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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is easily one of the eighth console generation's most beloved single-player action role-playing games, and rightfully so. Despite being released almost a decade ago, the game looks and plays better than most modern AAA open-world titles. The Witcher 3 is a monumental achievement in creating a living, breathing, open-world setting, and masterful storytelling.
Whether it be the main story quests or the many optional side quests, the writing in The Witcher 3 surpasses many modern AAA titles. Although the branching and immaculate narrative is the highlight of the "Witcher 3" experience, combat and general gameplay are no lesser, giving players plenty of options for different builds and playstyles.
The Witcher 3, despite its age, is still one of the best-looking games on consoles and PC. To make things even better, the game is set to receive a massive visual overhaul via a free "next-gen" patch, which comes out on December 14, 2022, for current-generation consoles including the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, as well as PC.
Here's what players can expect from the upcoming free next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt:
From visual upgrades to a full-fledged photo mode, here's what players can expect from the upcoming The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt update
Visual upgrades
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is already one of the most visually stunning open-world games out there, despite its age. Playing it on a high-end PC with the graphics settings cranked to Ultra makes for a surreal gaming experience.
The environments in the game, including the lush forests and densely populated towns, feature some really intricately detailed texture work that shines even on last-generation consoles, i.e., PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
While the game looks marvelous on last-generation consoles and PCs, CD Projekt Red has made improvements to the RED engine that delivers an even more visually appealing experience with the next-gen update. It features advanced "global illumination" which drastically improves the in-game lighting, shadows, and screen-space reflections, with the addition of ray-traced reflections and shadows.
The next-gen patch also increases texture resolution to native 4K, which greatly enhances the quality of in-game assets. The foliage rendering has also seen a significant improvement, with increased density and reduced aliasing.
Alongside all the graphical improvements, CD Projekt Red has also added support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR) and Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS).
Photo Mode
One of the most requested features from fans for the next-gen update of The Witcher 3, was Photo Mode. With games on eighth-generation consoles and PCs reaching photorealistic graphical quality, Photo Mode has become a mainstay for most AAA and indie titles.
While the Vanilla Witcher 3 experience sorely lacked the ability to take tailored in-game screenshots (without using third-party applications or overlays), the next-gen update is adding the highly requested Photo Mode in The Witcher 3.
Much like Cyberpunk 2077's Photo Mode, players will have a lot of presets and sliders to play around with, including a field of view slider, aperture size control, and exposure control, along with a host of other features.
Quality of life improvements
From gameplay tweaks to overhauled controls, the next-gen update for Witcher 3 adds a lot of new quality-of-life changes to the game, based on player feedback. Here are all the gameplay tweaks the game will be receiving with the new update:
- New zoomed-in camera option: A more immersive over-the-shoulder camera option for players.
- Quick Sign casting: Option to bind Geralt's signs to dedicated buttons, allowing players to quickly switch between the signs without the need for the Radial Menu.
- Hide minimap option: Allowing players to hide the minimap while exploring the open world for a much more immersive experience.
- New map filters: Allows players to filter map icons as per their personal preference.
- Subtitle scaling: Allowing players to manually adjust the size of subtitles.
- Ability to pause cutscenes: A feature that was sorely needed in the base Witcher 3 experience, allowing players to pause cutscenes without the risk of skipping through important dialog.
Aside from these additions, CD Projekt Red has made numerous bug fixes to the game, including for broken quests that were never patched in the Vanilla game, fixes for some of the dialog localization, as well as a host of other minor improvements.
As a token of gratitude for players supporting and enjoying The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red has also added new equipment and armor for Geralt based on the Netflix series, alongside an alternate look for Dandelion and Nilfgaardian Soldiers.
CD Projekt Red has also added a few surprises for players in the form of hidden quests and rewards, which players will stumble upon while exploring the vast open world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
