The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered Patch Notes Revealed

CD Projekt Red has published the full patch notes for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered, confirming the free update lands on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 on September 29. It is the studio's biggest pass at the eleven-year-old RPG since launch, touching the skill tree, combat, lighting and the way you manage your gear all at once.

01What's Actually Changing

CD Projekt Red frames Remastered as more than a visual polish. According to the developer, the update reaches into "animation, gameplay and the small details of how The Witcher 3 plays," rather than stopping at higher-resolution textures. The patch notes list upgrades to combat responsiveness, traversal and mount handling, monster behavior, and a new finisher system, alongside the graphics work most players will notice first.

Existing owners on Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S get the upgrade for free the moment it goes live. The Xbox version also becomes a Play Anywhere title, which means anyone who owns it on console now unlocks the PC version too. Switch 2 and Battle.net, added through a new partnership with Blizzard, get their own native builds on the same day rather than a later port.

02A Skill Tree Rebuilt From Scratch

The most disruptive change on the list is the skill system. Skills are now grouped into a tree with three ranks per skill, and unlocking anything past the first rank requires owning its prerequisite skill first. Because the underlying structure changed so much, CD Projekt Red is resetting everyone's existing skill points when the update installs, so returning players will need to replan their build from the first mutagen slot up.

03Native DirectX 12 and a Visual Overhaul

Remastered moves the game onto native DirectX 12 rendering with multithreading, which the patch notes credit for both smoother frame pacing and headroom for the new lighting work. On top of that sits an improved shading model, a new Image-Based Lighting system, ray-traced local shadows, updated Screen Space Reflections and a GTAO ambient occlusion option, plus improved tone mapping and motion blur settings you can tune yourself.

A large share of the texture and model work leans on assets from the community-made Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project, which CD Projekt Red says it used as a reference point for grass, foliage and surface detail across the Continent. The studio has not published exact hardware requirements for every preset yet, so treat minimum and recommended specs as unconfirmed until CD Projekt Red posts them separately.

04Combat, Roach and Monster Behavior

Away from the skill tree, the patch notes describe a long list of smaller combat and movement fixes rather than a single headline change. A new dynamic combat camera is meant to keep more of a fight in view, target-lock switching is smoother when you swing the camera between enemies, and Geralt's gap-closing animations have been reworked so lunging into range looks and feels less stiff. There's also a dedicated way to disengage: hold the dodge button to unlock from your current target, then hit sprint to actually run. New finisher animations round out the combat pass.

Roach gets similar treatment. CD Projekt Red lists improved mounting and dismounting animations, smoother cantering and galloping, updated collision avoidance while riding, and a new horse control input sensitivity slider in the settings menu — plus the ability to collect loot from the ground without dismounting first. On the monster side, the update polishes attack patterns, counterattacks, movement and status-effect behavior for non-boss enemies across the board, which should make routine fights read more clearly even if you never touch the new skill tree.

05Reforging, Accessibility and Mod Support

A new Reforging system, handled through craftsmen Yoana and Hattori, lets you change how a piece of gear looks without touching its underlying stats, and any Blood and Wine dyes you already own carry over to reforged items. The Accessibility menu is new too, built around a "Bard's Ballad" preset aimed at reducing cognitive load: it adjusts vitality regeneration, grants infinite breath while swimming, removes equipment weight and durability loss, speeds up boats, and lets you toggle Witcher Sense on and off instead of holding the button.

Modding gets a first-party home for the first time, through Cross-Platform Mod Support powered by mod.io. Signing in with a CD PROJEKT RED account lets you browse and install player-made mods from inside the game itself, on both PC and console, rather than dropping files into a folder manually.

06How and When to Get It

Remastered installs as a free update on qualifying platforms starting September 29, and CD Projekt Red has confirmed that current save files and achievement progress carry over, so there's no need to start a fresh playthrough to see any of it. Both the original Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions remain included in the package at no extra cost, and Songs of the Past — a newly announced expansion previewed alongside Remastered — is planned to follow in 2027.

CD Projekt Red's official Remastered announcement trailer, published August 25, 2026 at gamescom Opening Night Live — over a month ahead of today's patch notes.

Are your swords oiled up and sharpened? Potions brewed? Roach saddled? It’s time to face Eredin and his entourage once again! The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered features an array of improvements, bringing upgrades to visuals, gameplay, and more. It's coming on September 29

— The Witcher (@thewitcher), Aug 25, 2026 on X