The Witcher 3 next-gen upgrade definitely isn't in "development hell" insists CD Projekt senior vice president
Around 15 people are supposedly working on the upgrade.
CD Projekt Red has announced that the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 has been postponed until "further notice,"but a recent investors call insists that the game isn't in any kind of development hell.
Earlier this week, an investors call was made where CD Projekt's senior vice president of business development Michał Nowakowski touched on the state of the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 (via PC Gamer).
"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. 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."
Nowakowski goes on to emphasise how the main point the studio was making was just that development had shifted 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'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 emphasise that fact."
There also might not actually be a huge amount of work left to do on the next-gen upgrade, according to CD Projekt joint CEO Adam Kicinski. When he was asked about how many developers are needed to finish the project, he replied "not many," estimating there are around 15 people, with some external support staff on top of that. He also clarified that taking this project in-house won't affect the development of the studio's next game. Unsurprisingly, a release window for the upgrade wasn't mentioned in the call, but at least we know it isn't coming in June, or something like that.