The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered – Before You Buy

There are a few key things you need to know before you buy The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered tonight. The Witcher series has come a ridiculously long way. CDPR's first Witcher game was a clunky, brown-looking RPG that barely anyone played. The Witcher 2 finally showed that this tiny Polish studio could hang with the big boys, and then The Witcher 3 happened and basically broke the scale for open-world RPGs. The series has now sold more than 75 million copies, with roughly 60 million of those coming from The Witcher 3 alone. That's an absurd jump for a studio that once struggled to get its first game into people's hands.

I've spent enough time with Geralt over the years to know exactly what made the original Witcher 3 special, and after jumping into this remastered version, I have a slightly weird feeling: it looks absolutely stunning. So, before you buy The Witcher 3 Remastered, let's talk about what CDPR actually changed and what stayed the same.

1. This Is Still The Witcher 3 You Remember

Let's get the biggest thing out of the way first.

The Witcher 3 Remastered isn't secretly The Witcher 4.

CDPR hasn't rebuilt the game from scratch, rewritten Geralt's story, or decided that Geralt now needs a skill tree the size of a university curriculum. This is still the same massive RPG we've been playing for years. You're still Geralt of Rivia who is still chasing Ciri. You're still getting distracted by contracts, questionable side quests, Gwent, random treasure, and that one quest you started three hours ago because you were supposed to be doing something completely different.

The core gameplay remains intact. Combat, exploration, quests, alchemy, signs, inventory management, dialogue choices, and the open world all feel immediately familiar. That's important because CDPR could have easily gone too far with a remaster and accidentally removed the personality that made The Witcher 3 special. Instead, the studio has mostly taken the “clean it up, don't mess it up” approach. And honestly, that's probably the right call.

2. The Graphics Look Seriously Good

Okay, let's get the biggest upgrade out of the way: The Witcher 3 Remastered looks gorgeous.

CDPR has upgraded the lighting, rendering, textures, foliage, environments, NPCs, and monsters, while adding more advanced effects like ray tracing. On PC, the combination of ray-traced lighting, improved shading, better reflections, and higher-quality textures can make the Continent look dramatically more detailed.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered also gets improved tone mapping, ambient occlusion, image-based lighting, and other rendering upgrades. Basically, Novigrad, Velen, Skellige, and the rest of the world get a pretty serious visual makeover. And yes, I still have some nostalgia for the original look. But if we're talking purely about the technology behind the graphics, the Remastered version is a massive step up.

If you're playing on a good PC with ray tracing enabled, this is probably the version that will make you stop riding Roach every five seconds just to look at the scenery. The game is a delight for PC gamers.

3. The New Skill Tree Changes How You Build Geralt

The skill system has been properly reworked. Skills are now arranged in a new tree with three ranks, and some abilities require specific skills as prerequisites instead of simply spending a certain number of points.

There's one important thing to know before you load up an old save: your existing skill points will be reset.

Your old save files still work, but you'll need to redistribute your points and rebuild Geralt using the new skill tree. So don't panic when you load your save and suddenly Geralt looks like he forgot how to do everything.

The tree has also been rebalanced, with changes to skill effects, bonuses, and synergies. It's not a completely new RPG system, but it gives you more flexibility when building Geralt.

4. The Settings Menu Basically Gives You Witcher 3 Mods

This might be one of the weirdest additions in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered. The game now gives you a bunch of settings that feel like someone stuffed popular Witcher 3 mods directly into the options menu.

You can enable Quick Loot Corpses, so you don't have to open a loot menu every time you kill someone. Merge Corpses also lets you loot multiple nearby bodies at once, which is perfect after clearing out a bandit camp.

You can also disable Item Durability, toggle the weight limit, enable Infinite Breath, and increase Geralt's health regeneration. Basically, you can make Geralt considerably harder to kill if you want.

Some players aren't happy because these options can make certain challenges and difficulty-related achievements easier. Personally, I don't mind. They're completely optional, so leave them off if you want the classic experience.

For me, not having to repair my sword or loot ten bandits individually is more than enough reason to keep some of these turned on.

5. Do You Need to Play The Witcher 1 and 2 First

No, you don't need to play the first two Witcher games before you buy and play The Witcher 3 Remastered.

The Witcher 1 and 2 tell their own stories, although playing them gives you more context about Geralt, returning characters, and some of the relationships in The Witcher 3. If you're worried about playing two older RPGs first, don't be.

The Witcher 3 does a good job of introducing you to its world and characters, so you can start here and figure things out as you go.

There's also another reason to catch up now. CDPR is bringing Geralt back in Songs of the Past, a new third expansion coming in 2027. It adds a new region, quests, characters, enemies, and a new weapon. CDPR has not officially called it a bridge to The Witcher 4, although reports have described it that way. Here is a list of all The Witcher projects in the pipeline so far in case you are a die-hard fan.

So if you've never played The Witcher 3, this is a pretty good time to finally see what all the fuss was about.

6. Don't Expect a Completely New Combat System

If you were worried that The Witcher 3 Remastered completely changes the combat, don't be. The fundamentals are still familiar, but CDPR has made several changes that make fighting feel noticeably more responsive.

Animations are smoother, the camera is more adaptive, and enemies react more naturally to Geralt's attacks. You also get new Sign-integrated finishers, while the skill tree has been rebuilt to give combat and character progression a fresher feel.

The overall flow is simply quicker and more reactive. Dodging, attacking, using Signs, and chaining abilities together feels more connected than it did in the original.

So yes, combat is different, but not so different that you'll feel like you're playing an entirely new game. It's still The Witcher 3 at its core - just with a few more sharp edges polished out.

7. Roach Gets Some Much-Needed Improvements

I feel like this deserves its own section. Roach has been improved. She handles better, turns more naturally, and navigating between trees is less of an argument between you, the horse, and whatever invisible object CDPR has decided is blocking the road today. Pathfinding is better too.

But Roach is still Roach.

She will still occasionally do something incredibly stupid. For example, she'll take a strange turn, get stuck somewhere. She'll appear in a location where horses absolutely should not be appearing.

And honestly? I don't want them to fix all of it. At some point, Roach behaving like Roach became part of The Witcher 3 experience. If Geralt comes running out of a haunted cave, whistles for his horse, and Roach spawns sideways on top of a building, that's not a bug anymore. That's family.

8. The Small Changes Are Actually the Best Ones

The biggest improvements aren't always the flashy ones. CDPR has made several smaller quality-of-life changes that you notice after playing for a while. One of my favourites is the updated menu.

Previously, pausing the game meant jumping through another menu before getting to the map, inventory, quests, and other tabs. Now the layout is more streamlined, with the main tabs immediately available. It's a tiny change. But when you've played a game for dozens of hours, tiny changes like this matter.

Meditation has also been made more immersive. Instead of simply clicking a menu option and watching time pass, Geralt actually kneels down in the world while time moves around him.

Then there's transmog. You can now change the appearance of your armour without sacrificing the stats you actually want. And I'm sorry, but every RPG should have this. If I spend 40 hours finding increasingly powerful armour, I shouldn't have to look like I got dressed by throwing random pieces of metal at myself.

The remaster also gives players more customization options, including ways to adjust things like weapon degradation and weight limits. It's not revolutionary. It's just good.

9. The Remaster Keeps What Made The Witcher 3 Special

The remaster may make The Witcher 3 look beautiful and more modern, but thankfully, it doesn't strip away the personality that made the original so memorable.

Geralt is still Geralt. The world is still packed with strange characters, ridiculous conversations, dark humor, bizarre side quests, and moments that can go from hilarious to depressing in about five seconds.

That's something I really appreciate because a visual upgrade can sometimes make an older game feel overly polished or sterile. The Witcher 3 doesn't have that problem. Underneath all those sharper textures and fancy lighting, it's still the same ridiculously detailed world.

You'll still get distracted by a random quest, spend 30 minutes playing Gwent, investigate something you absolutely didn't need to investigate, and somehow end up three hours away from the main story.

And honestly, that's part of what makes The Witcher 3 Remastered feel like The Witcher 3.

10. Remaster is the Best Version for New Players

If you've somehow made it this far without playing The Witcher 3, first of all, I have questions. But more importantly, this remastered version is probably the easiest way to jump into Geralt's massive adventure.

You get the same insanely big open world, memorable characters, ridiculous side quests, Gwent addiction, monster contracts, and excellent storytelling that made the original so popular. The difference is that you're experiencing all of it with cleaner visuals, better lighting, improved textures, smoother controls, and a bunch of small quality-of-life upgrades.

You also get access to the game's expansions, including Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, which add some seriously good content after the main adventure. So you're not just getting a prettier version of the base game and calling it a day.

The biggest advantage for new players is that you don't have the original version burned into your brain. You won't be wondering why the lighting looks different or whether Geralt's face used to look better. You'll just see a massive RPG that still looks great, plays well, and has enough content to completely consume your free time.

And honestly, that's probably the ideal way to experience The Witcher 3 Remastered.

11. PC Requirements and Supported Consoles

Before you jump into The Witcher 3 Remastered, make sure your system can actually handle it. The game is available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. Sadly, it is not available on PS4 or earlier. For you guys, there is the old , the original, The Witcher 3.

For PC players, these are the minimum requirements:

The 60 GB SSD requirement is worth noting, especially if your drive is already fighting for its life with three different Call of Duty installs sitting on it.

If you're playing on console, you don't have to worry about these requirements. Just install the game

12. You Get the Two Expansions for Free

If you already own The Witcher 3, you don't have to buy the game again to get the Remastered upgrade on eligible platforms. It's a free upgrade for existing owners.

Even better, the two previously released expansions - Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine - are included at no extra cost for owners of the base game.

So if you already bought The Witcher 3 years ago, CDPR isn't asking you to open your wallet again just because the textures got prettier.

And if you're new to the game, you're getting the complete package rather than just the base adventure.

13. Transmog Lets You Look Good Without Ruining Your Build

One of the smaller additions that I genuinely appreciate is transmog.

The Remastered version lets you change the appearance of your equipment without changing its stats. So if you find a sword or armor set that looks fantastic but has terrible stats, you don't have to choose between looking cool and actually surviving a fight.

The system is tied to reforging, which is available through master craftsmen Yoana and Hattori. You unlock additional appearances by adding equipment and crafting diagrams to your inventory. Blood and Wine dyes applied to your equipment also carry over when you reforge it.

In other words, Geralt can finally dress like a professional monster hunter without looking like he got dressed by randomly clicking through his inventory.

TechWiser Verdict - 9/10

Here is the short version for those who want to read the summary part before buying The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered:

So yeah, CDPR didn't need to reinvent The Witcher 3. They just needed to remind us why we loved it in the first place. If you want to know more about The Witcher 3 Remastered, We've covered the patch notes released by CDPR.