We won't be playing The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt until next May, CD Projekt RED announced today.

Given how broken video games have been recently, perhaps it's unsurprising it decided to take a few more months and make sure everything's looking good.

The studio released the following statement this morning:

"Dear Gamers,

Ever since we started working on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, we knew it would be an ambitious game. We wanted, and still aim, to give you an incredible experience, an epic adventure in a vast, completely open fantasy universe.

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.

With this in mind, we took another look at current workloads and what they mean for the team. 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.

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.

Thank you for the all support you show us on a daily basis. We truly do appreciate it. It has fueled us in our passion since the start and will continue to do so.

- The Board of CD PROJEKT SA"

whyyyyyyyy!!!! :( oh well back to dragon age

Better late than broken I suppose.

I have the PC version pre-ordered and I'm wondering if I'll be even able to run it.

@liquidelite: Because its gonna be game of the year 2015. Because its CD PROJEC RED, they do their JOB, not like other companies like Ubisof-releasing buggy games.

Like I said in the thread on the forums about this. I'm glad they're doing this. I want this game to be good and I don't want them to mess it up.

That's okay, I still haven't beaten The Witcher 2...

I'm perfectly fine with it, if they need time to fix bugs. Having just suffered through a myriad of them in DA:I i prefer to wait and have a proper release

Sounds fine to me, I've got more games I'm interested in than time and I'd rather everyone not have to deal with another buggy scandal.

I love you cd projekt red. It's ok.. I would wait a lifetime for TW3 <3

It's ok. Take your time.

fine with me! I encourage delays at this point

@purpleeye: it is incredibly rare for me to believe that a developer can deliver the goods, I'm pretty confident in cd projekt red, It's because of that the wait is so much harder. I need my RPG fix damn it :) - If nintendo get their act together Zelda U could challenge it. (don't kill me)

Well, I'm glad that they are taking their time to polish the game up, even if it does mess with my time table for reading through all the books and replaying the first 2 games leading up to the release of 3. I guess I'll just have to space things out a bit more.

And that's how The Witcher 3's cataclysmic "everybody poops uncontrollably" bug of 2015 was successfully averted.

DA:I was pushed back and still have bugs. I am forced to play with Mantle because DirectX crashes all the time. Still it doesnt hurt for them to spend more time. I actually never finished the first two games anyway.

Thank God, I had no idea how I was going to have my backlog cleared in time anyway.

Funny, how they promised, that they won't delay it again back in May 2014.

Hold the phone, you mean delay the game until it is finished?! Clearly, CD Project doesn't know a thing about business.

I think this is a win-win. More time spent making the game better and having a great RPG to play over the summer.

I agree with a lot of the repliers here. Make it good, take your time CD Projekt! I had little to no expectations for Dragon Age: Inquisition, but they obviously took their time to make a great game full of lore and story if you take the time. I want that and actually hope for even more shades of grey from Witcher 3. Please God be good!

More time for me to get a new PC together.

Both CD Projekt Red and Rocksteady are willing to delay their games past the normal fiscal year-end deadline because they don't want to screw up the final game in their respective trilogies and I respect the hell out of that.

sounds good. I love not-broken games.

@liquidelite: Actually that Zelda tech demo look pretty cool i gotta say ;) To bad i dont own a wi u

dont mind if it means game is more stable and we get decent frame rate

I'm totally ok with this as I'm still working on Mordor and haven't even started Dragon Age yet. Plus less buggy games are always appreciated.

Take all the time you need to make the game the way you want it to be.

This beefy first few months of the year just turned into a damn wasteland. Really hoping they don't push dying light because it's the only game I'm interested in until Bloodborn at the end of March.

Cool, more time to save up for a PC that can run it.

I don't see the big deal in games being delayed. Even if there are no games to play, wouldn't you rather the game not be busted upon release? Otherwise you'll just be part of the endless droves complaining on the internet.

I don't mind them delaying if they need extra time but they only put it up for pre-order on PS4 a few days ago and now this, the timing seems a bit sleezy.

Was worried that I'd have to stop playing GTAV : PC for this, but now I can rest easy.

I'm not surprised. Seems the way the business has evolved. Always add X months to announced game release, where X is the largest integer such that:

(Original_Date + X) <= Next_Fiscal_Quarter

Yup. Don't mind at all. Do what you need to do to make a great game.

It's nice to see a video game developer apologizing for not shipping it's product in an unfinished state instead of apologizing for shipping it months before it should have. A slimmer of light in this dark hole we have been in lately.

Well, with the new date it will almost be exactly 4 years after the release of the Witcher 2.

Mmmm, not busted games.

Look guys we just won't be playing this till 2020 ;_;

on a serious note No game deserves to come out like Unity So i'll rather play a finished game than a broken one

Fine by me, this will let me sink my teeth into bloodborne.

"we owe you an apology" god I love CD Projekt Red. What a class act. totally willing to wait for this to be an amazing game.

Oh, during my exams. PERFECT!

I don't see why they feel the need to apologize. I don't care if this comes out in 2016 as long as the final product is the best they can do and what they envisioned it would be. Really looking forward to playing it, but not if it's been rushed.

I think its more of a courtesy than any feeling like they "have" to apologize. They are a business that laid down a date, and now they have to change that date. If there was a check-list that outlined a business caring how they communicate with their audience, I'd imagine saying "sorry!" is one of them.

That is how I look at it at least.

I'm happy to hear that CDPR is taking their time again. The worst thing that could happen is release an unfinished game that doesn't live up to their vision.

I can't help but think that some of these delays may be due to having to commit to console right out of the gate. Is it possible that the limitations of the new machines are hampering development?

More time to play Bloodborne, so this is fine with me.

More time for fine-tuning and fixing is always good, glad to hear.

While it's very nice for CD Projekt to release the game on my birthday, I probably would have just preferred it come out at the original release date. But hey, it's the thought that counts.

This is just a reminder to me that I really really need to finish The Witcher Two.