Released in 2015, Witcher: Wild Hunt is one of the most popular open-world RPGs of all time. Developed by CD Projekt Red, the same studio that brought us Cyberpunk 2077, the game recently received a “Next Gen” update, which improves the overall graphics and brings some very useful quality of life changes along with some new side missions. If you already own a copy of Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, be sure to download the free “Next Gen” update. Here’s everything we know so far about the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next Gen update.
Updated graphics
The updated version of the game makes significant changes to the game’s lighting and shadows. The developers have also integrated some mods made by the community like the popular ‘The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project’, ‘HD Monsters’, ‘Impress Real-time Cutscenes’, ‘Nitpicker’s Patch’ and more.
The new version also upscales character textures to 4K, improves sky textures, improves vegetation, water and meshes, and all main characters now have high-resolution shadows. The developers have also fixed some bugs such as hair being cut by armor. It also adds support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.1, a new shooting mode, the ability to pause the game during cutscenes, and an alternative dynamic camera option that reacts to your movement and combat.
If you plan to play the game on PC, you’ll get an additional graphics preset called “Ultra+” that allows you to tweak parameters such as the number of background characters, grass density, shadow quality, texture, increase foliage and increase texture. terrain, water and level of detail. Those with NVIDIA’s 4000 series graphics cards can also enable DLSS 3.
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The update brings improved textures, fidelity, shadows and crowd density and increases draw distance on all next-gen consoles. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X players also get ray-traced global lighting and ambient occlusion with a dynamic resolution scaling target set at 30 FPS. You also get a “Performance Mode” that helps the game stay at 60 FPS.
Game changes
CD Projekt Red has added the “Full Combat Rebalance 3” mod which brings some changes and fixes some annoying gameplay bugs. Some quality of life changes include a “Quick Sign Casting” option, a new default map filter, increased minimum fall damage height, the ability to collect all herbs without having to go to the loot and many more.
Cross progression
CD Projekt Red has also added a cross-progression feature that allows players to back up their game saves to the cloud so they can pick up where they left off on another device. However, this feature is only available after logging into your GOG account. Also, save games from consoles do not carry over to the PC version of the game.
New side quests
Taking inspiration from the Netflix series, the developers have also added some side quests such as “In the Shadow of Eternal Fire”, a new outfit for Dandelion and a new set of Nilfgaardian armor.