The Witcher 3: "No more delays," dev promises

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has already been delayed once, but don't expect the upcoming role-playing game to miss its new February 2015 date as well. Developer CD Projekt Red says the game's delay from fall 2014 to early 2015 is the only setback the game will see.

"This is not our first game; we are not newbies," CD Projekt Red cofounder Marcin Iwinski told Eurogamer. "It's not like 'hey we are delaying and we'll keep on delaying'. If we would think we need more time we would say 'hey we'll release it not in February but, I don't know, June'. We made the decision at the moment we were able to judge how much time we needed, and we planned it well and it works well for us. So, no more delays."

Iwinski went on to say that he was surprised--in a good way--about the fan reaction to CD Projekt Red's decision to delay The Witcher 3.

"We were really positively surprised with the response," he said. "It was 'hey guys, great that you have the balls to say that you take your time and you spend money on it'. Because it's not happening for free. That's a really important thing to mention."

Delaying The Witcher 3 involved justifying the cost of the extra months of development to the CD Projekt Red shareholders. Iwinski said this created "an additional load of pressure." But it's all in the name of quality, something Iwanski said CD Projekt Red takes seriously, and he's open to admitting issues from the past.

Iwinski acknowledged that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings might have been better served with a longer development cycle. "We could have done a better job for The Witcher 2 when we released it," he said.

"You can always take more time on a game, especially with huge games," he added. "You're never able to plan perfectly, and then the closer you get to shipping, the more you see 'oh I could use these [extra] two-three months...'"

Finally, Iwinski stressed that delaying The Witcher 3 to February 2015 had nothing to do with another major role-playing game--BioWare's Dragon Age: Inquisition--which is currently scheduled to launch this fall.

"No, not at all," Iwinski said. "Having said that, if they were shipping on October 8 and they would announce it before us, then we would look, I don't know, for November or something. Because there are so few RPGs that it's really a very stupid idea to ship them at the same time."

Earlier this week, CD Projekt Red unveiled new logos for The Witcher 3 and for the studio itself. The Witcher 3 launches February 2015 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. The PS4 version may run better than the Xbox One version, according to CD Projekt Red.