgets, publishing arrangements, platform fees, marketing costs, discounts, expansion plans, and long-term sales all complicate the calculation. Darrah's figures should therefore be viewed as an illustration of the pressure faced by blockbuster productions rather than a disclosed accounting figure for a particular game.

Why CD Projekt Red is part of the conversation

CD Projekt Red is no longer simply a studio making a single major RPG at a time. Its current slate reflects a broader and more mature organization. The Witcher 4 is set to begin a new saga in its fantasy universe, while the next Cyberpunk game is in the works as a follow-up to one of the company's largest releases. Project Hadar, meanwhile, represents an entirely new property. The company has said that Hadar recently moved beyond its world-building stage into prototype testing.

That portfolio provides opportunities as well as exposure. Building several franchises means CD Projekt Red is not relying on one setting or one protagonist forever. It can develop new audiences, maintain long-term creative momentum, and spread its talent across separate teams. A new original universe could ultimately become another important pillar beside The Witcher and Cyberpunk.

But each additional major project also requires investment, management attention, and confidence that a large audience will be there when the game arrives. Studios can reduce some risk by staggering production, reusing technology, and expanding carefully, but AAA games remain unusually complicated undertakings. Delays can be costly. A troubled launch can be costly. Even a well-received game may face challenges if its budget has grown beyond what strong but ordinary sales can support.

Darrah's warning is that CD Projekt Red's projects may now need sales in the range of 15 million to 20 million units to make money. He called that a "really dangerous place to be." Again, that is his assessment rather than a financial target announced by CD Projekt Red. Still, it captures why the company's situation invites scrutiny: the studio is pursuing games with immense brand recognition, but the standard for success rises along with the scale.

Success can create its own expectations

The challenge for a studio with CD Projekt Red's profile is that previous success becomes part of the next project's burden. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt established a reputation for expansive quest design, rich storytelling, and a dense open world. Cyberpunk 2077 had a difficult launch, but the game's later improvements and the Phantom Liberty expansion helped reshape perceptions of the project. Those games have created substantial excitement around what comes next.

For players, high expectations can mean hopes for larger worlds, more reactive stories, deeper systems, stronger visuals, and longer post-launch support. For developers, those expectations can translate into features that are individually reasonable but collectively expensive. Adding more content does not merely mean writing or designing more content. It means testing more interactions, recording more dialogue, supporting more languages, and ensuring that the whole experience works across a vast range of circumstances.

There is also a creative concern behind Darrah's comments. If every big RPG must become a once-in-a-generation event, studios may be less willing to take chances on projects with narrower audiences, unusual structures, or more contained scopes. Games that aim for a few million players can potentially offer distinctive ideas without requiring the broadest possible appeal.

A case for sustainable ambition

None of this means players should expect CD Projekt Red to abandon large RPGs. Its identity has been built around ambitious, narrative-driven worlds, and its upcoming slate suggests that the company remains committed to operating at that level. The issue is not whether large games should exist. It is whether the industry can support a healthy mix of giant productions, mid-sized releases, experimental work, and new intellectual properties.

Darrah's perspective is especially notable because it comes from someone with experience across both celebrated RPG development and the realities of a high-profile live-service project. His comments point to the difference between a game that is merely successful in the eyes of players and one that satisfies the financial demands created by a huge production.

That gap can be invisible from the outside. A game can dominate online discussion, earn praise, and sell millions while still falling short of a company's internal expectations. Conversely, a more modestly budgeted title can build a strong community and become a decisive success without needing to compete with the biggest brands in entertainment.

• Large AAA productions can attract huge audiences, but carry higher costs and longer development cycles.
• Lower sales targets give developers more flexibility to pursue specialized ideas and manage risk.
• Established franchises bring built-in demand, while also increasing pressure to meet escalating expectations.
• New IP such as Project Hadar can diversify a studio's future, but adds another major development challenge.

What it means for The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2

There is no indication that CD Projekt Red's forthcoming games are in immediate trouble, and Darrah did not claim that they were. The concern is broader: the economics surrounding major games can become precarious when their budgets require extraordinary sales just to justify the investment.

The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 will arrive with substantial interest attached to them. Their franchises are among the most visible in contemporary RPGs, and the studio has the experience, technology, and audience to make them major releases. At the same time, their importance to CD Projekt Red's future makes the pressure surrounding them more intense.

For the wider industry, Darrah's comments are a reminder that bigger is not automatically safer. The desire to build the next all-conquering hit can lead to a situation where only the most extreme commercial outcomes are acceptable. A more sustainable future may depend on making room for ambitious games of many different sizes--not only the ones expected to sell tens of millions of copies.