The next-gen update of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is less than 24 hours away. Players can expect new content, highly-demanded features, improvements to visuals, and more; all for no additional cost. The game’s version will be changed to 4.0.
The update combines several fan-favorite community-made mods including The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project by HalkHogan. A new weather type called gray sky is added and sky textures are updated. Ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion are added for new consoles and PC. PC players will also get ray-traced reflections and shadows.
You can read a portion of the patch notes below.
- Added ray traced global illumination and ambient occlusion.
- Additionally, PC players with compatible hardware have an additional option to turn on ray traced reflections and shadows.
- Added various mods and mod-inspired content to the game to improve visuals and overall game quality. We’ve included some community-made favorites in addition to our own modifications in areas such as environment and cutscene improvements, realistic pavements, and many decoration upgrades.
- Community-made and community-inspired mods include:
- The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project by HalkHogan
- HD Monsters Reworked by Denroth
- Immersive Real-time Cutscenes by teiji25
- Nitpicker's Patch by chuckcash
- World Map Fixes by Terg500
- Upscaled texture to 4K for various characters, including Geralt, Yennefer, Triss, Ciri, Eredin and more.
- All main characters, including Geralt, now cast high-resolution self-shadowing even outside cutscenes. Additionally, hair clipping through armor as well as some other armor-clipping issues have been fixed.
- Environmental improvements:
- Added a new weather type – "Gray Sky"
- Updated sky textures
- Vegetation and water improvements
- Various mesh improvements
- Improved some select VFX
- Updated global environmental lighting
- Added AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.1
- Added photo mode, allowing players to take stunning pictures within the world of The Witcher 3.
- Added the option to pause the game during cutscenes.
- Added an alternative camera option that's closer to the player's character and that reacts more dynamically to combat and movement. You can find this new setting in Options > Gameplay under Exploration, Combat, and Horseback Camera Distance.
- Added “ULTRA+” graphical settings on PC, which significantly increases the visual fidelity of the game. The graphical settings available on ULTRA+ affect:
- Number of background characters
- Shadow quality
- Grass density
- Texture quality
- Foliage visibility range
- Terrain quality
- Water quality
- Detail level
- Added DLSS 3 support. Available only on compatible hardware.
The patch will bring several QoL features, bug fixes, and specific next-gen changes made as well. You can read the complete patch notes via the official site for more details.
