The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered arrives next month

CD Projekt Red shocked everyone during their Gamescom presentation when they revealed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is being remastered. Release date? September 29th. Yes, that’s just one month away!

Before diving into the details about this remastered version of the game, I need to point out the best thing about this remaster. It’s completely free for anyone who owns The Witcher 3 on GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Additionally, if you only own the base game, you will receive the two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, for free. After eleven years, The Witcher 3 continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.

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The official trailer highlights 10 different elements that promise to improve an already fantastic experience:

Upgraded Visuals, Enhanced Combat, Traversal & Movement, New Witcher Signs FX, Revamped Mount Handling, Enhanced Monster Behaviors, Skill Tree Revamp, Transmog, Expanded Photo Mode, New Finishers.

The visual aspect will be the first thing that everyone notices. Textures, foliage, lighting, shadows, and everything in between.

Next, we have the enhanced combat, new finishers, and enhanced monster behavior. One of my biggest criticisms of The Witcher 3 is Geralt’s “stiffness” during combat. While it definitely makes it a very unique experience, I’d still prefer him to have smoother movements and maybe even a bit more mobility.

I don’t expect them to make Geralt more mobile due to how that would drastically change the overall experience, but at least everything will look smoother. Combining this with the new monster behaviors and finishers, this is, hopefully, going to feel very fresh while maintaining the combat’s essence that we’re so used to.

The Skill Tree revamp is the most surprising thing for me. Since the Skill Tree is the thing most directly related to a player’s playstyle, deciding to change it is a big deal. Removing or adding something can completely change how efficient a build is (or not).

Normally, I’d be scared to hear this type of change in any other game, but I don’t doubt that CD Projekt Red will do a good job at it.

Things like Expanded Photo Mode and Transmog have become quite common over the past few years. While their presence (or lack of it) isn’t a dealbreaker, it certainly enhances the overall experience.

Transmog allows you to change the appearance of your gear so you can wear what gives the best stats without sacrificing the appearance factor. As for Photo Mode, The Witcher 3 already has Photo Mode, but I imagine this improved version to be something similar to the Photo Mode available in Cyberpunk 2077. Which is, to this day, the best Photo Mode I’ve ever used.

At the end of the trailer, they list more of the new features we can expect in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered. The letters are quite small, making it hard to read, but don’t worry; here’s everything listed in the trailer.