When CD Projekt RED announced the second delay of their anticipated title, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, fans were saddened. The game, originally set for an autumn 2014 release, then pushed back until February 2015 was going to be one of the few AAA titles to hit shelves during the standard winter lull.
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No more. The game has been delayed until May of 2015. Due to the recent glut of hugely anticipated AAA titles that have been eviscerated in the press due to shoddy, buggy releases, CD Projekt RED would rather wait and avoid any of those missteps made by its competitors.
The tactic, it appears, is working. Though saddened at another delay, people are responding positively to it. They would rather endure waiting twelve weeks for a finished game than spend those twelve weeks essentially being free Quality Testers for the company. CD Projekt RED doesn’t play that way.
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In an interview with Eurogamer Poland (translated here), board member Adam Kiciński spoke on the subject at length, “Gamers took our decision very well. [The] market is afraid of badly polished games on next-gen platforms.”
“There’s a lot of small errors though, because the game is huge," he added. "It's the only reason behind the delay. We didn't assume it will be this big. Only after putting all the pieces together it turned out it's bigger than the [first] two put together. Let me remind you: it's open and not linear. We are just learning how to play it and we have to catch the little pieces. We know what to do, we just have to do it. We don't want to release the game with bugs that undermine the gameplay.”
I like to believe we are all mature enough to understand that this medium we so dearly love is getting bigger each and every day. The graphics are more realistic, but that requires more and more coding and knowledge to make them work properly. A lot of moving parts means a lot of chances for error. Hearing a big company like CD Projekt RED admit to that is a great step forward, it opens up lines of communication and transparency that other developers will hopefully emulate in the future.
The decision to release all future Witcher III DLC for free certainly helps their PR. How novel an idea. Buying a game once and never having to purchase anything further. What is this, the 90s?
The Witcher III: Wild Hunt comes out in May 19, 2015.
