# CD Projekt / CD Projekt Red - House: Game company - Date: Founded 1994 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/cd-projekt-red/ > Two Warsaw friends who started out reselling imported games built the company that turned Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher into one of the most acclaimed RPG series ever made. **Why it matters:** CD Projekt carried Polish fantasy to a global audience and, with The Witcher 3, set the standard for story-rich open-world RPGs in the 2010s, proving a studio outside the US and Japan could lead the genre. ## Quick answers **What is CD Projekt / CD Projekt Red?** Two Warsaw friends who started out reselling imported games built the company that turned Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher into one of the most acclaimed RPG series ever made. **When was CD Projekt / CD Projekt Red founded?** CD Projekt / CD Projekt Red was founded in 1994 and is based in Warsaw, Poland. **Who founded CD Projekt / CD Projekt Red?** Marcin Iwiński. **What is CD Projekt / CD Projekt Red known for?** The Witcher and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. **What happened to CD Projekt / CD Projekt Red?** Active and publicly listed in Warsaw; sold GOG.com to co-founder Michał Kiciński in December 2025; a June 2026 Polish press report said the parent would be renamed CD Projekt RED S.A. ## History In post-communist Poland, where legitimate games were scarce and piracy was the norm, [Marcin Iwiński](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/marcin-iwinski/) and Michał Kiciński began by reselling imported games, and in May 1994 they founded CD Projekt in Warsaw. The company grew by distributing and translating Western games for Polish players, and its breakthrough was a lavishly produced Polish edition of [Baldur's Gate](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/), which shipped 18,000 copies on its release day. Localization taught the founders what great RPGs were made of, and in 2002 they formed a development studio, CD Projekt Red, and acquired the rights to [Andrzej Sapkowski](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/andrzej-sapkowski/)'s [Witcher](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher-saga/) stories, Poland's best-loved fantasy. Built on a licensed version of [BioWare](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bioware/)'s Aurora engine, [The Witcher](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher/) arrived in 2007. In 2008 CD Projekt launched Good Old Games, later GOG.com, a store selling classic PC games without copy protection. *The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings* (2011) sold more than 1.7 million copies and established the studio abroad. [The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher-3/) (May 19, 2015) made it one of the most celebrated developers in the world; it collected some 260 Game of the Year awards and had sold more than 65 million units by May 2026. *Cyberpunk 2077* (December 2020) was a harder lesson: its broken console versions led to refunds, its removal from the PlayStation Store and a lawsuit settled for $1.85 million, before years of patches and the 2023 expansion *Phantom Liberty* rebuilt its reputation. In December 2025 CD Projekt sold GOG to co-founder Michał Kiciński, making the store independent. In June 2026 Polish business press reported that the listed parent would change its name from CD Projekt S.A. to CD Projekt RED S.A. to unify its brand. The studio, with teams in Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, Vancouver and Boston, is working on *The Witcher IV*, announced in December 2024 as the start of a new trilogy. ## Notable work The *Witcher* games follow Geralt of Rivia, a mutant monster-hunter from Sapkowski's stories, through a world of plague, racism against [elves](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/elf/) and [dwarves](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/dwarf/), and politics in which there is rarely a good choice. Monster contracts draw on Slavic folklore, and consequences of the player's decisions often surface hours later. [The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher-3/) opened that world into an [Open-World RPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/open-world-rpg/) of unusual density, from the war-torn marshes of Velen to the islands of Skellige, where side quests like the Bloody Baron's story carried the weight of main plots. Its expansions *Hearts of Stone* (2015) and *Blood and Wine* (2016) are often ranked among the best RPG expansions ever made. ## Legacy CD Projekt Red changed the geography of the [Western Computer RPGs (CRPG)](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/computer-rpg/). It showed that a studio from Central Europe, working from its own national literature, could match [Bethesda Softworks](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bethesda-softworks/) and [BioWare](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bioware/), and it turned Sapkowski's books into a global franchise that later spread to television. Its games are part of a line running from [Baldur's Gate](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/) to [Baldur's Gate 3](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate-3/), and GOG, the store it created, helped preserve the classics of earlier chapters in this museum. ## Facts - Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński founded CD Projekt in Warsaw in May 1994 to distribute and localize foreign games in Poland. - Its Polish edition of [Baldur's Gate](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/) shipped 18,000 copies on its release day. - CD Projekt acquired the rights to [Andrzej Sapkowski](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/andrzej-sapkowski/)'s Witcher in 2002, the year it formed its development studio, CD Projekt Red. - The first [The Witcher](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher/) (2007) ran on BioWare's Aurora engine, the technology behind [Neverwinter Nights](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/neverwinter-nights/). - [The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher-3/) (2015) had sold more than 65 million units by May 2026. - The company launched GOG.com in 2008 as a DRM-free store for classic games, and sold it to Kiciński in December 2025. - The Witcher IV, announced in December 2024, is planned as the first game in a new trilogy. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Projekt_Red) - [CD Projekt Red](https://www.cdprojektred.com/) - [GOG.com (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.