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The Witcher 3 was apparently never planned for Linux

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Sad news again (sorry). Apparently The Witcher 3 was never actually planned for Linux which makes things a bit odd.

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Source

Hmmm, "never were any" huh. Let's have a recap shall we.

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The Witcher 3 was originally confirmed by a big front-page "coming to SteamOS" banner on Steam. This was up for a while, but it got pulled down and no announcement was ever made by Valve or the game developer about it. Everyone went silent on it.

Much later the game was again featured in Steam's big SteamOS sale. At this time I did note it was the only game not to specifically state it on the Steam store page, when all the others confirmed it somehow.

I reached out to both GOG and CD PROJEKT RED each time these happened, and I never got a reply.

I have now personally reached out to GOG for answers, although they never replied to me specifically before. Slightly annoying, as they have replied to a few other random people through emails when asking about it, but never to me directly. I am hoping they are now willing to get it properly cleared up.

This whole situation has been one odd thing after another.

What I imagine, is that it was planned, but was later dropped due to unforeseen issues. The problem here, is as always, the lack of communication. Neither party will want to blame the other, as it will sour business relations. It's likely both Valve and CDPR are at fault for it in some way or another.

The problem here is how utterly incompetent are they (either or both of them) to have it featured twice like this? Especially since the second time was specifically a sale to get people to buy it to play it on SteamOS directly.

The whole thing bloody stinks. I don't like speaking writing like this, but that's my honest opinion on the matter. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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57 comments
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Guest Sep 2, 2016
Linux is not getting any love from your typical cash grabbing AAA devs.

We are relying now (given Aspyr games has gone to the dark side) on two porting companies ( VP, Feral interactive ) three if you count code weavers to bring existing or older titles across.

Even though there are many new games from small - medium budget developers on Linux. It seems that apart from the sorts of companies who historically have been OpenGL centric devs on windows like Croteam, that we are destined to become an Indie game platform. Not that is always a bad thing as indie doesn't mean what it used to.


Last edited by on 2 September 2016 at 4:22 pm UTC
Feist Sep 2, 2016
Weirdness galore! The first question that pops up in my mind is whether this support guy actually knows what he is talking about. It wouldn´t be the first time when different people from the same company gives out contradictory information because one person really knows the score while the other one just makes a "best guess" since he assumes that he knows all there is to know.

Unfortunatly, unless someone directly involved with the whole mess speaks up, we´ll just have to keep on guessing.
Valve and CDPROJEKT did MISLEADING ADVERTISING with obvious bad intentions against us, the customers.
minidou Sep 2, 2016
Quoting: KeyrockReminder: Never Pre-order
and this is why I still didn't buy Rocket League, even during the sales
FredO Sep 2, 2016
Gotta say, this blows!
cheerockie Sep 2, 2016
As I wrote in this topic.


Last edited by cheerockie on 2 September 2016 at 4:43 pm UTC
Pecisk Sep 2, 2016
Yeah, this is BS. I can buy 'it's not planned' at the moment, but 'never planned' part reeks of miscommunication at best, and scammy behavior (most likely unwanted) at worst.

But I really don't buy AAA announcements anymore anyway. I mean, if they don't want to release Linux ports, why would we should force them? We have enough to carve out our space.
bolokanar Sep 2, 2016
'Tis shall be easy to see.

On the other hand Feral are collecting requests for feature ports: https://www.facebook.com/feralinteractive/photos/a.910655945625576.1073741862.118120444879134/1259910794033421/?type=3&permPage=1
Consider dropping by and giving The Witcha a +1.

Also, ask CD Projekt Red at facebook to consider letting Feral or Aspyr do it for them.
https://www.facebook.com/CDPROJEKTRED
[email protected] Sep 2, 2016
Disappointing. False advertising.
Bumadar Sep 2, 2016
Quoting: coesetaGOG/CD Project Red are the devs behind Witcher 3

GoG are not devs. They are a distribution service for video games and a subsidary of CD Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com

Quoting: Segata SanshiroThis is the main reason I never bothered playing The Witcher 2. For starters, the story makes little sense without the first game, and I like story so would want to play that first, but it's not available. Then if I end up really liking the game and want more, I wouldn't want to be in a situation where there's a sequel I can't even play.

That is a shame, because the story of wither 2 is really good and you don't need Witcher 1 for it, not sure where you got that idea. And it has a good ending that does not require Witcher 3
So if you like stories then do give it a go. (the gameplay itself is brutal though compared to modern games/controls)
If you really want the story of Witcher 1 then spend 20min in watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRSbeauDT0k
(or you could always get the books, they are really good)
(and Witcher 1 is not unplayable on Wine)

---0---

As for it not coming to Linux, if you played it then you know how utterly brilliantly looking the game is and if you followed the release a bit then you know how much effort it cost them to even get it working probably on current gen consoles and windows, I truly doubt the 1% Linux customers will bring enough to return the investment to get it running on Linux in the same state, because if they can't get it running with the same visual effect/framerates we will all be upset and shouting at them.

Does not mean the who thing is correct as to how it went, but CD Project Red are one of the few good anti-drm developers we still have in the game industry and I can forgive them (I got it on GoG and still have it there but also got it on the PS4 because I figured it would not come out)
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