Former CD Projekt Developer Dark Passenger Raises $3 Million

Polish studio Dark Passenger, founded by former Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 developers, has completed a funding round to the tune of $3 million.

The initial round was led by The Games Fund, with investment from Blite Fund. The funding will go towards the development of Dark Passenger’s debut project, an unannounced first-person multiplayer stealth action game set in an original universe based in feudal Japan.

It will also help expand the team, which currently has about 30 members. The studio aims to reach a staff of more than 60 people when the game is launched.

Dark Passenger was formed two years ago by former CD Projekt employees, including co-founders Jakub Ben and Paweł Kuleta. Also on the team is Marcin Michalski, who worked as a senior environment artist on The Witcher 3.

Other team members previously worked on People Can Fly, Flying Wild Hog, Reikon, RealTime Warriors, and more.

“While the multiplayer landscape is more exciting than ever, we still see huge untapped potential,” said Dark Passenger CEO Ben. “It takes imagination, confidence and vision to fully understand our direction, and these are the qualities we found at The Games Fund.

“This investment represents a radical change for us: it has helped us expand our team and lay the foundations of our project, allowing us to focus on production.”

Games Fund co-founder and managing partner Ilia Eremeev added: “There is a dearth of games that dare to take risks and deliver bold, unapologetic experiences, leaving players longing for that ‘Hell yeah!’ factor After watching its initial demo, we instantly recognized that Dark Passenger is set to deliver exactly that.

“The quality of the experience, given the size of the team and development time, was amazing. We immediately aligned ourselves with their vision: a pure, exciting power fantasy. We are thrilled to partner with these great founders on this adventure.”