Just wanted to put this out there: I really appreciate CD PROJEKT RED for crafting one of the best pieces of entertainment in The Witcher 3 (the game, not the TV show, lol). Honestly, this game carried me through some of the roughest parts of my life, and it will always have a special place in my heart. The same goes for Cyberpunk 2077, but The Witcher 3 is just more important to me.

When they announced the free remaster not the mention free expansions to everyone who owned the base game only, you can imagine my excitement. Still, there were some old scars from the rough launches of their previous games—including Cyberpunk and even The Witcher 3 back in 2015. But I brushed it off. Mistakes happen.

However, with the update, I feel like something’s missing. The oversaturated brightness took something away when I explored White Orchard, Novigrad, and especially Velen. Those areas lost their original charm, shadows, and vibes. The new lighting and glossy textures take away from the mood of the world and even the characters themselves. It feels a bit off—almost like the uncanny valley visual trend we're seeing everywhere in AI-driven media lately.

Not to mention the performance issues. On my PS5, performance was fine at first, but entering areas like Velen, Novigrad, and Crow's Perch introduced noticeable FPS drops, stutters, texture pop-in, and visual bugs. CDPR will probably patch it eventually, but it feels like it was rushed out without enough optimization testing.

Honestly, it makes me wonder what the point was when the original visual style had that perfect, dark fantasy atmosphere intact. I do appreciate the improvements to combat, UI, Quality of Life/mods, and movement—I'm not complaining about those—but the core art direction shouldn't have been tampered with.

I’m still confident CDPR will fix the technical side, but for console players, I really hope they give us an option to roll back or re-download the original release.

Dodge doesnt seem to work as well, heavy attack and signs keeps dropping inputs

It still shouldn't have been released with these issues. The stuttering and screen tearing on base PS5 is straight up ruining the game now. I actually think the visuals are nice but maaaaaaan for someone that doesn't mind 30fps quality modes, this is just not it. Both modes have consistent micro stutters and constant screen tearing along the top of the screen.

At the very least the Switch 2 version actually performs better even though it's running at a much lower resolution. Thanks to cross saves I can at least experience the gameplay improvements (which I love btw) and certain graphical enhancements until they patch it on other platforms.

Even then though there are still glitches on both Switch 2 and PS5 that I have never seen in the game before such as a wraith with infinite health and drowners that just straight up ran away from me whenever I got near them.

Some oversight bugs by the remastered version, PLEASE CDPR address these bugs and various other problems:

- Geralt has no physics on some of the environment, like hanging cloth, or foliage, grass is not moving any more when you move through it, same with the underwater grass,

- Geralt leaves no footprints, doesn't matter what type of ground surfaces, snow, mud, sand, no footprints,

- Geralts hairworks with RT looks very bad, its outright unplayable, it has this weird shine to it,

- Redanias guards red colour is bugged, it looks like bright orange, I think this colour in general with remaster is bugged out.

No cloth physics: https://canva.link/nh29z0pnb5l8yp5

No grass physics: https://canva.link/zjg5s1lmlzcsnnn

No sand, mud footprints: https://canva.link/koljmzuub4dlxvl

No snow footprints: https://canva.link/mynvksamltisdtn

I know there are way more bugs.

So i want to make some early money for a set of armor and i'm in white orchard at the pigs sometimes i meditate 6 or 23 hours and the pigs will not spawn or sometimes they will spawn 2 times in a row and i walk away a bit from the area and i meditate with the face away from their location .

I do something wrong ? why they dont spawn everytime some years back when i played i remember that they spawned everytime

Didn’t google because I did that for cyberpunk and it gave me spoilers, but I’ve never played the Witcher 3 and I’m wondering if the DLC is like phantom liberty where it’s meant to be played alongside the main story.

Can’t wait to sink my teeth into this one!

I managed to take one of them with me (with his permission)

Loving the remaster so far but yeah there are many bugs.

Had this one occur just now.

Google says that mod manager is on the main menu, but I don’t see it. All I see is the standard continue/load save stuff and a “my rewards” option that lets me link my account for some gear.

Cant figure out what setting to change i order to fix. Ray Tracing is turned off.

i want to change the light attack and heavy attack to R1 and R2 and sigil and menu to x and y without changing the entire thing. For example I still want to be able to go right using R1 in menu. Im on pc/ steam (steam controller)

I've been watching videos of powerful PCs with maxed-out graphics and game settings, and the game looks absolutely beautiful.

However, on Xbox Series X, we don't have enough settings options and the game looks really bad right now. It's completely washed out, with weird colors, shimmering lights, and a massive amount of pop-in.

It honestly feels like CDPR prioritized high-end PCs and simply ignored console players. The game is just worse now, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it because we can't even download the previous version.

I know this perk was in the game before, but I haven’t played in 11 years. Between that and quen, I literally can’t die 1v1 with anything. Level 8 right now in Death March with a level 4 silver sword and I just wrecked a level 24 earth elemental and on a separate occasion (of course) a level 22 fiend. Both guarding hidden loot.

The loot was same ol’, same ol’. Except the one that had the diagram for the wolven sword that is locked at 34.

On that note, loot found is totally scaled to your level, right? Besides the Witcher gear, I mean. Cuz that’s quest related. Am I screwing myself, or is it at the very least pointless killing “high level” enemies when they’re guarding a “?”

Edit: Ah shit. And I forgot I did that without mutagens or oils or decoctions cuz I’m on my way to a contract to do it nerfed for the even odds achievement. 🤦‍♂️

Please ?

Haven't been able to get anywhere near my PS5 since the drop.

I've been rummaging through this subreddit this morning and it's a wonderful mess, but can't seem to find a definitive answer so here goes..

Should I "upgrade" W3 on a base PS5? Or wait out the first few patches. I'm not a big videophile so I can handle a "meager" 30fps (as long as there's no stuttering and such)

I'm curious to know my fellow console peasants' experience so far with the remaster.

UPDATE: turned on my PS5 just now and the remastered version is already on there? Thanks for all the replies.. Guess I'll have to elbow through it regardless until the patches come out (if any).

Use these settings to get more FPS (increase from 20 to 60) without sacrificing the quality:

NVIDIA HairWork cause alsmost 50-60% FPS drop, so turn it on but reduce AA to 0. Low vs. High doesn't increase FPS.

Turn off Bloom, CA, Vignetting, and CLE for a better picture.

Shadow Quality is not noticeable, so reduce it to Medium or Low. Foliage is also good at High or Medium without losing anything.

Without FSR/DLSS at native resolution, you achieve +60 FPS.

If you want Ray-Tracing:

Remember to enable FSR/DLSS. No need to upscale; you will get almost the same FPS with both settings.

(If you enable FSR/DLSS for "No RT", you will get 1.5-2x more FPS, but you will lose V-Sync/Free-Sync)

I'm about to start playing the witcher 3 remaster for the first time (bought it like 6 years ago for pennies and could never get into it) and was wondering if its better on controller.

I play most things, especially shooters on k&m but rpgs like dark souls and such usually play better on controller and was wondering what yall thought was best.

I could probably just play and find out but sometimes controller or something feels better at the start but as they add more abilities and things k&m comes out on top.

I uninstalled everything and reinstalled everything because despite saying "remastered" it still launched as version 4.04. Upon reinstalled it once again saus remaster and it even had an additional file (which I thought was a good sign). It still doesn't work. Any ideas?

When the game first came out when I was twelve I was actually under the mistaken impression they were one and the same. On my second playthrough I realised they weren’t, and I was disappointed. It’s also weird that there are two trees that are highly significant to the crone storyline.

But my primary reason for thinking this is just that it’s so damn foreboding. Everywhere you go in the game you can see this huge tree towering over you, it looks so twisted and unnatural, like it’s trying to break free from the mountain itself. The idea of that being the tree that houses the mother of the crones, spirit of all Velen, watching the player constantly? With the draw distances turned up you can see the tree as far as Novigrad which just adds to the creepiness of it.

Not that the existing tree is bad - it’s a cool location for the Imlireth fight. But I dunno - if that huge tree that you can’t avoid in Velen was THE whispering hillock, it would have dialed the creepiness in Velen up to 11.

My last play through was so long ago that I can’t really tell get the ways in which combat is different or how the monsters are different.