The Witcher 3’s next-gen update isn’t in ‘development hell,’ according to CD Projekt Red

CD Projekt Red (CDPR) announced on Wednesday that the next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would be delayed, but the company insists it’s not in “some sort of development hell” (via Polygon).

As part of the delay announcement, CDPR said that the update would miss its planned Q2 release and that the studio would move development of the update in-house. CDPR did not announce a new release date or even an expected timeline, which led some publications — including The Verge — to write that the game has been delayed indefinitely. CDPR’s SVP of business development, Michał Nowakowski, took issue with that characterization in an investor call this week.

“When it comes to [the] next-gen launch of The Witcher 3, I think there one comment I actually wanted to make,” he said. (Scrub to 30:34 if you’d like to hear for yourself.) “I’ve been looking at headlines that popped up here and there over the internet, 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 that this is not the fact. There’s been a lot of insinuations that we’re going to launch [in] June [of] next year or something like that. That’s completely not the case.”

While he stopped short of giving details on when we might be able to play the update, the next comments from Nowakowski suggest that it may not be too far off. “Everything we’re saying is: we have taken development of the game in-house. 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 is saying the game is delayed in some monumental time gap ahead of us.”

CD Projekt Red’s Karolina Gnaś confirmed to The Verge that the update was originally being developed by Saber Interactive, which handled the impressive Switch port for The Witcher 3. However, Saber Interactive has an office in Russia, and as Kotaku noted, a Russian gaming outlet reported in March that CDPR cut ties with that office, which was reportedly handling the next-gen update. Gnaś did not reply to a question asking if the Russian office was the one working on the update.