CD Projekt was working on the PC version of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance when Interplay experienced financial difficulties.

[10] According to Iwiński, although he enjoyed playing video games as a child they were scarce in the Polish People's Republic (which experienced political unrest, martial law, and goods shortages during the 1980s).

Marcin Iwiński, in high school, was selling cracked copies of Western video games at a Warsaw marketplace (stalls on the streets with many such products were popular in the newly established and aggressively privatised Third Polish Republic of the 1990s).

[15] With their methods affirmed, CD Projekt approached BioWare and Interplay Entertainment for the Polish localization of Baldur's Gate.

To increase the title's popularity in Poland, CD Projekt added items to the game's packaging and hired well-known Polish actors to voice its characters.

CD Projekt continued to localize other games after Dark Alliance's cancellation, and received Business Gazelle awards in 2003 and 2004.

"We tried to convince Marcin and Michal not to go on the first business trip with the demo, but they decided..." to show it to a dozen publishers all around Europe on the most expensive and powerful laptop money could buy, Iwiński fills in.

According to CD Projekt, the development team had different ideas for the game and lacked overall direction; as a result, it was returned to the drawing board in 2003.

[13] They received assistance from BioWare, who helped promote the game at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo by offering CD Projekt space in their booth next to Jade Empire.

[23] After five years of development,[13] the game brought Wiedźmin to an international audience, and so the company adopted the English name, The Witcher, coined by Adrian Chmielarz.

[30] After three-and-a-half years of development, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was released in 2011 to critical praise[12] and sales of more than 1.7 million copies.

Acquired from a studio called Strange New Things, it is headed by former Techland COO Paweł Zawodny and composed of other ex-Techland, IO Interactive, and CD Projekt Red employees.

[44] The Witcher 3's success as well as CD Projekt RED's customer-friendly policies during that period enabled the studio to earn a lot of goodwill within the gaming community.

However, the studio's working conditions were questioned after disgruntled employees flooded the company's profile at Glassdoor with negative reviews.

[45] Following the successful release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Cyberpunk 2077, the studio's next title, became one of the most anticipated video games of all time.

[47] The hype for the title, alongside the release of The Witcher TV series on Netflix, enabled CD Projekt to become the most valuable video game company in Europe in May 2020, surpassing Ubisoft.

[53] Kiciński acknowledged that the company's approach to marketing the console versions eroded players' trust in the studio, and promised to release patches for the game.

[55] The attackers demanded CD Projekt Red pay them a large sum of money within a few days under threat of leaking or selling the stolen code and files.

[56][57] Security analysts saw the code being auctioned on the dark web for a minimum price of US$1 million, and subsequently closed later with the attackers stating they had received an offer that satisfied them.

[67] On 20 March 2023, CD Projekt announced its intentions to write-off funds allocated to the development of Project Sirius, and that work would need to be restarted from scratch.

[73] It is the replacement of the Aurora Engine CD Projekt Red had previously licensed from BioWare for the development of The Witcher.

CD Projekt Red created REDengine 3 for the purpose of developing open world[73] video game environments, such as those of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

[73] The result is a wide array of cinematic effects, including depth-of-view, color grading and lens flares associated with multiple lighting.

[82][83] In March 2022, CD Projekt announced a partnership with Epic Games after retiring REDengine to use Unreal Engine 5.

[89] As of June 2015[update], GOG.com sold 690,000 units[90] of CD Projekt Red's game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt redeemed through the service, more than the second largest digital seller Steam (approx.

The company believes that DRM is ineffective in halting software piracy, based on data from sales of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

[113] According to Studio Head Adam Badowski, CD Projekt Red avoided becoming a subsidiary of another company in order to preserve their financial and creative freedom and ownership of their projects.

[114] In 2015, Electronic Arts was rumoured to be attempting to acquire CD Projekt, but this was denied by Iwiński who said that maintaining the company's independence was something he would be fighting for.

[107] Financial details on development, marketing and release costs are freely published, citing being "open in communication" as one of the company's core values.

[117] In December 2021, CD Projekt agreed to pay $1.85 million while negotiating to settle a class-action lawsuit over the problematic release of Cyberpunk 2077, a game which at launch had several technical issues that many users experienced.