I’ve were built with a number of days to spend some early time with The Witcher 3’s PS5 update, which is liberated to existing those who own the game, replaying the experience from a fresh save file (although you will have the option of transferring existing saves to this one) in an attempt to gauge whether diving back to Wild Hunt may be worth time of anyone who’s already invested 200+ hours into it in the past. The short answer? Absolutely.
That recommendation comes with a few caveats, obviously, like do you have the time to replay The Witcher 3 at this time? I certainly don’t, however for people still hanging onto our old physical discs or who’ve picked up digitally through some sale or subscription previously, it’s well worth the low admission price of free to invest at least a couple of hours back in its world. If you’re completely new to the game and have even a passing curiosity about massive RPGs or caught the books or Netflix show and developed a desire for the franchise, better still, you’d prosper to pick up a duplicate now and listen to it through within the best state it’s ever been.
Right from the bat, the most noticeable improvements within this new-gen SKU of The Witcher 3 are available in the type of its visuals. CD Projekt RED has taken towards the game’s core graphical set of features by having an angle grinder along with a fresh coat of paint, smoothing from the rough edges of the existing console release and then dialling the quality of just about everything up a fair few notches.
On PS5 and Xbox Series X, this starts with the option between two distinct visual modes – a ray-traced mode that targets 30fps and a “performance” mode that sits nearer to 60fps. Both options utilise AMD’s FSR 2.1 upscaling tech to produce a dynamic 4K resolution. I initially thought I was likely to have a problem choosing which mode to experience in, especially since the difference in the caliber of the lighting and shadows and exactly how everything all comes together within the ray-traced mode is so incredibly stark. After trying both though, the 60fps target in the performance mode is definitely the real winner. There’s an all natural beauty and wonder in the game’s world which comes through most in movement, whether it’s the remarkable weather and time-of-day effects, the way in which foliage sways in the breeze and bends under foot, or simply the scenery rushing by as you dash through in your trusty Roach. Running at high frame rates simply sells this better than ever before on consoles and really elevates the experience of just exploring and enjoying the massive open world.
Outside of the technical improvements, CDPR has also retooled a ton of the game’s assets, using a combination of community mods and in-house updates that have a pretty transformative effect on the game’s look and feel. It’s great seeing a lot of cutscenes that were originally pre-rendered now produced in real time, and with character model and texture bumped up significantly, and a lot of the higher-quality models and shadow effects previously reserved only for cutscenes now carry across into general gameplay as well. Pretty much every object in the world looks nicer, either because of added detail or just through the tweaked environment lighting and optional ray-tracing. I’m not someone that’s able to pick apart every pixel of every frame and discern what’s new or better, but it’s easy to appreciate the game’s image quality as a whole, since it’s all a lot more cohesive with vastly bigger draw distances and object density and much-improved performance.
Of course it’s not just visual improvements that make this the definitive version of the definitive open-world RPG. Going for a similar tact, CDPR has revamped many of the game’s underlying mechanics as well as implemented numerous welcome quality-of-life features, once more including some help from community-developed mods. Many of these significantly help to creating The Witcher 3 feel more “modern” again, such as the new cinematic camera that puts in additional effort to border Geralt’s heroic stature and all of the action he finds himself in. I occasionally thought it was awkward during fights or certain bits of navigation, more than likely just down to the fact that these encounters and environments were built with the more pulled-back view in mind, but overall it’s a nice way to replay the sport from the slightly new perspective that looks a lot more impressive in the moment.
Also adding to this are changes to such things as Sign casting, which lets you cast any of Geralt’s Signs by holding R1 and pressing the appropriate face button, rather than needing to pause the flow of find it hard to select a sign in the radial menu. It’s one easy tweak however it radically changes how fights feel once you’re used to it, and definitely has encouraged me to make use of more of the signs that I largely ignored within my original playthrough. CDPR says it’s implemented lots of combat balance changes according to mods and feedback as well, and although it’s been too much time between plays that i can really understand where those could be felt I’m already feeling much more positive about battle just because of methods much more responsive things are.
If you’re playing on PS5 you’ll also have the additional benefits of console-specific features like adaptive triggers and haptic feedback, which whilst not overly game-changing happen to be a nice extra touch so far, in addition to Activity Cards along with other UI integrations that should help result in the event much more accessible. During the time of writing the UI features like Activity Cards hadn’t gone live yet, but I’m very keen to create use of them for jumping straight into specific content as I keep playing.
There’s a lot more to talk about when it comes to this hugely comprehensive upgrade to The Witcher 3, and probably a great deal I’m yet to see first-hand in the gargantuan game, but I’m confident enough already to state that what you’re getting this is a lot for free. Even when you’re new, the game now comes with all the excellent expansion content and improvements designed to the sport in the years since its original release, therefore it represents great good value even before the new-gen upgrades. Without a doubt, if you’ve been on a fence about giving The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt another bypass or dipping your toes in for the first time – now's your moment.
