Witcher “On-Hold” for Consoles

The Witcher, originally released for the PC late 2008, was widely received by critics everywhere. And in February of 2009, CD Projekt announced they were bringing the game over to next generation consoles. This wasn’t going to be a simple port as they had re-coded the original engine and optimized it for the consoles. The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf has been highly anticipated for a 2009 release, but Widescreen Games, the developers tasked with the console update, has announced today that development for the console version has been “frozen”.

“The development of the game “The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf” has been suspended in an attempt to resolve financial problems among the various project partners.

We regret this measure, particularly on behalf of the fans who were impatiently awaiting the release of the game. I hope that we can find an amicable solution with our present and former partners involved in this ambitious project,” commented Olivier Masclef, manager at Widescreen Games.

Source: GamesPress

When issues of “financial problems” occurs within development studios, it’s never a good sign. According to the official press release, the development has stopped and there’s isn’t any details of when/if it will ever start up again.

Source: GamesPress

Personally, I believe the action/RPG elements of The Witcher would have been a perfect fit for consoles and could have been the title Too Human wanted to be. This wasn’t a simple Diablo clone and it featured a very engaging and mature storyline.

In an exclusive interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Masclef outlined the truth behind the “financial problems”:

“Basically, after a few months of not being paid, we stopped,” said Masclef speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. “We’ve not been paid for a few months and we had a very nasty broken payment. We had no choice but to put the product on hold. We’ve not been able to find a solution.”

Masclef claims Widescreen was also kept in the dark and not informed of new milestone dates for the project, along with added features, which publisher Atari was expecting following discussions with CD Projekt.

“We were not involved in discussions with Atari and CD Projekt. The financial situation seems to have grown more and more difficult,” he said.

Source: GamesPress

Hopefully another developer or publisher will be sought to pick this title up and continue work on it. Because as you can see from the last set of screenshots released in March, the game was shaping up quite nicely. For now, fans will have to make do with the PC version of the game, which was re-released in an Enhanced Edition package last November.