The Witcher 3 delayed again, but is it a good thing?
Polish game developer CD Projekt RED has had some surprising successes with their video game adaptations of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher fantasy novels, but they seem to have hit a snag in the development of the third game in the series, causing it to be delayed for a second time.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was originally slated for a Fall 2014 release, later pushed back to Februrary 2015. Now the game has again been delayed, this time to May 19, 2015.
“The sheer size and complexity of The Witcher, key features of the title, have had a decisive impact on production,” CD Projekt said in a statment. “Now, nearing the end of our work, we see many details that need to be corrected. When we release the most important game in our studio’s history, we must be absolutely sure that we did everything we could to limit any bugs to a level that will allow you to enjoy the game thoroughly.”
Adam Kiciński, a member of the Board of CD Projekt, expanded on the statement made by the board earlier this week.
“We didn’t assume it will be this big,” Kiciński told Eurogamer, explaining that The Witcher 3 is larger than the first two game put together. “We don’t want to release the game with bugs that undermine the gameplay.”
Late and polished, or on-time and buggy?
With several high profile titles – such as Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity – being released with game breaking bugs over the last year, CD Project chose to delay their game over releasing a flawed product.
While gamers were disappointed by the news of the delay, many supported the developers, saying that they did not care how late the game was, as long as it was good. CD Projekt had generated a lot of good will with fans earlier this year by promising to give away all DLC for The Witcher 3 for free.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s golden goose who created genre-defining games like Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, famously said: “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.”
CD Projekt appears to be taking Miyamoto’s lesson to heart.
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