CD Projekt Red has published the full list of changes coming with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered ahead of its release tomorrow, September 29, on PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC via Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, and Battle.net. As I said when the Blizzard partnership was detailed, most people are just going to buy it on Steam or GOG anyway, but it’s nice to have options. As announced at gamescom, anyone who purchased any version of the game, physical or digital, can upgrade to Remastered for free within the same platform ecosystem. The remaster is already up for Best Remake / Remaster at the Golden Joystick Awards, where voting runs through October 23, and its reveal trailer won Best Trailer / Announcement at the gamescom awards last month.
The skill system has been reorganized into a skill tree where each skill has three ranks and unlocking a new one depends on having the prerequisite skills rather than spending a set number of points, and CD Projekt Red flagged this one as important because existing skill points have been reset as a result. The transmogrification feature mentioned at the reveal is called Reforge, which changes a piece of equipment’s appearance without touching its stats, and only master craftsmen Yoana and Hattori offer the service. Combat behavior for many non-boss monsters has been polished, Geralt gets new finisher and idle animations along with faster climbing and vaulting, and there’s a new exploration camera with a wider field of view alongside a dynamic combat camera. You can also now collect loot without dismounting Roach and disengage from a fight by holding dodge and then pressing sprint.
On the rendering side, the remaster implements an improved shading model, updates multiple textures and models using assets from The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project, the community mod, and moves the game to native DirectX 12 rendering with multithreading. Other additions include GTAO as a new ambient occlusion option, ray-traced local shadows, and new image-based lighting. PC players also get path tracing, DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction, FSR 4 with Frame Generation on Radeon RX 7000 cards and newer, XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation, ray-traced HairWorks, and DualSense haptic feedback. Cross-platform mod support powered by mod.io is built into the main menu, though it requires logging in with a CD Projekt Red account and connecting it to mod.io.
Meditation now plays out as a timelapse instead of a menu screen, nearby loot can be grouped into a single window, and a new loot feed shows recently collected items on the left side of the screen. Photo Mode has been expanded considerably, with multiple placeable characters, poses and expressions, a first-person camera, weather and time of day controls, and placeable props, which CD Projekt Red says you shouldn’t ask where they came from. A new Accessibility section in the Settings menu adds the Bard’s Ballad preset, which is designed to reduce cognitive load for players who experience mental fatigue or have trouble concentrating, with individual toggles for infinite breath, unlimited item and boat durability, ignoring item weight, faster boats, and a toggle for Witcher Sense. The update also adds Ukrainian text localization and XBOX Play Anywhere support.
PlayStation 5 gets multithreaded rendering, while PlayStation 5 Pro adds PSSR support, VRR with uncapped frame rates, a Ray Tracing Mode targeting 60 FPS, and a Performance Mode at a higher resolution targeting 60 FPS and up to 90 FPS on VRR displays. The Switch 2 version supports four playstyles in Handheld, Pro Controller, Dual Grip with motion controls, and Mouse Sensor. Motion patterns cover actions like casting Signs, using consumables, throwing bombs, and calling Roach, and the version also supports gyro aiming, touch screen input in menus, Gwent, and Photo Mode, Joy-Con 2 HD Rumble, and VRR in handheld mode plus HDR.
The updated PC system requirements now list six tiers, and every one of them calls for a 60GB SSD and 64-bit Windows 11, with no Windows 10 option anywhere on the sheet. Minimum targets 1080p at 30 FPS on Low with a GeForce GTX 1660, which CD Projekt Red notes can reach 60 FPS or higher, while Ultra calls for an RTX 3070 Ti or Radeon RX 6800 XT for 1440p at 60 FPS along with 24GB of RAM. Path tracing at 2160p and 60 FPS with Frame Generation is listed for the RTX 5080 only, paired with a Core i9-13900K or Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 16GB of VRAM, and 24GB of RAM. Upscaling is turned off for every tier unless otherwise indicated, and the Epic Games Store version needs 95GB of available storage instead of 60GB.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered PC System Requirements
Minimum (1080p / Low / 30 FPS)
- CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 / AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB / Intel Arc A580
- VRAM: 6GB
- RAM: 12GB
- Storage: 60GB SSD
- OS: 64-bit Windows 11
Recommended (1080p / High / 60 FPS)
- CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super / AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT / Intel Arc B580
- VRAM: 8GB
- RAM: 16GB
- Storage: 60GB SSD
- OS: 64-bit Windows 11
Ultra (1440p / Ultra / 60 FPS)
- CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT / Intel Arc B580 (with XeSS)
- VRAM: 8GB
- RAM: 24GB
- Storage: 60GB SSD
- OS: 64-bit Windows 11
RT Minimum (1080p with DLSS, FSR, or XeSS / RT / 30 FPS)
- CPU: Intel Core i7-11700K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super / AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT / Intel Arc B580
- VRAM: 8GB
- RAM: 16GB
- Storage: 60GB SSD
- OS: 64-bit Windows 11
RT Recommended (1440p with DLSS or FSR / RT Ultra / 60 FPS)
- CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 / AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
- VRAM: 12GB
- RAM: 24GB
- Storage: 60GB SSD
- OS: 64-bit Windows 11
Path Tracing (2160p with DLSS / RT Ultra / 60 FPS with Frame Generation)
- CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K / AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080
- VRAM: 16GB
- RAM: 24GB
- Storage: 60GB SSD
- OS: 64-bit Windows 11
Note: Upscaling (DLSS, FSR, and XeSS) is turned off unless otherwise indicated. The GeForce GTX 1660 can achieve 60 FPS or higher. On the Epic Games Store, 95GB of available storage is required.
