In February this year, CD Projekt Red announced that they had been subject to a ransomware attack, resulting in them losing source codes of two of their biggest titles, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3.
In addition to the codes, the hackers took essential documents related to the company’s accounting, administration, legal, HR, and investor relations. CDPR was then threatened to comply with the hackers’ demands, or they would see their code sold to an outside buyer.
Eventually, the situation saw a kind of resolution as a private buyer reportedly bought the code for an amount close to the hackers’ $7 million price tag on the condition that the code won’t be leaked after purchase. But it seems that the whole debacle is far from over, as hackers have put up the code online after all.
According to Data Breaches, a hacker group is using the stolen source codes to promote their new website, which will be a platform for future leaks.
The group plans to archive the codes and make them available to the public through a fundraiser. Users donating $10,000 will receive passwords for the different archives, and then they are free to do whatever they like with the codes.
In addition to codes of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, the group is also claiming to have the source codes for Thronebreaker and The Witcher 3 RTX – an unreleased version of the game complete with ray tracing.
As a display of seriousness, the group has already released SDKs for PS4, PS5, Xbox, and Switch to whoever wants them, no donations or passwords necessary.
At the moment, the group has no nefarious intentions for the previously mentioned company documents. But they have been shared with the media.
CDPR, in the span of one year, has seen more severe roadblocks than any other game developer in recent history. If these codes are indeed leaked, the IP and monetary loss to the company could be pretty detrimental. Not to mention that it has already lost $51 Million due to Cyberpunk 2077 refunds, with the game remaining nowhere near to returning to the PS Store.
The game has also seen a drastic dip in sales as it is still far from perfect despite getting a slew of patches and fixes.
About CD Projekt Red
CD Projekt S.A. is a Polish video game developer, publisher, and distributor based in Warsaw, founded in May 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. Iwiński and Kiciński were video game retailers before they founded the company, which initially acted as a distributor of foreign video games for the domestic market. The department responsible for developing original games, CD Projekt Red, best known for The Witcher series, was formed in 2002.
No Comments on Stolen Source Code for Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 Leaks Once Again