The Witcher 3 PS5 and Xbox Series X versions aren't in development hell, CDPR says

Ciri in the Witcher 3 — (Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

The Witcher 3's PS5 and Xbox Series X versions aren't in "development hell," CD Projekt Red said in response to reports of its delay.

Just yesterday, CDPR announced that it has pushed back The Witcher 3's new-gen upgrade as it takes development in-house. Seeing as how the studio has yet to announce a new release window, this came across as an indefinite – but not infinite or endless – delay.

In an investors call today, CD Projekt's senior vice president of business development, Michał Nowakowski, pushed back against the use of the word indefinite to describe the delay, which he argues evokes an undeserved degree of uncertainty around the project's fate.

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"I've been looking at the 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," Nowakowski said. "I want to state this is not the fact."

It's worth noting that in its response to these reports, CDPR didn't go as far as to hint at a new release window, but it did imply that we won't need to wait until next summer for the PS5 and Xbox Series X upgrades.

"There's been a lot of insinuations that we're going to launch, like, June next year or something like that," Nowakowski said. "That's completely not the case."

Nowakowski also added a bit more insight into the cause of the delay, explaining that the studio needs more time to evaluate the situation after taking development into its own hands.

"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."

The Witcher 3's new-gen update will be a free download for folks with a copy of the game on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. As mentioned earlier, it's unclear when it's launching, but it definitely isn't in Q2 2022 as previously planned, and it sounds like it won't be as far out as summer 2023. How's that for a release window?