Witcher 3 director and Cyberpunk 2077 co-director forms new studio

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Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, director of The Witcher 3 and Head of Production/Secondary Game Director on Cyberpunk 2077, has founded a new studio with other ex-CD Projekt Red alumni. Tomaszkiewicz will be CEO and game director, and has announced that the team is working on a dark fantasy RPG built in Unreal Engine 5 that they hope will revolutionize the RPG genre. "Collectively, we envision Rebel Wolves as a place where experienced game developers can reignite their passion, where they can focus on their craft and pour their love into an amazing, ambitious title," said Tomaszkiewicz in a press release. "We want to stay small and agile—a place where people know and care for each other.” The press release also emphasizes several times that they will be putting the team first, possibly alluding to allegations of crunch and abuse at CD Projekt Red. "The team comes first, always. Happy people make great games – games players want and deserve. Yes, it's as simple as that," reads one such section.

Joining Tomaszkiewicz are other former CD Projekt Red employees, including Design Director Daniel Sadowski (Witcher 1), Narrative Director and Main Writer Jakub Szamałek (Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Thronebreaker), Art Director Bartłomiej Gaweł (Witcher 1-3) and Animation Director Tamara Zawada (Witcher 3). “In order to create truly great games, we won't chase trends or numbers," said narrative director Jakub Szamalek. "Our goal is clearly defined: to create memorable games, tell moving stories, and evoke visceral emotions."

:arrow: Source (GBAtemp Inbox)
:arrow: Rebel Wolves official website
 

Purple_Shyguy

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Which diversity hires are you talking about exactly? Because looking down the list of people who made it, I'm seeing director Adam Badowski (white dude), producer Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (white dude), lead programmer Piotr Tomsiński (white dude), writers Marcin Blacha and Tomasz Marchewka (both white dudes), and composers P.T. Adamczyk, Marcin Przybyłowicz and Paul Leonard-Morgan (all white dudes). The two actors for the playable character are also both white, and the main actor in the marketing and the crux of the entire story is Keanu Reeves, a white dude. According to this GameSpot article, all but one person on the boards of directors were men. At the end of the fiscal year 2019 (April 2020), when the majority of creative design work on Cyberpunk would have already been done, they announced they had made more diverse hires, but men still comprised 74 percent of the company, and Polish people made up 79 percent.
These ones 😂😂😂

Also, should you be assuming all those peoples genders?
ESmDFM2X0AEjndp.jpg
 

relauby

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These ones 😂😂😂

Also, should you be assuming all those peoples genders? View attachment 298428
So you think that because enough women were at CDPR, in low-power positions, to fill a small room, they completely altered the corporate culture and drove away the people at the top?
 
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Purple_Shyguy

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So you think that because enough women were at CDPR, in low-power positions, to fill a small room, they completely altered the corporate culture and drove away the people at the top?
Why are you assuming they all had small roles? We know for example that the AI behavior for all the NPC's head programmer was a woman. (She tweeted about her role online).

You know, that notoriously awful AI?
 

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Why are you assuming they all had small roles? We know for example that the AI behavior for all the NPC's head programmer was a woman. (She tweeted about her role online).

You know, that notoriously awful AI?
I was exaggerating when I said they were all low-level, but that's an insanely surface level view to think that just because the AI didn't work that this lady doesn't know what she's doing and was only hired for diversity points. I mean, basically nothing in the game worked, so what about the subteams that were headed by men? Do the male lead programmer and male director bear any responsibility, or just the women lower on the totem pole? If CDPR were just going woke points, why wouldn't they put any women in prominent positions, and wouldn't they make a bigger percentage of their company diverse? Doesn't it seem more likely that Cyberpunk 2077's development was a shitshow, and it likely couldn't have been saved by anyone with that amount of time and resources, regardless of their talent or ability?
 

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Last time fantastically good developers in the RPG medium left to go make their own studio because the industry screwed them, we got InExile Entertainment. (Wasteland 2/3, Torment) So good for these guys, hopefully they do something great.

Cyberpunk sounds like it was an unending trash fire to work on, top to bottom. People like to levy their complaints at the developers, and while I'm sure they have their own faults to the project crashing and burning, a lot of the issues seemed to come from the publishing and upper management side of things.
 
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RAHelllord

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Why are you assuming they all had small roles? We know for example that the AI behavior for all the NPC's head programmer was a woman. (She tweeted about her role online).

You know, that notoriously awful AI?
Man, you are scrambling to find "facts" to fit your preconceived notions that it was woman and POC that made the game bad and not the entirety of the upper management going for permanent crunch and impossible deadlines and then ultimately decided to ship an early beta and call it "done".

Also, yes, the AI was absolutely the only bad aspect of the game upon launch, it wasn't basically every single aspect that didn't work correctly one way or another.
 
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Man, you are scrambling to find "facts" to fit your preconceived notions that it was woman and POC that made the game bad and not the entirety of the upper management going for permanent crunch and impossible deadlines and then ultimately decided to ship an early beta and call it "done".

Also, yes, the AI was absolutely the only bad aspect of the game upon launch, it wasn't basically every single aspect that didn't work correctly one way or another.

Witcher 3. 99% straight white men
Game good.

CP2077. All the key W3 staff gone, huge influx of women and diversity hires.
Game bad.

Really makes you think 🤔
 

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Witcher 3. 99% straight white men
Game good.

CP2077. All the key W3 staff gone, huge influx of women and diversity hires.
Game bad.

Really makes you think 🤔
Yes, it really makes you think that your "theory" is quite stupid.

Are you Bobby Kotick in disguise? Cuz I can't tell which take is more laughworthy--that only straight white guys can make good video games, or that you needed to add anything to "key W3 staff left" as to why 2077 sucked. And only that singular reason, definitely, nothing else impacted that gigantic game's development and quality. gr8 b8 m8
 

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RAHelllord

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Witcher 3. 99% straight white men
Game good.

CP2077. All the key W3 staff gone, huge influx of women and diversity hires.
Game bad.

Really makes you think 🤔
All I'm hearing is the straight white men spearheading the production can't lead a team to success once it's no longer an untanned sausage party.

It definitely wasn't that CP2077 was a first in the FPS genre for PR, meant to be even more ambitious than W3 but only got the same development time. W3 had the benefit of having had 2 previous entries with the same mechanics where they could be explored and polished up, as well as a very well defined and vast world they could pull from. CP2077 on the other hand had to basically do everything from scratch except for a few existing characters, factions, and distant world building. Entirely new mechanics like driving, on-the-fly generated NPC crowds, reworking the engine to supports guns, new combat, vertical traversal, etc. etc. The game should have gotten an additional 2-3 years for work that large but the suits and ties wanted cash and rushed a project that couldn't be rushed even by your favorite dream team.
 

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All I'm hearing is the straight white men spearheading the production can't lead a team to success once it's no longer an untanned sausage party.

It definitely wasn't that CP2077 was a first in the FPS genre for PR, meant to be even more ambitious than W3 but only got the same development time. W3 had the benefit of having had 2 previous entries with the same mechanics where they could be explored and polished up, as well as a very well defined and vast world they could pull from. CP2077 on the other hand had to basically do everything from scratch except for a few existing characters, factions, and distant world building. Entirely new mechanics like driving, on-the-fly generated NPC crowds, reworking the engine to supports guns, new combat, vertical traversal, etc. etc. The game should have gotten an additional 2-3 years for work that large but the suits and ties wanted cash and rushed a project that couldn't be rushed even by your favorite dream team.
Nah dude I heard one of the devs kissed a boy once, that's the problem
 
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Cyberpunk's problems can all be traced back to the fact that accountants were ultimately making the big decisions, not the developers.
This. When the marketing department takes control of the company, it's time to bail.
 
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