CDPR developers most likely raised their champagne glasses yesterday, as the company recently unveiled impressive sale numbers surpassing 50 million copies sold worldwide. What’s more, the franchise, which includes a trilogy, has exceeded over 75 million copies sold within their lifetime. Sheesh.
The news was presented in a video summarising the Polish developer’s Q1 financial results. CD Project Red CFO, Piotr Nieluowicz, humbly boasted, “I would like to make an announcement which fills us with pride: The Witcher 3 has now been purchased by over 50 million gamers,” further explaining that the achievement places the studio’s cult classic RPG, “among the top ten best-selling video games in history.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Skyrim.
Putting the numbers into perspective, The Witcher 3 joins the ranks of Rockstar’s contemporary western masterpiece, Red Dead Redemption 2, in surpassing the 50-million mark, which unsurprisingly also happens to include Nintendo’s Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with over 62 million copies under its belt.
Though the game is a little ways off and has yet to achieve triple-digit iconic status, which is currently reserved for the likes of industry behemoths Grand Theft Auto V, with over 170 million copies sold, and Minecraft, with more than 238 million copies sold worldwide
Humble Beginnings
The Witcher is one of those series that seemingly came out of nowhere, a game built by gamers, for gamers. Formed in 2002, the company has humble beginnings as a Polish translation and video game distributor of hard to come by major video game releases that the company localised for its domestic market of Poland.
Eventually, this led to the start of GOG, whose major commercial success initiated the founders’ desire to create their very own video game. A video game based on The Witcher, a local fantasy novel series written by Andrzej Sapkowski. The rest is, as they say, history.
Nonetheless, looking toward the future, Nieluowicz happily stated that, “This makes us even more excited with what the future holds, and with our upcoming projects set in the Witcher universe.” We already know that one of those projects include The Witcher remake, as well as a new trilogy that may, or may not, feature Geralt.
Finally, fans are waiting in anticipation for the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty expansion, which is a spy / action thriller romp that marks the return of protagonist V, Johnny Silverhand – played by everyone’s favourite, Keanu Reeves – and last but not least, UK’s very own leading man, Idris Elba. Alas, the future is bright.
