A handful of former developers from CD Projekt Red (The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077) have created a new studio named Blank. to create a character-driven game set in an apocalypse, “with a twist or two”.
Mateusz Kanik, Cyberpunk 2077 game director and co-director of The Witcher 3 game, co-founded Blank. with Jędrzej Mróz and Marcin Jefimow, both former executive producers of The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Together, this new studio aims to apply “their years of experience to a clean slate” and bring “beautifully designed games and experiences unique to players, favoring new territory rather than well-trodden ground.” A press release from Blank. says the studio has no plans to make “predictable clones or entries”.
Along with the studio reveal, Blank. released concept art for their unannounced project, which is the aforementioned game set in an apocalypse, which you can see below:
Kanik will serve as the game’s director, while Mróz and Jefimow will serve as executive producers. Mikołaj Marchewka joins the project as general manager. Two other former CDPR developers, Michal Dobrowolski and Artur Ganszyniec, will work on the game as design director and narrative director, respectively. Former Division 48 Studio developer Grzegorz Przybyś serves as the game’s art director.
“We are thrilled to announce Blank. and begin growing our incredible team,” Kanik wrote in a press release. “After working for years in an increasingly conservative industry, we are ready to deliver bold, impactful projects that share our creativity and values. Where industry upholds a dictatorship of the creative individual, we want give ownership to the team. Where the industry relies on crunch culture, we prefer work-life balance. Where the industry says bigger is better, we aim for highly polished games with an emphasis on emotion, story and craftsmanship.
Mróz writes that the team plans to marry inspired ideas with well-defined scopes to strong support teams and realistic budgets.
“We are committed to quality craftsmanship and to running the studio in a sustainable way,” writes Mróz. “We plan to increase the scope of our projects as we expand the team and its capabilities.”
White. is headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, and currently consists of 10 team members. He is looking to expand to 60 members to develop his unexpected project.
What would you like to see this studio create? Let us know in the comments below!