The Witcher 4 team hits 500 as CDPR keeps hiring hard

CD Projekt RED is still expanding The Witcher 4 team, and this latest hire says a lot about where the project is headed. According to the original report, Czech developer Zdenek Graz has joined CDPR as a Senior Open World Designer on The Witcher 4, which entered full-scale production in late 2024. He previously spent nearly 9 years at Warhorse Studios, where he worked across both mainline Kingdom Come: Deliverance games. With the project now involving close to 500 developers, this is less about headcount and more about strengthening one of the hardest parts of an open-world RPG: how the world actually feels to move through.

At this stage of development, that distinction matters. A giant map is no longer enough on its own. What players care about is density, pacing, and whether exploration keeps producing momentum - a fight here, a story beat there, something meaningful just off the road. Bringing in a veteran who rose from designer and writer roles to become Lead Level Designer suggests CDPR is trying to improve exactly that layer of the experience rather than simply making the project bigger.

Graz's background is especially relevant. During his time at Warhorse Studios, he was involved throughout development on both mainline Kingdom Come: Deliverance entries, and he left as the studio's Lead Level Designer. Players familiar with that series will know its strengths were not just in isolated combat encounters, but in how quest spaces were guided, how terrain supported exploration, and how events emerged naturally within open areas. Putting someone like that into The Witcher 4's open-world design team looks like a deliberate move to improve scene construction and quest placement for Ciri's new adventure.

From a player's perspective, that is more meaningful than simply hearing about more programmers or artists being hired. When open-world design misses the mark, the result is obvious: horseback travel starts to feel like clearing map icons, side quests become assembly-line errands, and combat feels shoved in by mission scripting rather than discovered organically. If the level and world design leadership is strong enough, you get the opposite effect - the sense that even a random detour can turn into its own story. That is the core strength the Witcher series needs to preserve.

There is also a wider studio angle here. The original report says Graz may also end up contributing to Cyberpunk 2, while CDPR is already conducting large-scale recruitment for that project as well. That means the company is not pushing a single flagship in isolation, but building talent pipelines for two major projects at once. For players, that cuts both ways: it is reassuring to see both of CDPR's marquee IPs getting continued investment, but it also means resource coordination will remain under pressure. At the full-production stage, development management has to be steadier than ever.

PC hardware watchers will probably notice another detail. The Witcher 4 is set to support Nvidia's latest technology, and the original report says that running the game on PC at maximum visual settings will likely demand fairly high-end hardware. That is not especially surprising. Bigger open-world scope, more advanced lighting, and higher material fidelity all tend to become GPU pressure in the end. For players planning to jump in on PC at top settings, the practical move is to wait for official system requirements before making upgrade decisions. If the goal is simply a stable experience for the story and exploration, mid-to-high settings may be the more sensible target.

What is confirmed for now is straightforward. The Witcher 4, starring Ciri, still has no exact release date. But its team size, production progress, and key talent recruitment are all moving forward. For an open-world blockbuster, the real question is not just how many people are attached to it, but whether those people can make the map, quests, and combat work as one coherent whole. Hiring a veteran level designer from the Kingdom Come: Deliverance lineage at least suggests CDPR knows exactly which part of The Witcher 4 needs the most reinforcement.