Polish games giant CD Projekt has snapped up Canadian studio Digital Scapes as part of a change in its development strategy.
The firm has rebranded the outfit to CD Projekt Red Vancouver, following the two companies working together since 2018 on Cyberpunk 2077. No figure has been put on the deal.
This is part of the Polish firm's Red 2.0 strategy, which will see the outfit move to parallel work on products from two franchises – likely The Witcher and Cyberpunk – in addition to shifting to agile development, changes to how the company is managed to make sure staff can do the best work possible. It's also altering how it communicates with its audience.
"For three years we have been closely working together, and we trust them completely," CD Projekt head of production and CTO Paweł Zawodny said.
"Digital Scapes has put in a great deal of work during the making of Cyberpunk 2077, assisting with development of the game and optimising its various features. In addition to contributing to our projects the new team will help us perfect our technologies and will broaden our competences in this respect. We believe that the hugely talented Digital Scapes crew is the perfect foundation upon which to build a wider CD Projekt Red Vancouver team."
The head of CD Projekt Red Vancouver Marcin Chady added: "We are very excited to join a studio that forges the incredibly engaging, vastly scoped experiences, such as The Witcher trilogy and Cyberpunk 2077. We believe our contribution in the area of gameplay and technology can make them even more captivating. Being a Polish Canadian, I personally take great satisfaction in building bridges between Canadian and Polish game development industries. This is a great opportunity for Canadian developers to get involved with CD Projekt Red’s incredible IP and for CD Projekt Red to tap into Canada’s deep talent pool and game-making craft."
This comes in the wake of Cyberpunk 2077's rather troubled launch at the end of 2020. The title was released in a rather sorry state, so much so that Sony pulled the game from the PlayStation Store. CD Projekt has vowed to fix the title, rolling out the latest in a series of big patches for the game earlier this week.
