Hero image: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered key art. Image: CD PROJEKT RED
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered is out on 29 September, and CD Projekt Red has published the full list of what changes the day before. It is long, and a few lines in it matter more than the new lighting.
The list went up on thewitcher.com on 28 September. As we reported last week, the Remastered version is a free upgrade for existing owners, and the post confirms that covers “any version of the game in the past, physical or digital”, within the same platform ecosystem.
It arrives on PC through Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store and Battle.net, and on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2.
Your skill points have been reset
This is the one to know before you load a save. Skills are now laid out in a skill tree, and each skill has three ranks. Unlocking a new skill needs the prerequisite skills rather than a set number of points spent.
The post puts the consequence in capitals: “IMPORTANT: As a result of these changes, your skill points have been reset.” CD Projekt Red also says it has rebalanced skill values, effects and synergies, and renamed some skills — so an old build may not come back exactly as it was.
Loot, looks and the horse
Equipment can now be Reforged to change how it looks without touching its stats. Only the master craftsmen, Yoana and Hattori, offer the service, and appearances unlock as new gear and crafting diagrams go into the inventory.
Looting gets quicker. Nearby loot can be grouped into a single window, a loot feed shows recent pickups, and loot can be collected without getting off Roach. Cantering and galloping now take a button press rather than a held button.
Non-boss monsters have had their attack patterns, counters, movement and reactions polished. There is also a new way out of a fight: hold dodge to unlock from the target, then sprint.
Bard’s Ballad and the accessibility menu
The Settings menu now has an Accessibility section. Its centrepiece is the Bard’s Ballad preset, which the post says “is designed to reduce cognitive load for players who experience mental fatigue or have difficulty concentrating.”
Each part can be switched on or off — vitality regeneration, infinite breath, unlimited item and boat durability, ignoring item weight, faster boats and a toggle for Witcher Sense. Ukrainian text is added too.
Mods and the PC requirements
The biggest structural change may be modding. Cross Platform Mod Support, powered by mod.io, puts a mod browser in the main menu, signed in through a CD Projekt Red account.
On PC, the list adds path tracing, NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4 and Intel XeSS 2.0, and the system requirements have gone up.
The minimum is now a GeForce GTX 1660 or Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB, with 12 GB of RAM, 60 GB on an SSD and 64-bit Windows 11. The Epic Games Store version needs 95 GB of free space.
On consoles, the post lists PS5 Pro support and Xbox Play Anywhere. Switch 2 gets motion controls, mouse controls, touch screen menus and HD Rumble.
What the post does not give is a release time. Anyone keen to keep an old build intact should record it before updating, because the reset happens either way.
Source: CD PROJEKT RED – See what’s new in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, Gamers Classified – The Witcher 3 Remastered is free next Tuesday