The odd bedfellows of The Witcher 3 and Xbox One

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from CD Projekt Red was one of the games shown on Microsoft’s stage during their pre-E3 presentation. It’s a next-gen open-world extravaganza of witching, so it made sense that it was one of the games touted as being extra awesome on the Xbox One thanks to Kinect-enabled voice commands and the “power of the cloud.”

What struck a few fans as odd was just the fact that a famously anti-DRM developer like CD Projekt Red would even strike up a deal with Microsoft for their notoriously restrictive Xbox One console. CDP co-founder Marcin Iwiński told Eurogamer right after the conference that they didn’t have full details of the console DRM policy.

“We have not received anything from Microsoft until today on this one and, before we form any definite opinions here, we would like to have this process explained in details by the platform holder.

“From our side, we will be of course looking for the most gamer friendly solution.”

Iwiński later clarified that they didn’t want to “punish” Xbox One gamers and that ultimately “it’s the clients who make the final decision.”

Another puzzling aspect to the relationship is the fact that the Xbox One will not actually work in CDP’s native Poland at launch according to an official list of supported countries. Iwiński told Game Informer that he was taken by surprise by the console not working in his country.

“I was just in a restaurant and saw the list,” Iwinski told us. “I was surprised, and I really hope that it isn’t final. I think Polish gamers will speak out loud. From my perspective, it’s a sad situation.”

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be available DRM-free to PC gamers at GOG.com in 2014.