The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf - Canceled, Witcher 2 Starts Production?

GameBanshee claims The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf has been canceled, according to an "inside industry source". The newsbit says CD Projekt Red started three simultaneous Witcher developments after the PC version shipped - Rise of the White Wolf, The Witcher 2 and a new game altogether:

As the financial crisis hit, the studio was affected as well, finding itself incapable of managing all three projects and forced to lay off a significant portion of its staff. The third Witcher IP project was cancelled, and its entire crew was let go or left of their own volition. A second round of layoffs followed as The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf was cancelled, including around two dozen people losing their jobs yesterday.

The piece goes on to say resources have been concentrated behind The Witcher 2.
Meanwhile, Edge Online is running a similar story with the source stated as a translation at IncGamers from Polish site, Polygamia. From the IncGamers translation:

Roughly translated, the post reads: "We're sorry to give you this information. Our sources report that the console edition of The Witcher has been cancelled and the game will not see the light of day." The site reiterates that right now this is only rumour and that readers should wait for an official line before taking it too seriously.
A little later, polygamia posted an update from developer CD Projekt Red, which (again, very roughly translated) appears to say that the company is not commenting right now, but will make an official statement soon.

A lack of outright denial might be seen to add credence to the claims.
More information.

Wow if true. I was under the impression that they were pretty far along with porting it. Can't say I'm crying any tears over the console version, but I hope this doesn't damage the future of CD Projekt RED and their next proper game.

Wow this is… unexpected,a while ago they were bragging about the 1mil sales and now canceling 2 products?Sad though cause those with a console would love to have Witcher.Any info whether or not Witcher 2 will be multi-platform?

The GameBanshee piece says TW2 is multiplatform, which isn't a surprise. I wouldn't expect otherwise.

I'm sorry to see any people being laid off work in this day and age

However, I'm sort of happy that we're getting a Witcher 2 game, after all - although with a lot of bittersweetness in my mouth and mind, since sacrifices apparently had to be made in order to get Witcher 2 made.

On a sidenote, I don't understand why they cancelled the console versions of the first Witcher? The release of this surely would have meant money in the bank; I have seen at least 2-3 posts, if not 4-5 post on the witcher forums where people have said they would have bought Rise of the White Wolf, but when the cash is empty it is empty. Meaning that they probably didn't have enough money to pay bills and paychecks etc. At least that would be my guess…

Wow again. Seems to me the smart thing would be to finish whatever game was closest to completion. Does that mean Witcher 2 is closer? I would have thought they would have finished the console port first. Maybe the console port was crap and they cut their losses? -You know some games end up being crap once they're ported.
…I dunno.. just speculating.

Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
Wow again. Seems to me the smart thing would be to finish whatever game was closest to completion. Does that mean Witcher 2 is closer?

I wouldn't expect TW2 in 2009.

You know some games end up being crap once they're ported.

Amen to that.

I'm really sad for them. I was hoping they'd make a bundle on Rise… so they'd be flush with cash when working on Witcher 2 for the PC. This is a blow to Witcher and CDProjekt fans on all platforms.

I also am concerned about a cross-platform Witcher 2. It's a smart move, but still quite concerning. But I'll trust them to do right by us.

Around two dozen people losing their jobs yesterday in the second round of layoffs? How many people did lose their job there? Either way, this is extremely sad news and I hope those affected find employment elsewhere.

I am a bit puzzled how the financial crisis could affect them this severely. Somehow I had assumed that they had made enough money with The Witcher to pay off any debts from production and not depend on loaned money for a while, but that was obviously wrong.

Hopefully, they managed to keep the core staff responsible for producing the original The Witcher game. I would hate to see CD Project Red end because they overextended themselves.

In any event, I wish them the best of luck in managing this crisis.

Probably drunk by the success of the first game and started more projects than they can handle.

We don't know the details but CDPR has said the sales of TW essentially broke even. The financial crisis probably isn't directly applicable to the studio, but perhaps the parent company - CD Projekt - has taken a hit in terms of their Eastern European publishing business.

There seems to be some hints Tom Ohle has been affected. If you read this, Tom, best of luck and thanks for all your help over the years.

Originally Posted by Guhndahb
I'm really sad for them. I was hoping they'd make a bundle on Rise… so they'd be flush with cash when working on Witcher 2 for the PC.

That was my hope as well - spread fame for the franchise, get money for the devs.

A console project gets dumped for a change.
Too bad for the dev team though. They could've cashed in the same content on the console. And make more money. They've earned it with The Witcher.

video game bubbles? Hope they find their solid ground and build up from there.

Uh oh, let's hope they pull through. I definitely want to see more games from them.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
The GameBanshee piece says TW2 is multiplatform, which isn't a surprise. I wouldn't expect otherwise.

It's not unexpected…the huge sunk cost for game development process requires solid financing, which was hugely damaged by the financial crisis.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
Uh oh, let's hope they pull through. I definitely want to see more games from them.

Just fingers crossed. There is almost nothing we can do about this.

It's not suprising, Atari wanted them to finish game by the end of this year, which was not possible, because although game looked pretty good on movies and screenshots it had many problems.

Also CDP has very hard times now, they made many investitions just before the economic crisis, and none of which brought the significant profit, even Good Old Games is doing bad from what I heard, they are at the edge of bankrupcy right now. last month they laid off many people even skilled programmers, very hard times for them.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
A console project gets dumped for a change.

I don't find this disturbing in any way.
CD Projekt has enough resources for the PC sequel (Aurora engine plus award winning Platige animators) so consoleonly players will simply have to stick to another titles.
And no, I don't care for all those players who won't enjoy The Witcher just because they don't have a PC.

Bugger, that's very worrying. I will have to drink myself into a stupor (on Zubrowka vodka) if CD Projekt RED goes under, and The Witcher 2 never sees the light of day.

If true then I think it's a fairly sensible direction to go in - I wouldn't have expected sales of RotWW to be very high, as it would have faced criticism for being 'just a late port'. Making Witcher 2 multiplatform would hopefully cost less while ensuring no system is massively behind. I don't think the games market needs prior exposure to previous games in order for sequels to be successful (I never played might and magic 1, or akalabeth/ultimas I-IV. Played Daggerfall before Arena etc.)