The Witcher Console Port Delayed/Suspended

[Aaron]

It looks like those of us waiting for a console port of The Witcher (supposed to be released in Nov 09) may be waiting a little longer.

Development of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf on hold

06.05.2009, 12:35Comments: 44

After recent technical evaluation of The Witcher: Rise of The White Wolf, CD Projekt RED has decided to suspend development of the project. This decision was made because the company saw a high risk that the final product will not meet the quality expectations of CD Projekt RED. We have already started to look for other possible solutions to address this situation.

A comment from Adam Kiciński, CEO of CD Projekt RED:
“This decision was one of the hardest we’ve ever had to make as a company. We have put our hearts, a lot of our time and energy into this project. Because of that, development was in a very advanced stage. However, there was serious danger that we would miss our target release date, but more importantly to us, that the project would not meet our own expectations of quality. Our main goal is always to make every release better than the previous one. Unfortunately, this project was not going in the right direction. We are now looking into all possible scenarios, and we will do all we can to retain our fans’ confidence in us. We simply will not let them down; the quality of our games remains the highest priority.”

Since The Witcher’s release in October 2007 most of the CD Projekt RED team has been working on another major project. Information about this title will remain secret for the time being.

CD Projekt RED will reveal the new project in the coming months.

CD Projekt RED claims that it didn't meet their standards.

Other sources however claim:

Update: Lamenting that "we cannot talk with [co-developer Widescreen Games] in normal business way," CD Projekt has issued a response that places the blame of the delayed payment and subsequent project freeze on Widescreen Games.

Though CD Projekt has still yet to offer its promised statement on the fate of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, co-developer Widescreen Games today announced that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 RPG has been suspended due to "financial issues."

Announced last December, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf was said to be "completely rebuilt pixel by pixel" over CD Projekt's 2007 PC release, complete with enhanced graphics and a new combat system. It was due this fall, published by Atari.

"The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf has been suspended pending the resolution of financial issues between the different project partners," Widescreen director Olivier Masclef said in a French press release noticed by GameBanshee.

The suspension came after CD Projekt supposedly missed "a big payment that we were supposed to receive," Masclef explained to VG247. "After having committed to the project but not being covered financially on it for three months, I [had] no choice."

"I will try to find any solution for the fans. The Witcher on console is an extremely promising title that's awaited by a lot of people," he added. "We have it running here, and I can tell you that if it hits the shelves one day it's going to be great."

Meanwhile, CD Projekt claims that "all payments were done on time according to milestone plan," with Widescreen-caused delays leading to later payments.

The company's response popped up as a comment on the VG247 article, with a CD Projekt representative confirming its legitimacy to Shacknews.

CD Projekt's take on the events are as follows:

It is sad that we cannot talk with WSG in normal business way, but communicate through media. It is absolutely not our style of making business, and we answer here as we feel forced to do this to clarify the unclear information:

1. All payments were done on time according to milestone plan.
2. Truth is that payments were later than originally planned but this was solely due to delays in production. The delays were growing in the project due to WSG continued to miss the deadlines.
3. Delays and risks of further development by WSG were unacceptable by CD Projekt (this happened even though CDProjekt RED was constantly increasing main team involvement to help in the production). The most important fact is that development process didn't make planned release date possible and moreover propositions of the new release date were changing few times. Besides the schedule, technical incapability created a risk of missing planned quality which is absolutely unacceptable. And this brought an end in our cooperation with WSG.
4. Currently the works are on hold. We are evaluating all possible options to continue the production.

Making this decision was extremely difficult and sad as we know that many people are waiting for this project. We do our best to find a way out of this situation. But final decision must guarantee high quality of the product, otherwise we won't continue the production no matter what consequences it will bring. We are committed to the highest quality of all our games, and this is unnegotiable for us.

So no matter what the final decision or solution we will find, please be sure that it will be the best for the game quality, and satisfaction of gamers, which is the most important for us!

Michal Kicinski
Joint CEO
CD Projekt Group

How reliable any of this is, I have no idea but it looks like there won't be a port anytime soon.

[Stark]

This has been clearly rumoured for a while, and it's a real shame; not only is the Witcher a great game but it's control system would lend itself to console play very easily. I know plenty of people who'd love to see a decent sword-chop adventure game on 360.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I was longing for this.

[Aaron]

This has been clearly rumoured for a while, and it's a real shame; not only is the Witcher a great game but it's control system would lend itself to console play very easily. I know plenty of people who'd love to see a decent sword-chop adventure game on 360.

I was really looking forward to this, along with the Alien RPG (which is also apparently cancelled). So Dragon Age: Origins, there doesn't look like anything interesting RPG wise is coming for a good while.

[Feil]

Feh. Rebuilt pixil by pixil and a new combat system might, possibly, make Witcher a halfway decent game. I don't care how good the story was cracked up to be, it lost me in the first half hour because the only thing to break up the hideously animated unskippable cutscenes and long-as-hell loading times on a powerful computer was Click When The Attack Icon Turns Yellow.

[General Zod]

Curious detail I just noticed. If the Witcher really is canceled how come Gamestop still has it available for pre-order?

[Edi]

Feh. Rebuilt pixil by pixil and a new combat system might, possibly, make Witcher a halfway decent game. I don't care how good the story was cracked up to be, it lost me in the first half hour because the only thing to break up the hideously animated unskippable cutscenes and long-as-hell loading times on a powerful computer was Click When The Attack Icon Turns Yellow.

Are you sure your user name isn't Fail? Because that's exactly what that post is.

They solved the long load times in a patch and I've never had issue with them after that. I also haven't found a single unskippable cutscene in the game. Not one. Though if left-clicking on the mouse and using the esc key are too difficult for someone, I see how that might be an issue.

[Stark]

Remember Edi, timing-clicks are 'shallow' and stupid - just like active reload which adds nothing to Gears - and BG-style 'click on badguy randomly missing based on THAC0 until he dies or you die' is the true path.

Fucking nerds.