What is the difference between The Witcher 3 Complete Edition from 2022, the Game of the Year (GOTY) from 2016 and the original release from 2015. Also a quick buying guide from Marcin Momot himself, CDPR’s community lead
What do you get with Witcher 3 GOTY
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, has its own Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition. The Witcher 3 GOTY was released on 30th August 2016 for PC, Playstation and Xbox One. It contains the following:
- The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
- The Hearts of Stone Expansion
- The Blood and Wine Expansion
- 16 free DLCs
- An update with various fixes
None of these are exclusive. None of these is a special feature, included only with the GOTY. Marcin Momot, the senior Community Coordinator at CD Projekt Red, confirmed that the GOTY edition of the game does not offer new game content that isn’t already available to the owners of the original game.
What you get with The Witcher 3 Complete Edition
In December of 2022, CD Projekt Red released the Next-Gen Update for The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. It was a massive upgrade of not just the visuals and graphics, but also contained a lot of gameplay changes. A brand new quest was added to the game, available in Velen. New gear sets were released as well.
Later, in January 2023 the Complete Edition was made available for sale in a physical copy for Xbox and PlayStation.
Since all of the new features and content added to the game with the next-gen update are completely free, you can continue to play with whatever edition you have installed.
If you are going to purchase the game now and are looking for advice, just get the Complete Edition for whichever platform you favor. It contains the base game, the two expansions, all free DLCs and the next-gen update.
Some gameplay features are not available on the old-gen consoles as the old hardware simply does not have the horsepower to support them. To learn what is available on the old consoles, what is exclusive on the current-gen and what you get on PC, read our overview about everything new and different with The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Update.
Which one to buy and how save imports work
What’s more interesting to learn is how saves will work if you already own the original game or parts of it. This is for the players who haven’t purchased the expansions, or perhaps are such big supporters of CDPR’s work and want to buy the GOTY or Complete Edition on top of your already full Witcher 3 collection. Coming directly from Marcin Momot:
Regarding save game compatibility, here are possible scenarios gamers might encounter and tips on what to do.
Scenario #1: You own the base game on the PC and you want to buy the GOTY Edition
Your game saves will work — this is because of a more open system architecture of the PC. However, if your only goal is to acquire the expansions, you might consider buying the Season Pass, as it will be the more economical option. Content-wise, you will have the same stuff as the person who will have purchased the GOTY edition. Of course, if you really want to support us, we will not mind if you get another copy of The Witcher 3 in the form of the GOTY Edition. Thank you in advance for your generosity.Scenario #2: You own the base game on consoles (PlayStation 4 or Xbox One) and you want to buy the GOTY Edition
Our suggestion is to buy the Season Pass instead. Should you buy the GOTY Edition, game saves from your base game will unfortunately not work because the system treats the GOTY Edition as a different product. This is beyond our control and results from the technical aspect of how games work on consoles. Sadly, we are unable to make any workarounds here.Situation #3: You don’t own the base game or the expansions and want to buy the GOTY edition
We love you and we are humbled that you want to buy and play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Thank you!
