CD Projekt acquired The Molasses Flood—a Boston, Massachusetts-based video game developer—back in 2021. The New England studio was best known for making two indie titles: Drake Hollow (2020) and Flame in the Flood (2016). Under Polish ownership, the team embarked on a new "Project Sirius" adventure—several veteran members had spent time pumping out Bioshock, Halo, Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchise entries at previous workplaces. Earlier in the week, an official statement popped up on the company's official site: "dear all, we want to let you know that on April 1, 2025, The Molasses Flood LLC ("TMF") merged with CD PROJEKT RED Inc. ("CDPR Inc."), a company being a part of the CD PROJEKT Group. As a result of the merger TMF, in its former legal state (of a separate legal entity) ceased its operations, while CDPR Inc. assumed the rights and obligations of TMF. The merger will not affect the availability or distribution of 'The Flame in The Flood' and 'Drake Hollow' video games, which will continue to be published by CD PROJEKT Group."

In a LinkedIn post, Damian Isla provided an extra couple of tidbits and confirmed his exit from operations. The Molasses Flood (TMF) co-founder commented on recent reshuffles: "the studio I co-founded with some of my ex-Irrational friends, was to be absorbed into CDPR proper. To be ultra clear: this is a GOOD AND HEALTHY thing for the studio, and it was long-expected. It breaks down some organizational barriers, and better integrates the TMF team with the rest of the amazing CDPR org. Overall, it shows a very bright future for Project Sirius (aka "the multiplayer Witcher game," of which I was the Design Director for three years). It's going to be an amazing game, one for the books, and I cannot wait until the rest of the world learns about what we've been working on...On the sadder side—not to bury the lede—I've decided not to follow TMF on this transition. So last Monday—the last day of TMF's legal existence!—was also my last day at the studio."

CD Projekt declared in an investor regulatory announcement (issued on May 11) that its troubled "Project Sirius" multiplayer game was back on track with a renewed development focus. Their briefing is titled: "New framework for Project Sirius, decision concerning partial reversal of the impairment allowance for 2022, and write-off of part of the development expenditures incurred in Q1 2023." As reported back in March, the Polish gaming group made the difficult choice to reboot its multiplayer focused Witcher title and write-off a significant chunk of the development budget. Last week's update seems to indicate that their North American studio, The Molasses Flood, is still involved in the making of Project Sirius and that a smaller chunk of project expenditure has been written off in the mean time.

The company's investor announcement coincided with emerging rumors of employee layoffs - gaming news outlets started to pick up on social media declarations last Friday (May 12). Yesterday CD Projekt confirmed that the refocused and restarted development process has resulted in a round of headcount cuts on both sides of the Atlantic. In a statement issued to PC Gamer, a company spokesperson says: "Because the project changed, so has the composition of the team that's working on it - mainly on The Molasses Flood's side. The concrete number of employees we parted ways with is 21 team members in the US and 8 in Poland (working on the project outside of the US)."

CD Projekt has admitted to writing off the development funds spent so far expended on Project Sirius - a codename for a satellite studio produced spin-off game in its best selling The Witcher series. The Polish development and publishing group is restarting Project Sirius from scratch, and it is not clear whether their East Coast USA-based outfit, Molasses Flood, will remain as part of the rebooted cycle. Within a recently released company financial report its reasoning was made clear: "The aforementioned decision is based on results of evaluation of the scope and commercial potential of the original concept of Project Sirius, and ongoing work on formulating a new framework for this project."

CD Projekt had spent over $7 million in 2022 on development costs for Project Sirius. More than $2.2 million has been spent in 2023, presumably right up until the decision to bin all currently completed work. Project Sirius was announced in the autumn of 2022, and at around that time Molasses Flood was undertaking a large scale recruitment drive. The game was in a pre-production phase by the end of the year, with over sixty members of staff confirmed to be working on it. Development was also being supported by members of CD Projekt RED's team at their Warsaw headquarters, and now it is very apparent that the overseers were not happy with what was going on in New England.