CD Projekt spent £53m developing The Witcher 3

Developer CD Projekt Red has confirmed the investment needed to create RPG hit The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

GameSpot reports that a recently translated financial briefing pegged the cost of development at 306million zloty – that’s around £53m/$81m.

A total of 240 in-house developers spent 3.5 years making the title, with the total global developer headcount reaching 1,500 people.

How does that compare to other titles? Well, Grand Theft Auto V reportedly cost in the region of £170m, while Star Wars: The Old Republic supposedly cost upwards of £100m. Neither of those figures have been officially confirmed, however.

For further comparison, the most expensive movies ever made are said to be Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Ties (£245m-£258m), Titantic (£129m-£193m), Spider-man 3 (£167m-£190m), Tangled (£169m-£182m) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (£182m).

CD Projekt CEO Adam Kicinski also revealed that there were at one stage some 40 simultaneous marketing campaigns running for the game, which he described as a “daunting task”.

It was worth it, however, with the game going on to sell 6m copies in six weeks.

Story originally published on MCV.