Bad news or good news depending on your point of view; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been delayed again, this time for 12-weeks. The new launch date is May 12th, 2015.

In an open letter to fans CD Projekt Red cited simple polish and bug hunting as the reason for the delay:

“The sheer size and complexity of The Witcher, key features of the title, have had a decisive impact on production. Now, nearing the end of our work, we see many details that need to be corrected. When we release the most important game in our studio’s history, we must be absolutely sure that we did everything we could to limit any bugs to a level that will allow you to enjoy the game thoroughly.”

To abolish those bugs the developers decided that 12-weeks ought to be enough:

“Even though everyone is working at full speed, we concluded that we need another 12 weeks, so we are shifting the release date of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to May 19th, 2015.”

Finally they issued an apology, saying that they were a tad too hasty in setting a released date before. This is following a previous delay where the game was shifted from an autumn 2013 launch to an early 2014 launch.

“We owe you an apology. We set the release date too hastily. It’s a hard lesson, one to take to heart for the future. We know what we want to do to make Wild Hunt one of the best RPGs you will ever play. And we continue to work hard to achieve just that. So, we apologise and ask for your trust.”

While it’s obviously a tad disappointing to have to wait to play such a great looking game, it’s preferable for a studio to actually admit they need to do more work and delay the game, especially given the state of so many titles at launch these days. In mean time I’m replaying the Witcher 2 on PC.