It’s Witcher day again! A cool seven-and-a-half years after The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released, a brand new next-gen update has arrived to make Geralt’s Big Adventure look better than ever.
I thought I’d take the occasion to celebrate some of the things we’ve written about the game over the years. We’ve done some good stuff, you know, and I’m not just saying that because I wrote some of it, I promise!
Let’s start at the top, with what’s happening today: the next-gen update. This is free and brings, most notably, a buffed up Performance mode and brand new Ray-Tracing mode to the game – for newer consoles and PC. There’s a lot of incidental stuff in there too, though, such as quality of life improvements to controls and camera angles and much more.
And, there’s brand new content in the game – a new Scavenger Hunt quest to unlock Geralt’s armour from seasons one and two of The Witcher Netflix show. I’ve played this and it’s a good quest, though don’t get overexcited, it’s only one good quest, not more. You can also now toggle on or off the Nilfgaardian ‘ballsack armour’, as it’s colloquially known these days, and Jaskier/Dandelion’s look from the show – though I’m sure it’s the topless look people are really after.
- Here’s everything I learned about The Witcher 3 next-gen update when I visited CD Projekt Red recently
- Here’s what The Witcher 3 next-gen update is like to play
- And here’s what Digital Foundry made of The Witcher 3 next-gen update
If you’re curious about what DF makes of the full release, know that Tom Morgan is working on a video about it right now – I can see him doing it on his desk behind me in the office. He’s found a few frame-rate drops, too, but that might be tidied up at any moment in a new patch. He estimates Sunday will be when his video is ready.
That out of the way, let’s go back in time a bit. One of the pieces I still pinch myself about having the opportunity to write was when I embedded myself at CD Projekt Red for a few days while The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launched. That means I was there, inside the studio on 18th May 2015, when the game was released to the world. The Polish Prime Minister even showed up at one point.