The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered Version Released

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered releases on September 29th. Players who own any version of the game on Steam receive a free upgrade to the Remastered version at launch.

The upgrade introduces significant updates across visual rendering, gameplay systems, user interface, photo mode, accessibility, and modding support.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered implements an improved shading model alongside updated textures and models based on assets from The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project.

• Lighting and shading for grass and foliage receive improvements.

• Signs and their upgrade versions feature updated visual effects, alongside new visual effects for skills.

• Native DirectX 12 rendering with multithreading replaces older methods to improve performance and visuals.

• Tone mapping updates improve colors, lighting, contrast, and detail.

• GTAO (Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion) joins the available Screen Space Ambient Occlusion options.

• The HDR calibration panel receives new options and improvements.

• Ray-Traced Local Shadows are added to the game.

• Screen Space Reflections and Screen Space Shadows receive updates.

• Motion Blur adopts a higher-quality, more cinematic look.

• Subsurface Scattering updates provide more natural skin rendering.

• Terrain and material rendering improve lighting, shadows, reflections, and highlights.

• New Image-Based Lighting (IBL) enhances ambient lighting and reflections across environments.

• Bloom is reworked to improve lighting effects in different environments.

• The skill system is reorganized into a skill tree where each skill features three ranks. Unlocking new skills requires prerequisite skills instead of a set number of skill points, which results in a reset of existing skill points.

• Skill bonus values, effects, and synergies are rebalanced, and certain skills are renamed to reflect their effects.

• Equipment appearance can be changed through reforging without altering stats, a service offered exclusively by master craftsmen Yoana and Hattori. Appearances are unlocked by adding new equipment and crafting diagrams to the inventory, and dyes from Blood and Wine carry over.

• Non-boss monster combat behavior receives polished attack patterns, counterattacks, movement, reactions, flight, and effect applications.

• A “Horse control input sensitivity” slider is added under Settings → Controls.

• Geralt’s and Roach’s movement, controls, and animations receive multiple updates:

  • Geralt’s jumping animation is refined for a more natural look without changing jump distance and height.

  • New finisher and idle animations are added for Geralt.

  • Ledge climbing, ladder climbing, vaulting animations, and movement speed are improved for more fluid movement.

  • Gap closing animations during combat are smoothed out.

  • An exploration camera with an increased field of view is added.

  • A dynamic combat camera increases visibility during fights.

  • Target-lock switching improves when moving the camera during combat.

  • Collision avoidance updates when riding Roach.

  • Animations for mounting, dismounting, cantering, and galloping on Roach are polished.

• Meditation displays a timelapse instead of a UI screen.

• The skill screen transitions to a skill tree layout.

• The map screen simplifies switching between tracked quests, and untracked quests gain distinct markers that can be selected for tracking.

• The maximum number of map markers increases alongside newly added markers.

• Herbs, boats, and corpses can be hidden on the minimap via Settings → Video → Interface.

• Quest updates combine into a single HUD notification.

• Nearby loot can be grouped into a single window, and a loot feed displays recently collected items on the left side of the screen. Both options are managed in Settings → Gameplay.

• Item tooltips in the loot window allow item previewing before pickup.

• The “HUD Configuration” settings section is renamed to “Interface”.

• CD PROJEKT RED Account connection, My Rewards, and telemetry consent menus receive updates.

Photo Mode expands its features and interface options:

• Players can select multiple different characters to place in shots.

• Poses and expressions are added for Geralt and placeable characters.

• A confirmation prompt prevents accidental exits from Photo Mode.

• Camera positions can be locked in place.

• Environment presets and camera presets can be applied and saved.

• Screenshot aspect ratios can be changed.

• A first-person camera mode allows viewing the world through Geralt’s eyes.

• Camera collisions with objects and walls can be toggled on or off.

• Weather, time of day, and weather effect intensity can be adjusted.

• Rule of Thirds lines with optional cinematic black bars can be toggled.

• Camera coordinates appear in the UI.

• Surrounding NPCs can be hidden.

• Placeable props are added for scene creation.

• The mouse cursor is visible in Photo Mode on PC.

• An Accessibility section is added to the Settings menu, housing existing and new accessibility options.

• The Bard’s Ballad preset can be enabled when starting a new game on the Just the Story difficulty or from the Accessibility section. It includes the following customizable options:

  • Vitality Regeneration Boost lets players adjust the activation threshold and regeneration intensity.

  • Infinite Breath prevents Geralt from running out of oxygen while swimming and diving.

  • Unlimited Item Durability prevents gear wear, removing the need for craftsman repairs.

  • Unlimited Boat Durability makes boats indestructible against rocks and sirens.

  • Ignore Item Weight removes inventory weight limits.

  • Faster Boats increases sailing speed across seas.

  • Toggle Witcher Sense changes the mechanic to a toggle instead of requiring a held button.

• Tutorials are streamlined to focus on core mechanics.

• Combat can be quickly disengaged by holding the dodge button to unlock from a target, then pressing the sprint button to run.

• Loot can be collected without dismounting Roach.

• Cross Platform Mod Support powered by mod.io allows browsing and installing player-created mods from the main menu by linking a CD PROJEKT RED Account to mod.io. More information is available here.

• REDkit receives engine and UI improvements to assist modders with content creation.

• Fixed an issue that prevented changing Right Stick Sensitivity when accessed from the main menu, and allowed stick sensitivity to be set to 0.69.

• Fixed an issue where HDR settings occasionally failed to appear on consoles.

• In the Eternal Fire’s Shadow – Fixed an issue where Forgotten Wolf School Gear Diagrams did not display in the UI after being received as a reward.

• Wine is Sacred – Fixed an issue where fast traveling out of Toussaint during the “Search the wine cellar with Anna Henrietta” objective blocked quest progression. This fix is not retroactive.

• Ukrainian text localization is added.

Players must install the latest graphics drivers from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel.

• Path Tracing support is added.

• NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 support is added with Ray Reconstruction.

• AMD FSR 4 support is added with Frame Generation and Anti-Lag 2 for AMD Radeon RX 7000 Series and newer cards, falling back to FSR 2 on unsupported GPUs.

• Intel XeSS 2.0 support is added with Frame Generation and Low Latency.

• Ray-Traced HairWorks improves lighting and shading on hair.

• DualSense controller haptic feedback support is added.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered updates the system requirements for the game as shown in the table below:

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