CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from 2015 is an excellent game made smoother in 2022 thanks to the freshly released Next-Gen (or current-gen) Update. It's not being billed as a remaster and certainly not a remake, but the various enhancements made to the overall experience bring the game closer to 2022 gaming hardware and software.
Most of the new changes are on the graphical and performance side, with some streamlining the gameplay. But from the improvements in 4K resolution to quality-of-life changes like Quick Sign Casting, there are plenty of things to appreciate in this update to justify another playthrough within The Continent.
Ray-Traced Global Illumination & Ambient Occlusion (PC)
Ever since the current console and PC hardware generation arrived in 2020, one of the most popular buzzwords became "ray tracing." It might not make much of a difference to some players depending on the game they're playing, but they look to be a welcome addition to this latest iteration of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
There aren't any modern lighting sources like in the concrete jungle of, say, Spider-Man, so ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion help noticeably improve the "natural" light sources outdoors and (especially) indoors of a medieval fantasy setting. This stunning new use of light and shadow looks particularly great with the update's enhanced 4K textures and resolution.
60 FPS Performance Mode (Consoles)
While The Witcher 3 was already one of the best RPGs to play on PC in of performance, the console experience needed improvement coming off of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. And, as with many older-gen games being ported or played through backward compatibility on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, CD Projekt Red's acclaimed RPG came with a 60 frames-per-second performance boost in this update.
It's practically a prerequisite in this day and age, and players can choose between a 4K ray-tracing mode or the performance mode that adjusts picture resolution dynamically with a 60 FPS target.
Upscaled 4K Character Models
Aside from performance improvements, the current generation of gaming consoles and modern PC hardware calls for enhanced visuals are a must as well. As one would expect from such an update, the Next-Gen Update overhauls the textures of many character models to a 4K resolution.
The original version of the game was quite the visual showstopper as is, but this is a welcome fresh coat of paint for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. 4K gaming on PC isn't quite as prevalent due to how expensive 4K monitors capable of frame rates higher than 60 FPS are, but these face-lifted textures will still look great on a 1440p display.
ULTRA+ Graphics Settings (PC)
Like with the bonus ray-tracing features PC players will enjoy with the update, a whole new graphics setting has been introduced exclusively for this platform. While it isn't a simple preset (Low, Medium, High, etc.), players will now be able to manually crank up individual graphics setting to a new ceiling.
Dubbed "ULTRA+," these graphics settings will improve graphical aspects like texture quality, shadow quality, number of visible background characters, foliage visibility range, and more. These are welcome bonuses for players that have capable PCs.
Improved Environmental Textures
Alongside improvements to character models, CD Projekt Red also improved the textures of The Continent's many environments. The Witcher 3's already breathtaking vistas are also enjoying a graphical facelift, with the developers emphasizing foliage.
Now the sweeping lands of Skellige, Toussaint, and more will look even lusher as players discover every bit of The Witcher 3 that they can. This update's improvement in graphical fidelity will be complemented nicely by all the others, especially so for players on suitable PC setups.
Quick Sign Casting
The combat in The Witcher 3 was solidly entertaining, if unspectacular when compared to other critically praised action RPGs. And though it doesn't appear like this update is giving the combat system a massive overhaul, the new Quick Sign Casting feature seems like a nice adjustment for it.
Before whenever players wanted to swap between the different Signs available to Geralt, they would have to bring the action down to a crawl while pulling up the radial menu to pick one. Now with this optional function, players can hold R2 (on PlayStation 5) and press one of the face buttons to switch to a Sign. It's a clever way of keeping players seamlessly in the action without pulling up menus.
A Dynamic Heads-Up Display
Though an overall immersive role-playing experience, especially when traversing across the lands of The Continent, the different interfaces on screen in the heads-up display were enough to take some players out of the world at times.
The Witcher 3 was heavily designed with the minimap and its markers in mind, and when combining that with the quest objectives, controls, and health/stamina bars, things could look a little too busy. CD Projekt Red has alleviated that issue by adding dynamic HUD options. Players can now choose to keep the HUD as is, have it fade out when in combat, during exploration, or both.
Map Filters
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is still one of the most popular open-world games for several reasons, in part due to the substantive content to be found within its world. Whether it's for going on treasure hunts or finding quest objectives, there's plenty to do, but that can take a toll on the in-game map.
The original version of the game could easily see its map get cluttered with the icons of these objectives and more, and now the update brings in additional filters to clear it up. And like with many of the update's quality-of-life changes, this is an easy feature to toggle on and off.
Cinematic New Camera Angle
Though The Witcher 3 isn't as cinematically focused as God of War or The Last of Us, the open-world action RPG certainly provides riveting and character-driven storytelling. And something else that this update adds is a new camera angle that tightens its scope to be more over-the-shoulder.
It's a nice feature to increase the immersion factor, as it feels more like the player is in Geralt's boots taking in this rich world. The camera angle is also an optional tweak, along with the customizable function to make it, so it only kicks into effect when in combat, exploration, horseback, or all of them.
General Mod Integration
In of broad strokes, one of the best additions in this Next-Gen Update for The Witcher 3 is the mod integration that CD Projekt Red implemented. While it's certainly not on the scale of Bethesda's highly moddable The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with a complete mod repository, the dev team weaved in some choice community creations.
Aside from being a great way to connect the game with its fan base, it was a big help in making many of the graphical enhancements for the update. Just as well, some of these mods will help iron out bugs and rebalance the game's combat.
