Thats a bummer i was hoping for a mid year release...the end of he year is looking quite packed already.

CD Projekt RED In Trouble? The Witcher 3 Gameplay Designers Leave The Studio

I'm guessing they left because their work is completed and they are just polishing the game up now.

Given that none of them had those roles during the production of The Witcher 2, I don't think CDP Red will have troubles.

What could happen, though, is that the people in charge of those roles in Cyberpunk will take that task and in turn delay Cyberpunk.

Followers of the Penguin, Marcin Iwiński, one of the founders of CD Projekt RED, has spoken out about why the developer of The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 has not yet shown any support towards Linux.

Citing an issue deemed a myth by many, especially by Ryan "Icculus" Gordon who took to busting this myth during the Steam Developer Days of 2014, Iwiński believes that if you are going to support Linux, you cannot simply pick one distribution to support. Instead, he feels that CD Projekt RED would have to take to supporting at least five.

Marcin Iwiński, CD Projekt REDFirst of all, we have a lot of respect for Steam and we think they are very, very good business guys and good gamer friendly guys and that's really, really important. We like what they are doing and with the Steam Box, if they will be able to deliver a cool console, definitely, we are interested in having a game there.

You know, one of the reasons we have not released The Witcher on Linux is that we most probably have to address five different versions of Linux and this is always terrible to support the quality of the games afterwards. The patches, the updates, and everything. If Steam will deliver a constant Linux environment, call it SteamOS or anything like that, we would love to have our games there because, you know, the more people play our games, the better for us.

Source (from 1:29:16).

There you have it. SteamOS will somehow negate having to support five Linux distributions and defeat the beast that is distro fragmentation once and for all.

How do you feel about CD Projekt RED's reasoning? Will SteamOS bring the desired changes? I, personally, can only keep on hoping and ask you kind folks to keep on voting for GOG, sister company to CD Projekt RED and reseller of its games, to finally add Linux support.

http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/cd-projekt-red-considering-the-witcher-3-for-linux-if-steamos-takes-off.3105

Also a new preview over here

http://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/2014/02/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-hands-off-impressions/

Contains mild spoilers tho so I didn't read it lol

There are only 2 spoilers, one very small and another that has been known for some time now, so it's not very dangerous to read it.

But, for those who don't want to read it, the interesting parts are about the combat

"Here, we get our first glimpse at the revamped combat mechanics. Initially, Łukasz selects his sword from a scroll wheel that also holds all of the Witcher Signs, however the latter are conveniently able to be quick-swapped between on the fly without having to enter any interface element or pause combat. Immediately noticeable is the increased speed, fluidity and responsiveness of the Geralt’s swordsman skills, which play out from a selection of 96 new animation sequences, from parries to stabs and slices. Sign usage is also faster, able to be utilised fluidly as an integral part of your offensive arsenal. Each of the five Signs now have a primary and secondary application, i.e., the Igni fire blast can be held to develop into a flamethrower."

and potions

"The potions will work in a different way than in The Witcher 2. So now you will prepare them, you will drink them before a fight, but you can release the effect of those whenever you want. So it’s not like you’ve drunk the potion and you have 30 seconds of boost and then it wears off. You can start the fight in the moment it suits you, and if the fight proves hard, you can just release the effect through your metabolism. But if the fight is easy, you can preserve that and use it in the next fight.”

Monsters run free: The Witcher 3 delayed until February 2015

Tragedy has struck. The monsters are winning. Dragons are burning down the countryside, ghouls are having loud parties in graveyards and demonic beasties are hassling folk in the street. What we need is a Witcher, but we won’t be getting one until February, 2015.

Can we even survive for that long?

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CD Projekt RED Details The Witcher 3′s Delay, Main Storyline Complete, REDengine 3 Optimizations

So, the reasons they delayed the game is to improve the engine so it can run on more machines and because by 2015 there will be more PS4/X1 consoles sold so they will sell more copies...

Understandable.