‘Ultimately, you, the players, must get an unforgettable adventure to experience’
NoWitcher 3this year — it stings, doesn’t it? But we’ll be better off. CD Projekt’s board has written about its reasons for the delay to February 2015 in an open letter, viewable in full below.
“We could have released the game towards the end of this year as we had initially planned,” reads the letter. “Yet we concluded that a few additional months will let us achieve the quality that will satisfy us, the quality gamers expect from us. Consequently, we have set the release ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntfor February 2015.”
The studio intends to “expand creative boundaries, set new benchmarks, [and] develop the genre as a whole” withThe Witcher 3. I’m usually happy to see a game delayed even if I don’t realize it at the time and that’s especially true here. To have something with such potential miss the mark in order to hit an arbitrary release date would be disappointing beyond words.
We recently reexamined what we had achieved thus far, and faced a choice about the game’s final release date. The decision we made was difficult, thoroughly considered, and ultimately clear and obvious. We could have released the game towards the end of this year as we had initially planned. Yet we concluded that a few additional months will let us achieve the quality that will satisfy us, the quality gamers expect from us. Consequently, we have set the release ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntfor February 2015.
Dear gamers – we know many of you would have liked to playThe Witcher 3sooner, as soon as possible, even. We’re sorry to make you wait longer than you, or we, initially assumed you would. At the same time, we believe the game will prove to be worth the wait and meet the expectations you have of us. We believeThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntwill be an exceptional RPG, one of the best, providing many hours of wonderful entertainment.
Dear shareholders – we are aware of the responsibility that rests with us and thank you for the trust you have granted us thus far. We firmly believe that quality – more than any other factor – determines a game’s success, and that the decision we have made is thus equally valid in business terms.
