The Witcher studio’s shares drop after trailer release

Shares in CD Projekt SA dropped in heavy trading as the release of a six-minute video trailer of the Polish gaming studio’s upcoming release of The Witcher IV didn’t include any timeline for its premiere.

The stock fell as much as 6.7% on Friday before paring losses and trading 3.5% lower as of 3:56 p.m. in Warsaw.

The move trimmed this year’s advance to 61%, still the best performance on the country’s WIG20 stock index, which has lost ground during 2024.

Investors are “taking profit from the rally,” Piotr Bogusz, an analyst at Erste Group Bank AG in Warsaw said.

“The market will now try to assess what is the real potential for the game given strong interest in the franchise in the past.”

The Warsaw-based studio said that The Witcher IV will start a new series of its medieval monster slayer role-playing game, for the first time focused on female character Ciri.

She takes over from Geralt, who was played by Henry Cavill in the Netflix series of the same name.

CD Projekt said in 2023 that three previous Witcher games sold 75 million copies.

For analysts, the long trailer signalled that the company aimed to release the latest version in 2026, preceded by a marketing campaign in 2025.

The studio’s share price plummeted earlier this decade after it released futuristic dystopia Cyberpunk 2077 — a much-hyped game that was released in such a glitchy, disappointing state that Sony yanked it from the PlayStation Store for six months.

In the years that followed, the company looked to win back its audience with updates, bug fixes and a major expansion. 

The Witcher IV is expected to provide a major fresh revenue stream for the company.

For reference, Cyberpunk 2077‘s initial teaser was released in January 2013 but the game only launched in December 2020.