CD Projekt Red does not think you can build something like The Witcher 4 by chasing the lowest possible budget, and its leadership does not think Rockstar Games built GTA 6 that way either. In an interview published September 1, 2026 on The Game Business, CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski laid out the studio’s thinking on cost versus quality, and drew a direct line between his own studio’s flagship sequel and the industry’s most anticipated release. The comments were picked up within a day by GamesRadar and Tech4Gamers, turning a routine trade interview into one of gaming’s most discussed stories of the week.
The remarks land at a moment when the games industry is unusually preoccupied with money. Layoffs, rising component costs, and record-breaking budgets are all colliding at once, and Nowakowski’s comments give the debate a concrete, named face. Here is what he said, what it means for Witcher 4 and GTA 6, and why the “cost-driven development” phrase has become a flashpoint for how big-budget games get made in 2026.
What Nowakowski Actually Said
Speaking on The Game Business Show, Nowakowski was asked how CD Projekt Red balances budget discipline against the scale of a project like The Witcher 4. His answer, as published by The Game Business, rejected the framing outright. “We are cost-conscious,” he said, before adding that quality, not cost, determines the studio’s decisions. “I definitely wouldn’t say this is a cost-driven development,” he told the outlet.
He went further, framing cost-driven thinking as fundamentally incompatible with a game on the scale CD Projekt Red is planning. “If you want to have a cost-driven development, and that’s proper business thinking for a lot of games, you cannot make a game like The Witcher 4,” Nowakowski said, according to the same interview. That line is the one GamesRadar picked up in its headline, and it is the crux of why this story is spreading across the gaming press this week.
Then came the GTA 6 comparison. Asked whether Rockstar’s approach mirrors his own studio’s philosophy, Nowakowski did not hedge. “I doubt if the development of GTA 6 was a cost-driven development,” he said. “In fact, I’m 100% sure it wasn’t.” It is a striking statement from a rival executive, effectively vouching for Rockstar’s spending discipline, or lack of one, without any inside knowledge of Take-Two’s internal budget sheets.
Inside the CD Projekt Red Interview
The Game Business framed the conversation as part of a broader piece titled “CD Projekt Red: If you want a cost-driven development, you cannot make The Witcher 4.” Beyond the budget remarks, Nowakowski used the interview to discuss CD Projekt Red’s plans to ship more games without necessarily shrinking any single project’s scope. One route the joint CEO floated, per the outlet, is making games faster rather than making them cheaper, a subtle but important distinction that keeps quality bars intact while increasing release cadence across the studio’s slate.
Notably, Nowakowski did not attach a dollar figure, headcount, or release window to either The Witcher 4 or GTA 6 in the interview. His comments were about philosophy and internal decision-making, not disclosure. CD Projekt has not published a Witcher 4 budget, and Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive have never confirmed an official GTA 6 production cost either, despite years of industry speculation that it is the single most expensive video game ever made.
Why “Cost-Driven Development” Is a Loaded Phrase Right Now
Nowakowski’s word choice matters because “cost-driven” is not neutral industry jargon in 2026. It is the phrase studios use to describe projects that get trimmed, delayed feature cuts, or canceled outright once a budget ceiling is hit, regardless of whether the underlying game still needs more time or money to reach its ambition. Tech-insider has tracked a wave of exactly that kind of decision-making across the industry this year, including our Games Industry Reset report, which forecasts roughly 14,666 layoffs tied to studio cost-cutting in 2026 alone.
Against that backdrop, a CEO publicly distancing his own tentpole project from cost-driven thinking is a statement of intent aimed at players, investors, and CD Projekt’s own staff. It signals that The Witcher 4 will not be the next casualty of the belt-tightening sweeping through publishers this year, even as hardware costs and layoffs squeeze margins elsewhere in the industry, including on the console side, where PS5 prices have climbed amid a 171% DRAM cost spike.
The Witcher 3’s $81 Million Precedent
Nowakowski’s comments carry extra weight because CD Projekt has a public track record to point to. Back in 2015, then-CEO Adam Kiciński disclosed that developing and promoting The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt cost the studio 306 million Polish złoty, or roughly $81 million, a figure reported by PC Gamer at the time and later detailed further by GameDeveloper. That spend funded an internal team of more than 240 people spanning 18 nationalities, with roughly 1,500 people involved in development and launch worldwide.
The game shipped in 15 languages, seven of them fully dubbed, requiring around 500 voice actors, according to CD Projekt’s own financial briefing coverage. It paid off: The Witcher 3 sold 6 million copies in its first six weeks, generating a net profit of 236 million złoty, or about $63 million, per the same reporting. A separate GameDeveloper estimate breaks the spend down differently, pegging pure production costs around $67 million and marketing around $35 million, with that production cost recouped after the game passed 4 million units sold.
Either way you slice the figures, the message is the same: CD Projekt has already proven, at least once, that a large upfront spend on quality can be recovered many times over. That history is almost certainly what Nowakowski is drawing on when he argues cost-first thinking would have made The Witcher 3 impossible, let alone a more technically ambitious Witcher 4.
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Witcher 3 total dev + promo spend | 306M złoty (~$81M) | CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński, 2015 briefing |
| Internal development team size | 240+ people, 18 nationalities | PC Gamer / CD Projekt briefing |
| Total people involved worldwide | ~1,500 | PC Gamer |
| Languages / dubbed versions | 15 languages, 7 fully dubbed, ~500 voice actors | PC Gamer |
| Copies sold, first six weeks | 6 million | PC Gamer |
| Net profit, first six weeks | 236M złoty (~$63M) | PC Gamer |
| Alternate production/marketing estimate | ~$67M production, ~$35M marketing | GameDeveloper estimate |
| Witcher 4 budget | Undisclosed | CD Projekt has not published a figure |
| GTA 6 budget | Undisclosed; widely described as gaming’s most expensive production | Industry reporting, unconfirmed by Take-Two |
What Witcher 4 Is Up Against
The Witcher 4 is a heavier technical lift than its predecessor by almost any measure. It runs on Unreal Engine 5 rather than CD Projekt’s homegrown REDengine, a switch the studio made specifically to reduce the risk of the kind of launch problems that hit Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020. That engine change alone reshapes the studio’s cost structure: licensing, retraining staff, and rebuilding tools all carry upfront costs that a cost-driven studio might have avoided by sticking with familiar, cheaper-to-maintain technology.
CD Projekt has also been running multiple projects in parallel, including Witcher-universe spin-off work and continued support for Cyberpunk 2077, which means the studio’s overall budget envelope is being split several ways even as Witcher 4 remains the flagship. That parallel structure is precisely the challenge Nowakowski referenced when he talked about shipping games faster rather than cheaper: the studio wants more output without asking any single title, including Witcher 4, to shoulder a lighter budget.
GTA 6’s Quality-First Case, According to Nowakowski
Nowakowski’s confidence that GTA 6 was not cost-driven is an outside read, not an insider account, since Rockstar and Take-Two have never opened their books on the project. But it lines up with everything publicly known about how Rockstar has operated for over a decade: extended, open-ended development timelines, minimal public pressure to hit a specific date, and a willingness to delay rather than ship an unfinished product. GTA 6 has already slipped past its original 2025 target, and Rockstar has continued refining the game rather than locking a shorter schedule to control spend.
Take-Two’s public pricing decisions add another data point. Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick has defended GTA 6’s reported $80 price point, according to reporting from Yahoo Tech, arguing the company could have charged even more given the scale of what it built but chose not to. That is not the behavior of a publisher trying to recoup a tightly managed budget as fast as possible; it is the behavior of a company confident the game’s scope alone will justify a premium price over a long sales tail.
Cost-Driven vs Quality-First: How the Industry Compares
Nowakowski’s comments sit inside a much wider industry argument about whether big-budget games are becoming too expensive to make sustainably. Some studios are visibly cutting costs this year, others are doubling down on scope regardless of price. The table below lines up how different corners of the industry are approaching the same pressure in 2026.
| Company | Stated Approach | 2026 Data Point |
|---|---|---|
| CD Projekt Red | Quality-first; cost-conscious but not cost-driven | Nowakowski: quality is “the dominant thing we look at” |
| Rockstar Games / Take-Two | Believed by Nowakowski to also be quality-first, not cost-driven | Take-Two defended GTA 6’s reported $80 price as reflecting scale |
| Games industry, broadly | Widespread cost-cutting via headcount reduction | 14,666 layoffs forecast industrywide in 2026, per tech-insider’s tracking |
| Sony (PS5 hardware) | Cost pressure passed to consumers via pricing | PS5 prices rising amid a 171% DRAM cost spike |
| CD Projekt (internal strategy) | Increase output by developing faster, not cheaper | Nowakowski floated faster development cycles across multiple parallel projects |
Historical Context: When Cost-Driven Development Went Wrong
CD Projekt itself has lived through the alternative scenario. Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December 2020 under intense schedule pressure, following multiple delays and, according to widely reported accounts at the time, a crunch-heavy final stretch aimed at hitting a fixed release window. The result was a buggy launch on last-generation consoles that damaged the studio’s reputation and triggered refunds, a temporary PlayStation Store delisting, and years of rebuilding trust through free updates and the Phantom Liberty expansion.
That history is likely the unspoken backdrop to Nowakowski’s comments. A studio that once rushed a release to hit a date, only to spend years repairing the damage, has an obvious incentive to argue publicly that its next flagship will not repeat the mistake. The Witcher 3’s smoother launch and long profitable tail, versus Cyberpunk 2077’s rocky debut and slow recovery, gives CD Projekt’s own back catalog a built-in case study for both outcomes.
Market Impact: What This Means for CD Projekt and Investors
Public comments from a joint CEO about budget philosophy are not neutral trivia for CD Projekt’s shareholders. The studio’s stock performance has long been tied to expectations around The Witcher 4’s scope and timeline, and any signal that management is prioritizing quality over strict budget discipline can cut both ways. Investors who remember Cyberpunk 2077’s costly post-launch recovery may read “not cost-driven” as reassurance that CD Projekt learned its lesson about rushing releases. Others may read it as a warning that Witcher 4’s budget, and therefore its break-even point, keeps climbing with no firm ceiling in sight.
For Take-Two, Nowakowski’s comments function as free reputational cover from a competitor, reinforcing the narrative that GTA 6’s scale justifies its price and its repeated delays. That narrative matters heading into the game’s launch window, given how closely Take-Two’s own stock has moved on every piece of GTA 6 news this year, including its response to the recent GTA VI leak and ongoing debates over its reported pricing and disc availability.
Competitive Comparison: The Witcher 4 vs GTA 6 as Products
Beyond budget philosophy, the two games occupy different competitive lanes. The Witcher 4 is a single-player-focused open-world RPG built to carry a new trilogy, competing most directly with other narrative RPGs rather than sandbox action games. GTA 6 is an open-world action title with an online component that has historically driven years of recurring revenue for Rockstar and Take-Two through GTA Online. Nowakowski’s comparison is about philosophy, not genre, but it is worth noting the two studios do not actually compete for the same players in the same year; if anything, a strong GTA 6 launch raises consumer expectations that indirectly raise the bar Witcher 4 has to clear when it eventually arrives.
Our recent coverage of GTA 6’s locked 30 FPS console target shows Rockstar making its own scope trade-offs, prioritizing visual fidelity over frame rate even on PS5 Pro. That is arguably its own version of a quality-first decision: Rockstar chose fidelity over the performance mode many players wanted, a trade-off that would look very different under a stricter cost-and-schedule mandate.
Reactions Across the Gaming Press
GamesRadar’s write-up leaned into the direct comparison, running the headline that both The Witcher 4 and GTA 6 “can’t be made by pinching pennies,” per its coverage of the interview. Tech4Gamers framed the story around the broader tension between ambition and budget discipline in its own report on the comments, while community discussion on gaming forums quickly zeroed in on the GTA 6 line as the more provocative half of the interview, since Nowakowski has no actual insight into Rockstar’s internal budgeting.
In His Own Words: Nowakowski’s Key Quotes
The interview is worth reading in full for anyone tracking how CD Projekt Red talks about money versus ambition. Four lines stand out as the clearest summary of his position, all from the same Game Business interview:
- “We are cost-conscious.” — Michał Nowakowski, Joint CEO, CD Projekt Red
- “I definitely wouldn’t say this is a cost-driven development.” — Michał Nowakowski, Joint CEO, CD Projekt Red
- “If you want to have a cost-driven development, and that’s proper business thinking for a lot of games, you cannot make a game like The Witcher 4.” — Michał Nowakowski, Joint CEO, CD Projekt Red
- “I doubt if the development of GTA 6 was a cost-driven development. In fact, I’m 100% sure it wasn’t.” — Michał Nowakowski, Joint CEO, CD Projekt Red
Taken together, the quotes describe a studio that treats budget as a constraint to manage rather than a target to hit. Nowakowski is careful to note cost is “not unimportant,” but he places it below quality in the studio’s actual decision-making hierarchy, a distinction that matters a great deal to anyone trying to predict how CD Projekt will handle a Witcher 4 budget overrun if one happens.
What This Means for Players Waiting on Witcher 4
For fans, the practical takeaway is mixed. A studio that refuses to let budget dictate scope is more likely to deliver an ambitious game, but it is also more likely to need extra time, extra money, or both before it is ready to ship. CD Projekt has not confirmed a release date for The Witcher 4, and Nowakowski’s comments give no new timeline. What they do give is a clearer signal about the studio’s priorities: if a choice comes down to shipping on schedule versus shipping at the intended quality bar, the interview suggests quality wins, even if that means further delays.
Players who followed CD Projekt’s recent Witcher 3 remaster work on Steam Deck have already seen the studio’s current technical priorities in action, refining an older title with modern performance targets rather than treating it as a low-cost afterthought. That same instinct, applied at Witcher 4’s scale, is exactly what Nowakowski is describing.
Predictions: Where This Story Goes From Here
- Expect CD Projekt to face repeated investor questions about Witcher 4’s budget ceiling on upcoming earnings calls, given how directly Nowakowski tied cost discipline to quality outcomes.
- Rockstar and Take-Two are unlikely to confirm or deny Nowakowski’s read on GTA 6’s development philosophy, since the companies have historically avoided disclosing production budgets.
- Other studio executives will likely be asked to weigh in on the “cost-driven versus quality-first” framing in upcoming interviews, especially as industry layoffs continue through the rest of 2026.
- CD Projekt’s push to develop games faster rather than cheaper will be tested as Witcher 4 and its parallel Witcher-universe and Cyberpunk-related projects compete for the same internal resources.
- If Witcher 4 slips further, expect renewed comparisons to Cyberpunk 2077’s troubled 2020 launch, with Nowakowski’s comments cited as evidence the studio chose caution over speed.
The Bigger Picture for Big-Budget Game Development
Nowakowski’s comments arrive as a useful counterpoint to a year defined by industry cost-cutting. While thousands of developers face layoffs and studios trim scope to survive shrinking margins, CD Projekt Red is publicly staking its next flagship title on the opposite bet: that quality-first spending, not cost discipline, is what makes a game like The Witcher 4, or GTA 6, possible in the first place. Whether that bet pays off the way The Witcher 3 did, or strains the studio the way Cyberpunk 2077’s rushed finish once did, will not be clear until Witcher 4 actually reaches players. For now, the interview gives the clearest public statement yet of how CD Projekt Red’s leadership thinks about the trade-off, and it puts Rockstar’s famously secretive GTA 6 budget back in the headlines by association.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who said Witcher 4 and GTA 6 aren’t cost-driven?
Michał Nowakowski, joint CEO of CD Projekt Red, made the comments in an interview published by The Game Business on September 1, 2026.
What exactly did Nowakowski say about The Witcher 4?
He said that a cost-driven approach, one that treats budget as the top priority, “cannot” produce a game like The Witcher 4, and that CD Projekt Red is cost-conscious but does not let cost dictate quality decisions.
Did Nowakowski confirm GTA 6’s actual budget?
No. He said he is “100% sure” GTA 6’s development was not cost-driven, but this is his personal assessment as a rival executive, not confirmed insider information from Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive, neither of which has disclosed an official budget figure.
How much did The Witcher 3 cost to make?
CD Projekt disclosed in 2015 that developing and promoting The Witcher 3 cost about 306 million złoty, roughly $81 million, according to reporting from PC Gamer and GameDeveloper at the time.
Has CD Projekt disclosed a budget for The Witcher 4?
No. CD Projekt has not published a development budget, team size figure, or release date for The Witcher 4 as of this report.
Why does CD Projekt care about avoiding cost-driven development?
The studio’s own history offers a clear contrast: The Witcher 3 launched relatively smoothly and turned a strong profit, while Cyberpunk 2077’s rushed 2020 launch led to a rocky debut and years of reputational repair, a pattern widely covered in gaming and business press at the time.
Is the games industry generally becoming more or less cost-driven in 2026?
Trends are mixed. Tech-insider’s own tracking points to roughly 14,666 forecast layoffs tied to cost-cutting industrywide in 2026, even as flagship titles like The Witcher 4 and GTA 6 continue receiving open-ended, quality-first budgets according to their respective studios.
Where can I read the full original interview?
The full interview is available on The Game Business, with follow-up coverage from GamesRadar and Tech4Gamers.