The Witcher 3 didn't want to be the next big-name broken launch

CD Projekt Red took heed of the broken state in which many big-name games released in 2014, and the bubbling outrage of gamers in response, when it made the decision to delay The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt by three months, a member of the studio's board told financial journalists in Poland.

"[The] market is afraid of badly polished games on next-gen platforms," said Adam Kiciński, according to a translation by Eurogamer. Kiciński said there are not major structural problems with the game, but "a lot of small errors" that need time to discover and eliminate.

"We know what we have to do, we just have to do it," he said. "We don't want to release the game with bugs that undermine the gameplay." DriveClub, Assassin's Creed Unity and Halo: The Master Chief Collection are all big-name launches that went out the door with substantial, game-breaking problems.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been delayed twice. Originally it was due to launch in the fall of this year. Then it was pushed to February and even that was set "too hastily," the studio said in hindsight.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is now due to launch on May 19 for PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.