Report: CDPR Quietly Partnered With WayForward on a 2.5D Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Brawler

Before anyone gets excited and starts a release-date petition, the headline is not quite that simple. According to an exclusive report from MP1st, CD Projekt Red spent roughly a year co-developing a 2.5D Cyberpunk: Edgerunners brawler with WayForward, the studio best known for the Shantae series and the recent River City Girls games. The project was codenamed Gemini, and it lived in the research and design phase between 2025 and 2026. Nobody has confirmed it is alive today, and several hints suggest it may have died quietly when WayForward went through a round of layoffs last September.

What the portfolio actually says

The story originates from the online portfolio of a former WayForward developer, whose name MP1st is withholding for privacy reasons. The resume lists an unannounced CDPR Cyberpunk R&D project under the Gemini codename, with active work spanning 2025 and into 2026. R&D on a CDPR title at an external studio is not unusual, and the timeframe lines up with the same window when WayForward was reportedly also pitching a separate, licensed Unreal Engine 5 title that ultimately stalled on funding.

Mechanically, the project was scoped as a rollback-driven 2.5D brawler. That single phrase does most of the work explaining what CDPR and WayForward were reaching for. Rollback netcode is the tech that powers serious competitive fighters like Guilty Gear Strive and Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising, and it shows up in WayForward's own River City Girls 2. Pairing rollback with a 2.5D beat-em-up built on top of the Edgerunners brand is, on paper, exactly the kind of side project a big publisher greenlights to see if a smaller-scale licensed game can find an audience without burning its mainline studio's time.

Why the status is genuinely unclear

MP1st is careful to note that the resume does not say the project shipped, was cancelled, or got greenlit past R&D. It only confirms WayForward did the work. That detail matters because the September 2025 WayForward layoffs, which several commentators and former employees have connected to the stalled UE5 licensed project, took place in the middle of Gemini's documented window. If the same financial stress hit both projects, the most likely answer is that Gemini was shelved along with the rest. Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2, the anime sequel, is still on track for Netflix this fall, and CDPR has its own internal Project Orion, so there is no public reason the brawler needs to ship to keep the IP alive.

There is also no public mention of Gemini from either company. CDPR's official Edgerunners site still leads with the anime and a Netflix-only sequel, and WayForward has not put the title in any of its public sizzle reels. The only artifact referenced in the report is an internal project logo that combines the Edgerunners branding with the Gemini codename, which is the kind of asset that exists for hundreds of internal experiments that never get a press release.

How fans are reacting

On Twitter, the most common reaction is a mix of disappointment and wishful thinking. IGN's post on the report pulled in 23 million impressions in a few hours, and the top reply chains quickly split between people mourning a Lucy-focused 2.5D brawler that will probably never exist, and people pointing out that WayForward laying people off a year ago is not exactly a great sign for any unannounced project still sitting in that studio's pipeline. The Portugal-based outlet CyberPierogi noted that a Guilty Gear Strive-style crossover with Lucy as a playable fighter would have been a perfect fit, which is the version of this game that did not happen.

What this tells us about CDPR's external strategy

Whether or not Gemini ever surfaces, the report fits a pattern. CDPR has been openly shopping its bigger IP to outside partners for at least a year. MP1st previously reported on Scopely's involvement in a multiplayer Witcher game, and CDPR's own Project Sirius, a multiplayer spin-off, is still in the pipeline. Letting WayForward take a first pass at a cheap, anime-flavored Edgerunners brawler is exactly the kind of low-risk bet a publisher makes to test a side IP without tying up its main Polish teams. The fact that the test quietly died is not, on its own, bad news. It is just what happens when external R&D runs out of money.

For now, the most honest read is that Project Gemini is a real game that almost existed, not a game that exists. If CDPR or WayForward want to confirm anything, the first move is theirs. Until then, file it next to every other unannounced licensed brawler that lived long enough to get a codename and a logo, and not long enough to get a release date. The Edgerunners brand keeps moving on Netflix, and CDPR keeps moving on Orion, and that is probably the end of the story.