Multiple former CD Projekt Red developers that worked on both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 have formed the brand new Blank Game Studios. The team spoke to PCGamesN about the first game they will be making; a “character-driven apocalypse game” with a twist. While the single-player game from former The Witcher 3 staff is still in early development, we do have some concept art to share and words from the team.
PCGamesN spoke with Blank co-founder and game director Mateusz Kanik, who was the gameplay design director for Cyberpunk 2077, and lead producer on both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, Jędrzej Mróz, who is a Blank co-founder and executive producer.
You can see the character-driven apocalypse game’s concept art below, but both Kanik and Mróz remained understandably tight-lipped about the game, which is still in early development.
Kanik says Blank Game Studio has “a few twists” up its sleeve with this game’s world space and mechanics, so we asked the two how they’re going to leverage their experiences with multiple pre-established IPs and worldbuilding to help with this original story.
“We still needed to create our own atmosphere and show how we see the books from Mike Pondsmith for Cyberpunk 2077,” Mróz explains. “So we have some experience with that for sure, and we want to use that knowledge of how to create a mature character and story because that’s what drives us here at Blank Game Studios.”
“When you’re working on a defined IP, as a creative person, you’re a little bit limited by the boundaries of the material that you’re working on,” Kanik explains. “Of course, depending on the assumptions of the project, sometimes you can go outside of those boundaries. But when you’re working on something completely new you’re unlimited.”
“So from a creative point of view, it’s way better, but the production point of view is worse because it takes more time,” Kanik adds, while attempting to stifle some chuckles.
At present, Blank Game Studios has ten developers that it wants to scale to around 50-55, with a handful of the co-founders coming over from CD Projekt Red. The game Blank is working on isn’t going to be as big as something they made at CDPR either, as Kanick says “Where the industry says bigger is better, we’re setting our sights on highly polished games with a focus on emotion, story, and craftsmanship.”
“We wanted to try something new, unique, and smaller,” Mróz adds.
Blank’s first game is still a ways off yet, but we’ll be sure to share anything we hear about the game coming from former CD Projekt Red developers and their new team.
If talk of Blank Game Studios has you in the mood to revisit some CDPR titles, we’ve got breakdowns for the best Witcher 3 mods and Cyberpunk 2077 mods, both of which are sure to change up your experience.
