Staff at Cyberpunk maker CD Projekt forming union

When Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt laid off 100 workers in the summer, some staff said enough was enough. Sick of the stress and anxiety caused by the spectre of job cuts, the workers set out to form a union. It was a big idea with small beginnings that has the potential to grow beyond the confines of CD Projekt’s Warsaw headquarters to become Poland’s game developer union, offering a home to all with a valid contract in the country.

CD Projekt Red has released its final proper update for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game as full development ends and control of the game is handed to the community.

Following a notoriously bumpy launch in 2020, CD Projekt Red successfully redeemed and revived Cyberpunk 2077 with several updates and the excellent Phantom Liberty expansion. But the Polish developer supposedly took a “significant” morale hit from the game’s troublesome development and is looking to do things differently with future release, including The Witcher 4.

CD Projekt Red’s Colin Walder had a discussion with Inven Global, and he spoke at length about his career and his time at CD Projekt Red. He also gives some insight into what was going down around the time of Cyberpunk 2077‘s disastrous launch which resulted in it being pulled from the PS Store. The interview isn’t all sour, however, as he also discusses the lessons the studio learned and the changes that occurred.

CD Projekt Red used AI to replace the voice actor Miłogost Reczek in Cyberpunk 2077 following his passing in 2021. 

If you've ever spoken to the ripperdoc character Viktor Vektor in the Polish localisation of Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion, you've been talking to a cyborg. Technically, of course, most characters in Cyberpunk 2077 are cyborgs, but in this case, I'm referring to one voice actor posing as another using voice-cloning technology, following the second actor's death.

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty includes the voice of a deceased actor from the base game, replicated using an AI algorithm by developer CD Projekt Red for the DLC campaign. The technology was used to recreate the sound of the late Miłogost Reczek, who voices delightfully named ripperdoc Viktor Vektor in the base game, with the permission from his family.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red used AI to recreate the voice of a deceased Polish actor for the Phantom Libery expansion, a new report revealed.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt used AI to replace a deceased voice actor after gaining permission from the family.

Some staff at CD Projekt Red, the Polish developer of Cyberpunk 2077 and the Witcher games, have formed the Polish Gamedev Workers Union in response to recent layoffs at the studio.

Developers at Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt Red have formed a union. The union was formed in response to the company's three rounds of layoffs this year, as reported by Eurogamer. Polish Gamedev Workers Union founders Lev Ki and Paweł Myszka say that all necessary documentation has been submitted but that the union hasn't heard any response from CDPR management, according to the publication. 

There's a side mission in Cyberpunk 2077 that involves abducting a notorious union-breaker. One wonders if any of the people who worked on that have joined the union founded by CD Projekt RED employees this month. The union is part of the larger Polish worker's organisation OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza, and comes in response to CD Projekt's firing around 100 employees in July due to "overstaffing". Its membership is anonymous and open to people in the industry who aren't employed by the Witcher and Cyberpunk studio, but are thinking about forming a union in their own workplace.