The Witcher 3 director leaves developer CD Projekt due to ‘bad blood’ after bullying accusations
The Witcher 3. (CD Projekt Red)
The director of The Witcher 3, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, has resigned from his role at CD Projekt after accusations of bullying.
The VP of Game Development had been with the company for 17 years and was also the design director on Cyberpunk 2077.
CD Projekt conducted a month-long investigation into the bullying accusations, but ultimately found Tomaszkiewicz not guilty.
However, he decided to quit regardless on account of the “bad blood” caused.
“Nonetheless, a lot of people are feeling fear, stress or discomfort when working with me,” he reportedly wrote to colleagues in a final apology email.
“I am going to continue working on myself,” he continued. “Changing behaviour is a long and arduous process, but I’m not giving up, and I hope to change.”
According to a Bloomberg report, where the story broke, Tomaszkiewicz was set to have a key role in development of the next Witcher title, of which details are unknown.
The Witcher 3 has now sold over 30 million copies since its release in 2015.
A next-gen upgrade has been confirmed as on the way later this year. It will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC as a standalone product, or a free upgrade for owners of the game on PC, PS4 or Xbox One.
Tomaszkiewicz’s departure is just the latest controversy for CD Projekt after the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco at the game’s launch last year.
The game was unplayable on some consoles thanks to extensive bugs and crashes, leading PlayStation to remove the game from their PSN store and many consumers demanding refunds.
Still, thanks to high numbers of pre-orders, the game has sold 13.7 million copies since launch, making £215 million of profit for CD Projekt.
A hotfix for the game was released last week to address some remaining bugs, following the huge 1.2 patch at the end of March that’s made the game more playable than at launch.
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