Nobody was expecting this one. When CD Projekt Red took the Gamescom Opening Night Live stage to close out the show, the assumption was a Songs of the Past trailer and not much else. Instead, the studio unveiled something that landed harder than almost anything else at ONL 2026: a full remaster of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, arriving as a completely free upgrade on 29 September 2026 for all current owners of the game. Eleven years after its original release, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered is a thing, and it looks significant.
What the Remastered Upgrade Actually Changes
CD Projekt Red has confirmed a list of over 30 improvements coming with the Remastered update. The headline changes touch combat, movement, and the skill tree — areas that older players often flagged as showing their age against more recent RPGs.
Enhanced combat brings new finishing moves, new visual effects for Witcher signs, and smoother combat flow. Improved traversal overhauls mantling, climbing, and vaulting so that Geralt moves more intelligently through environments. Mount handling has been revamped, the skill tree has been restructured in a style compared to Cyberpunk 2077’s, and armour transmogrification is now included — letting players match the visual look they want to the stats they need.
Beyond that: new quest tracking, a looting rework, an expanded photo mode, new finisher animations, immersive meditation, cross-platform mod support, UI improvements, and Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive features. CD Projekt Red has described this as the most significant update to The Witcher 3 since its 2022 next-gen patch, and the full list tallies more than 30 individual changes. The list is long.
Free for Existing Owners — Including Both Expansions
The Remastered upgrade is free for all current owners of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on PC (GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Crucially, it also bundles in both major expansions — Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine — at no additional cost for anyone who doesn’t already own them. That’s a substantial amount of content at no charge.
The situation for Nintendo Switch owners is slightly more nuanced. There is no upgrade for the current Switch 1 version of the game; instead, a separate Switch 2–native version of Witcher 3 Remastered will be sold, though owners of the Switch 1 version will be able to claim it free. CD Projekt Red has also confirmed that the remaster will be available for pre-purchase on Battle.net, marking the first time The Witcher 3 has been available on Blizzard’s launcher.
Key point: Players who purchase Witcher 3 Remastered via Battle.net will unlock a Geralt-inspired skin in Diablo 4, with further details to be revealed at BlizzCon in September.
Technical Upgrades: Path Tracing, DLSS 4.5, and Raytraced Hair
The visual improvements in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered go considerably beyond a texture refresh. On PC, the update brings path tracing, ray reconstruction, raytraced hair (an oddly specific but genuinely impressive feature), and native DX12. Console players get improved global lighting, a new shading model, subsurface scattering, and PlayStation 5 Pro support.
On the upscaling front: Nvidia DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4 (with particularly strong performance on Xbox Ally devices), and Intel XESS 2.0 are all included. Xbox Play Anywhere support is also new, finally allowing players to access the game across Xbox Series X|S and Xbox Ally without purchasing a separate copy.
29 September: Five Weeks Away
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered launches on 29 September 2026. It arrives on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2, and it’s free for existing owners across those platforms. New players purchasing for the first time will get the full package — base game and both expansions — as a single product.
The Remastered upgrade also functions as the foundation for Songs of the Past, the third expansion confirmed at the same ONL showcase. That expansion arrives in 2027, meaning players now have a natural on-ramp: play or replay the Remastered version this autumn, then go straight into new story content next year. CD Projekt Red has planned this one carefully.
