The Witcher Series Blows Past 50 Million Sold Following Hugely Successful 2019

Just a few days after the fifth anniversary for the most popular game in the series, CD Projekt Red's Witcher franchise has crossed yet another massive milestone. Today, the Polish developer announced that the Witcher series has sold 50 million copies across all installments and platforms.

That means that the Witcher series, which hasn't seen a brand-new mainline release since 2015, sold an additional 10 million copies since last June. In the case of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which has sold well over 20 million copies, we know 2019 was its most successful year since launch—thanks in part to the release of the excellent Switch port and the debut of Netflix's Witcher show—but even then, that doesn't account for the massive leap. Droves of fans must also be checking out older Witcher titles and spin-offs like Thronebreaker as well.

CD Projekt's massively successful year, which also saw it break a rare Steam revenue threshold with Wild Hunt, has also garnered some provocative headlines of late. Earlier this month, a few outlets reported that CD Projekt Red had become Europe's most valuable video game company, edging out Ubisoft for the top spot. At our sister site GamesIndustry.biz, Editor-in-Chief Matthew Handrahan pointed out that comparing the two companies is not so simple. Ubisoft has many studios and is set to follow up a fallow period with five triple-A launches in the next year. CD Projekt, on the other hand, is enjoying the continued success of a single series plus high expectations for Cyberpunk 2077.

All signs point to Cyberpunk 2077 becoming a huge success when it launches in September for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, but one has to wonder if CD Projekt will take the long tail of the Witcher's success as a reason to jumpstart production on another one. Alternatively, the developer could hold off, perhaps giving its next Witcher title a similarly lengthy development cycle as Cyberpunk 2077 while waiting for wider adoption of next-gen hardware.

We already know that CD Projekt Red is working on its next single-player game before finishing up Cyberpunk, and that there's a 50-50 chance that it's a Witcher game, but there's really no telling when we'll see it or any good reason for them to rush it. CD Projekt can probably take its sweet time making a new installment. Maybe it could use the time to make the full game that Ciri deserves?