The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt signed to Namco Bandai in Australia

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Namco Bandai Games Australia, the antipodean arm of the international publisher.

Why do you care? "We’re going to work hard on this one with local promotions and consumer offers with trade to make it a winner all round," local product and PR manager Stephen O'Leary told us.

"We’re really excited to continue to develop our relationship with Namco Bandai Games and, as a result, introduce The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to even more gamers across the globe. Thanks to our shared passion for games and our partner’s understanding of what core values constitute The Witcher series, I’m confident we can make the launch of The Witcher 3 something really special,” CD Projekt RED studio head Adam Badowski said in a statement.

"CD Projekt RED is a world class developer that cares passionately about its games and its fans. We are therefore delighted and proud to again be their chosen partner in Australia and New Zealand and we are very excited to add the eagerly awaited ‘The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’ to our 2014 line-up,’ Namco bandai Games Asia Pacific senior vice president Gerard Noonan said, also in a statement.

“The Witcher series is one of the industries most revered video game franchises and with the power of the new generation of consoles we expect CD Projekt RED will take the series to even greater heights.”

Namco Bandai is also handling the European release this time around. Namco Bandai and CD Projekt have been working together to bring The Witcher series to various markets since the first version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings hit. The two had a disagreement over DRM, and then over the Xbox 360 second title, which was handled by THQ in North America for a short time, but resolved the situation, apparently to everyone's satisfaction.

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is due on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sometime this year. Hopefully.