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[Dazraell]

CD Projekt recently posted a job advertisement where they look for Senior / Principal Combat Designer to join the team working on The Witcher spin-off codenamed project Sirius. The project is developed by The Molasses Flood studio in Boston. The excerpt of this job advert directly references Sirius as a multiplayer action game

The Molasses Flood is looking for a Senior or Principal Combat Designer to help drive the vision and implementation of the combat experience in our latest project, a multiplayer action game set within the world of The Witcher. You will take on everything from the high-level — pitching enemy and weapon types — to the sub-second nitty-gritty — placing I-Frames, damage volumes, damage and hit reaction balancing, etc.. You will work across disciplines, from art and animation to engineering and production, to make our game’s combat fun, satisfying, and scalable from the early game to the late.

There is one more job advert mentioning a bit more about gameplay loop. According to it the game will include inventory system, abilities, crafting, combat encounters, dynamic world interactions, etc

This Engineer will work closely with content teams to create and implement gameplay systems that will bring the game world to life, with a focus on areas such as inventory, abilities, contracts, crafting, combat encounters, dynamic world interactions, and more. Our ideal candidate has deep experience working across disciplines to design these systems, is a skilled communicator, and is a self driven problem solver.

Job adverts doesn't provide any other interesting details beyond mentioning that experience with Unreal Engine 4 / 5 is considered as a perk which implies Sirius may also be developed on Unreal

 

[Skifi28]

 

[Perrott]

We already knew this... for years.

 

[Dazraell]

We already knew this... for years.

The project was rebooted from the ground up in 2023 and changed its direction so everything we heard about it in the past might not necessarily be fully reflective to what they're working right now

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

 

[tusharngf]

LoL

 

[Laptop1991]

Not my type of game then, it's a pass from me.

 

[Complistic]

Ah yes, we've heard CDPR was making a multiplayer game before.

 

[TheRedRiders]

The Witcher is such a massive world ripe with so much potential. We're going to get a steady stream of the single player games in the upcoming years, and multiplayer si a huge bonus. I always felt it was something this franchise was missing, there's so much they can do with it.

 

[Deft Beck]

They really want their own Fallout 76, huh?

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Looking forward to Witcher Squad: slay the Rivia's wolf

 

[Heisenberg007]

 

[Mister Wolf]

They never learn.

 

[Hrk69]

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Who asked for this?

Like, literally which fan of the first three Witcher games said, "I want a MP spin off game in this series"?

Why are the execs and studios leads in this industry just increasing disconnected from what gamers actually want?

 

[thief183]

An mmo in the Witcher world would be my dream game.

 

[Perrott]

Who asked for this?

Like, literally which fan of the first three Witcher games said, "I want a MP spin off game in this series"?

Why are the execs and studios leads in this industry just increasing disconnected from what gamers actually want?

The Witcher literally does revolve around monster hunting and Capcom's Monster Hunter World went on to sell over 20 million copies lifetime, so CDPR would be stupid to not want to claim a piece of that pie. And what "gamers really want" are live-service titles, looking at how, for instance, a dozen live-service titles generate half of ALL the revenue on the PS Store.

Plus, you're already confirmed to be getting a new singleplayer The Witcher trilogy developed by CDPR's Poland headquarters, so what's the deal with all this complaining about the MP spin-off just existing?

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

The Witcher literally does revolve around monster hunting and Capcom's Monster Hunter World went on to sell over 20 million copies lifetime, so CDPR would be stupid to not want to claim a piece of that pie.

Yes they would be stupid, when they've never made a MP game before. Anyway, this isn't CD Project Red, and the rub here is that the spin-off game studio is making a MP in a franchise that consists of SP game fans, not fans of MP Monster Hunter games.

And what "gamers really want" are live-service titles, looking at how, for instance, a dozen live-service titles generate half of ALL the revenue on the PS Store.

This is absurd reasoning. "Gamers" are not one big monolithic hivemind. The players who bought and played the Witcher games are not the same people who play Live Service games. If you can't even grasp that basic point then we're really wasting our time with this debate.

Plus, you're already confirmed to be getting a new singleplayer The Witcher trilogy developed by CDPR's Poland headquarters, so what's the deal with all this complaining about the MP spin-off just existing?

The issue isn't with the game existing. It's with the question of who is the game for? If this spin-off studio is investing their valuable dev time in making a game, and they wanna make a MP game, why choose to do it in a franchise that has been exclusively SP?

Normally, when you make a new game within an existing IP, the reason you do that and not just make a new IP, is to capitalize off the embedded fanbase for that franchise. This clearly isn't going to achieve that, because whoever made the calculation that the Witcher fanbase would be in it for a MP spin-off game has clearly gotten it so wrong that I don't see this being anything other than a fiscal disaster. We don't need more studios going under because gaming execs make fucking retarded decisions (e.g. like WB putting Rocksteady to work on a Suicide Squad GaaS game).

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

We really got people in here pretending they don't know how popular and profitable Live Service games have become.

Why do you choose to live in this fabricated reality?

 

[hemo memo]

We really got people in here pretending they don't know how popular and profitable Live Service games have become.

Why do you choose to live in this fabricated reality?

We really got people in here pretending they don’t know about the graveyard of failed Live Service games that sunk studios.

Why do you choose to live in this fabricated reality?

 

[Hrk69]

We really got people in here pretending they don't know how popular and profitable Live Service games have become.

Most of the live service games released are failing miserably

Plus most of them are fucking boring. They're just copies of each-other with zero innovation.

I'm baffled that studios keep pursuing this trash.

 

[Hudo]

Watch it become so profitable that all the focus will be shifted towards supporting and extending it while there won't be any resources left for new single-player Witcher games.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Most of the live service games released are failing miserably.

What are the failure rates of traditional single player games compared to Live Service games?

Plus most of them are fucking boring. They're just copies of each-other with zero innovation.

That's just subjective nonsense.

I'm baffled that studios keep pursuing this trash.

You're baffled that the industry is pursuing Live Service when it constitutes ~70% of the industries revenue, a number that continues to rise, despite the overwhelmingly lopsided investment into traditional single player games over the last 20 years?

 

[Fbh]

I mean, I could see a Co-Op Witcher game where you team up with some friends and take on contracts to be quite fun. They'd really have to expand and improve the combat for it to work though.
They could also take a page from something like Vrising and let you build your own Witcher keep/fortress.

I'm not a GaaS fan at all but we know the core team is working a new single player Witcher. So as a sideproject I don't think this hurts.

 

[Dazraell]

Yes they would be stupid, when they've never made a MP game before. Anyway, this isn't CD Project Red, and the rub here is that the spin-off game studio is making a MP in a franchise that consists of SP game fans, not fans of MP Monster Hunter games.

You could use the same argument with Witcher 3 being CDPR first open world game as they never made a game like this before, considering Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 were much more linear experiences. Yet they knocked it out of the park. You also act like CD Projekt never released any spin-offs to The Witcher before. But they actually did. There are more spin-offs than actual mainline games lol. Some of them were even multiplayer. To me this project seems like yet another attempt to branch out the franchise. But it's not like it'll be something that is intended to replace the mainline games. It's probably something intended to exist alongside mainline games

The issue isn't with the game existing. It's with the question of who is the game for? If this spin-off studio is investing their valuable dev time in making a game, and they wanna make a MP game, why choose to do it in a franchise that has been exclusively SP?

Normally, when you make a new game within an existing IP, the reason you do that and not just make a new IP, is to capitalize off the embedded fanbase for that franchise. This clearly isn't going to achieve that, because whoever made the calculation that the Witcher fanbase would be in it for a MP spin-off game has clearly gotten it so wrong that I don't see this being anything other than a fiscal disaster. We don't need more studios going under because gaming execs make fucking retarded decisions (e.g. like WB putting Rocksteady to work on a Suicide Squad GaaS game).

The original reports sounded like it might be Monster Hunter-like game with singleplayer and multiplayer, but last year the project was rebooted and went back to the drawing board so it's hard to say if that's still the case. The franchise has legs for something like that and Monster Hunter formula could work well if done right. Personally speaking, I feel they're just following Blizzard model and are trying to explore their franchises in different genres, kinda like Warcraft being a real-time strategy, MMORPG, card game, etc, and looking if something out of this might gain more traction

Normally, when you make a new game within an existing IP, the reason you do that and not just make a new IP, is to capitalize off the embedded fanbase for that franchise. This clearly isn't going to achieve that, because whoever made the calculation that the Witcher fanbase would be in it for a MP spin-off game has clearly gotten it so wrong that I don't see this being anything other than a fiscal disaster. We don't need more studios going under because gaming execs make fucking retarded decisions (e.g. like WB putting Rocksteady to work on a Suicide Squad GaaS game).

CD Projekt is working on multiple projects at the same time. Company isn't going anywhere and their future doesn't seems to be tied to multiplayer projects. Majority of the devs are currently working on the next Witcher mainline game which is singleplayer and open world. That's also literally the first game from them that will be released. Looking at the chart with dev teams, Sirius (aka this multiplayer game) has a smaller team than Orion (Cyberpunk sequel) and slightly larger than Hadar (CDPR's original IP) which means it's either a project with a much smaller scope or they're still figuring out its foundations and it'll be years before its official reveal

 

[Cyberpunkd]

The project was rebooted from the ground up in 2023 and changed its direction

It’s almost as the universe is trying to tell CDPR something.

 

[Dazraell]

It’s almost as the universe is trying to tell CDPR something.

Unironically when this project was announced, Sirius was labeled as singleplayer game with campaign and multiplayer on top of it. Now the job adverts calls it as "multiplayer action game", so dunno if universe told them the right thing lol

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

You could use the same argument with Witcher 3 being CDPR first open world game as they never made a game like this before, considering Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 were much more linear experiences. Yet they knocked it out of the park. You also act like CD Projekt never released any spin-offs to The Witcher before. But they actually did. There are more spin-offs than actual mainline games lol. Some of them were even multiplayer. To me this project seems like yet another attempt to branch out the franchise. But it's not like it'll be something that is intended to replace the mainline games. It's probably something intended to exist alongside mainline games


The original reports sounded like it might be Monster Hunter-like game with singleplayer and multiplayer, but last year the project was rebooted and went back to the drawing board so it's hard to say if that's still the case. The franchise has legs for something like that and Monster Hunter formula could work well if done right. Personally speaking, I feel they're just following Blizzard model and are trying to explore their franchises in different genres, kinda like Warcraft being a real-time strategy, MMORPG, card game, etc, and looking if something out of this might gain more traction


CD Projekt is working on multiple projects at the same time. Company isn't going anywhere and their future doesn't seems to be tied to multiplayer projects. Majority of the devs are currently working on the next Witcher mainline game which is singleplayer and open world. That's also literally the first game from them that will be released. Looking at the chart with dev teams, Sirius (aka this multiplayer game) has a smaller team than Orion (Cyberpunk sequel) and slightly larger than Hadar (CDPR's original IP) which means it's either a project with a much smaller scope or they're still figuring out its foundations and it'll be years before its official reveal

CD Project Red isn't making this game.

The Molasses Flood is the dev. It's right there in the thread title.

 

[Dazraell]

CD Project Red isn't making this game.

The Molasses Flood is the dev. It's right there in the thread title.

CDPR acquired The Molasses Flood in 2021. Since then they're part of them as one of their internal studios. The job adverts from this thread literally comes from CDPR website. The image I sent lists CDPR total dev count and includes this project as well. To my understanding they also share the space with Orion team and work in the same building

 

[Barakov]

CD Projekt recently posted a job advertisement where they look for Senior / Principal Combat Designer to join the team working on The Witcher spin-off codenamed project Sirius. The project is developed by The Molasses Flood studio in Boston. The excerpt of this job advert directly references Sirius as a multiplayer action game



There is one more job advert mentioning a bit more about gameplay loop. According to it the game will include inventory system, abilities, crafting, combat encounters, dynamic world interactions, etc



Job adverts doesn't provide any other interesting details beyond mentioning that experience with Unreal Engine 4 / 5 is considered as a perk which implies Sirius may also be developed on Unreal

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

CDPR acquired The Molasses Flood in 2021. Since then they're part of them as one of their internal studios. The job adverts from this thread literally comes from CDPR website. The image I sent lists CDPR total dev count and includes this project as well. To my understanding they also share the space with Orion team and work in the same building

I didn't know this. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Metnut]

GTA Online started as a side project by “B” developers and is now basically the #1 priority for the entire studio.

Anyone who buys this is basically financing the end of single player Witcher/Cyberpunk and expansion DLCs.