By Adrianna Ebert

GDANSK (Reuters) – Poland’s biggest game developer CD Projekt on Thursday posted a 66% leap in full-year net profit to 347.1 million zlotys ($81 million), boosted by higher sales of flagship titles “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” and “Cyberpunk 2077”.

Despite the lack of fresh releases, the 2022 results were CD Projekt’s second best ever, after 2020 when it released the highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077.

“Thanks to solid sales of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 our consolidated revenues reached 953 million zlotys, with over 347 million zlotys in net profit,” Chief Financial Officer Piotr Nielubowicz said in a statement.

“A large portion of this profit – over 200 million zlotys – was invested in our future development projects.”

In 2022 the company worked intensively on Cyberpunk 2077, resulting in updates and a next-generation console edition of the game. An important event for the game was the well-received Netflix premiere of the anime series “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners”, which attracted many new players.

“The popularity of the series and the positive reception of the update, released a week before the premiere, had a notable effect on Cyberpunk sales and general sentiment around the game, as evidenced by gamers’ reviews”, CEO Adam Kicinski said in a statement.

“This is a clear sign that deeper involvement in our franchises and expanding their reach is the right way to go”, he added.

This year CD Projekt stands before the premiere of the highly-anticipated first and only expansion to Cyberpunk 2077 under title Phantom Liberty with marketing campaign starting in June.

Phantom Liberty is the last game produced on company’s own RED engine, with CD Projekt switching to external Unreal Engine 5 for its upcoming projects, which include new witcher trilogy, remake of its first game – Witcher 1 and Cyberpunk sequel.

CD Projekt has sold over 20 million copies of Cyberpunk 2077, with Wither trilogy sales exceeding 65 million copies.

($1 = 4.2848 zlotys)