cdpr ceo thinks gta 6 and witcher 4 share the same philosophy

Saw a GamesRadar piece where the CD Projekt CEO was talking about Witcher 4 and he brought up GTA 6. He said you cannot make a game like Witcher 4 by being cost-driven, and he's 100% sure GTA 6 is being made the same way. His exact words were that the philosophy might be very similar in many ways.

That got me thinking about Rockstar's approach. We already know they spent years on this thing and the extended look showed a ridiculous amount of detail. If CDPR's boss is right, Rockstar isn't sitting there trimming the budget or cutting corners to hit some quarterly target. They're just making the game as big and detailed as it needs to be, cost be damned.

It's kind of reassuring. GTA 6 is probably the most expensive game ever made and it sounds like nobody at Rockstar is being told to wrap it up or scale back. The Witcher 4 comparison makes sense too, both studios are known for going all in on world building and side content.

Do you think Rockstar's philosophy is actually the same as CDPR's, or is GTA 6 just a different beast because of the online money behind it?

Source: GamesRadar+ · Curated content.

Probably some truth to it. Both studios treat the singleplayer as the main event, which is rare these days. But it's a lot easier to ignore costs when GTA Online prints money. CDPR is betting the house every time they ship. Rockstar isn't. Still, I'm glad somebody out there is making games this way.

bigmike nailed it. easy to be cost-blind when shark cards paid the bills for a decade. rp servers alone probably justified half that budget lol

But it's a lot easier to ignore costs when GTA Online prints money

True, but Rockstar was swinging for the fences way before shark cards were a thing. San Andreas in 2004 was three cities, planes, jetpacks, gym minigames, all crammed on a PS2. Nobody at Take-Two was telling them to trim that down either. The online money just turned the dial up. The instinct was already there.

Where I think the CDPR comparison actually holds is the detail obsession. Both studios will burn a year on stuff 90% of players never touch, and that's the part you can't fake with budget. Plenty of studios have dropped 300 million and shipped something completely soulless. If Witcher 4 really is being built the same way as 6, we're eating well for the next few years.