It appears the release of the next-gen console versions of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt may not be that far off after all.
Originally, the long-awaited PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions were scheduled for a 2022 Q2 release, though a definitive release date was never announced. On Wednesday, CD Projekt Red announced that it would be delaying the release of the next-gen versions of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt "until further notice," prompting unrest among eager fans.
However, in to a report by PC Gamer published Thursday, it appears CD Projekt Red Senior Vice President of Business Development MichaÅ Nowakowski shed some light on how the highly anticipated upgrades are progressing.
"I've been looking at the headlines that popped up here and there over the internet," Nowakowski said in an investors call, "and I've seen one that really drew my attention, which is, 'Witcher 3 next-gen delayed indefinitely,' which sounds like the game is in some sort of development hell. I want to state this is not the fact. There's been a lot of insinuations that we're going to launch, like, June next year or something like that. That's completely not the case."
In addition to downplaying the "development hell" storyline, however, Nowakowski also emphasized how the focus of the April 13 announcement has perhaps been a bit misconstrued.
"Everything we're saying is, we have taken the development of the game in-house," Nowakowski reportedly said. "The game is going to be finished in-house. We're evaluating our time. That requires a bit of investigation. That's all we're saying. Nobody's saying the game is delayed [with] some monumental time gap ahead of us. That's as much as I can say about Witcher next-gen, but I really want to emphasize that fact."
According to PC Gamer, CD Projekt Red joint CEO Adam Kicinski also soon chimed in and hinted that there may not be that much work left to do on the next-gen versions.
When asked how many developers are required to complete the project, Kicinski reportedly replied with, "not many," and estimated that the total number would be 15 people plus some external support staff.
"Taking over this project will not affect the development of our next game," Kicinski reportedly said.