I can try, but I suspect they won't answer. They don't talk about any of their work in progress related to CP2077.

Exploring options while not working in-house on it anymore somehow implies, that they're looking into outsourcing the port to another company.

Would be nice to know something more specific here...

Yes, that's what it sounds like. But at the same time nothing is moving anywhere. It shouldn't take that long to "explore" it.

Hi shmerl

With regard to the part where you mentioned that you guys are still exploring your options with regard to the Linux build of Witcher 3. Has development already been started on the port? If so what approach are you guys using as well as which APIs and tools are you using?
Other than that, I also have to ask, if your development approach and APIs and tools differ from the Windows build to the Linux one, and I assume they do. Why is that?

Thank you for your time

You should e-mail CDPR directly about it. I don't know any more than you do regrading details of their work in progress (or lack of it).

Please CDPR support Vulkan api as soon as possible! I speak not just for myself but many other gamers as well when I say WE WANT linux!
Microsoft's monopoly is limiting gamers from choosing os freely. With DX12 even W7 and 8 are ignored. If you care about gaming and gamers go for Vulkan.

Or they can just outsource the linux version of this game, I wonder why they insist to make this one by themselves when in the past they have outsourced.

Quality standard, maybe, with the witcher 3 being a more complex project?

I don't think they can make it by themselves, as they said, they have no people left. So their "exploring" must mean checking outsourcing options. What is not clear is why it takes them so long to figure out if it's possible and who can do it.

I thought it has always been behind.
Perhaps I should ask when was it less behind. When was the golden age of gaming on OS X?

It was always slow, but lately it's completely stagnated.

Haven't read the entire thread so I dunno if someone has said this already, but The Witcher 3 uses a variety of 3rd party middleware and I am not sure if it was (or is) all available for Linux, so if they want to or plan to do a Linux port of the game they would most likely be dependent on whether or not their 3rd party middleware suppliers make their software available for Linux also. Trying to replace the middleware with something of their own creation would likely be a monumental effort (or why use the middle-ware in the first place) and could change the way the game plays, all for a potentially significant expense for a very small portion of the market (less than 1%).

I can see them potentially doing it at some point if all of the middle-ware is available on Linux already, but if there is some 3rd party code the game depends on that is not available for Linux and there's no trivial low-cost way to work around that then I doubt there will ever be a Linux port.

It really depends on the middleware availability on Linux in terms of technical feasibility, then it falls to business feasibility and resource allocation. At the moment I think it's safe to say most of their resources are strongly allocated to CP2077. Ultimately we'll all have to wait and see though. Hopefully any hypothetical middle-ware roadblocks either don't exist or are solvable in the future, and at some point they port it over though.

At one point I did research on various middleware used in TW3, and at least all the stuff that's officially listed by the game (in credits and etc.) is available on Linux. Developers never said they were blocked by middleware, but on the other hand they said practically nothing to begin with so who knows what is blocking them.

I suppose the main blocker is lack of professional foresight of their management (not of developers, but of their bosses). If they wanted to make a Linux release, they should have paid attention and worked on solving these issues from the start, instead of waking up late in the process and realizing it's a monumental task because of all the issues they didn't anticipate lock them into certain platforms.

We'll see if they learned from such major mistakes in Cyberpunk 2077. So far I'm not confident that they learned much. They didn't share any info (about wither they use Vulkan in CP2077 for example).

I think it's a major overstatement on your part calling this a "major mistake". Yes, most likely they didn't plan for the Linux release from the start, as it makes little to none business sense, when you compare sales numbers for AAA titles on Windows and consoles. And the fact that you would like to see the game on Linux does not mean it's a major mistake. How many AAA games have you managed on the business side to be making such statements? Or are you just making such big statements without any actual experience or knowledge?

TW3 is not a small Unity based project, where you have a Linux version out of the box with one click. It will require dev resources, which cost money, and outside of some additional PR there is no other point in doing it. How many additional sales wold this move bring? Does TW3 need any additional PR?