CD Projekt Red’s legendary action RPG is given a significant overhaul that not only improves the gameplay and graphics but is completely free to existing owners.
Founded in Poland in the mid-1990s, CD Projekt Red started life as a video game distributor before deciding to start making its own titles and establishing Steam competitor GOG.com. The turning point came when they were working on the PC version of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and its publisher Interplay got into financial difficulties, cancelling the project. Instead of throwing away all their hard work, CD Projekt turned it into the first Witcher game, basing its narrative on the novels of Andrzej Sapkowski.
That was followed in 2011 by The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings, which was generally well received, but it was the release of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt four years later that put them on the map, as a world class studio. At the time, third person action role-players were a well-established genre, but the scale, depth, and the sense of far-reaching consequence to your actions remain elusive qualities more than a decade later.
The Witcher 3 picks up the story of Geralt of Rivia, an impossibly well-trained monster hunter who uses magic and medieval weaponry to earn his living. In this outing he’s older and wiser, which is just as well because his young ward, Ciri, is in deep trouble, having been targeted by the Wild Hunt, a powerful supernatural cadre intent on capturing her.
Taking place in a succession of discrete, large scale open world areas, Geralt combines his central task with Witcher contracts, to kill various supernatural creatures, and wonderfully detailed quest lines picked up from locals you meet. Often starting with an unassuming seeming request, missions in The Witcher 3 can turn into epic multi-part engagements that frequently require difficult moral choices alongside the expected fisticuffs.
What really sets the game apart is how genuinely organic its world seems. That includes all sorts of unintended outcomes from your initial good intentions, and characters that talk and behave like real people. Far more recent role-playing games have failed to match that sense of living authenticity, the anodyne characters and stilted conversations in Starfield being a perfect counterpoint to the gritty, more sympathetic encounters you find in The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077.
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Still, 11 years is a long time in gaming, during which technology and social attitudes have shifted quite considerably. True to its name, this is a remaster rather than a remake, so while there’s a refreshed level of 4K visual polish, and combat that’s been sharpened and rebalanced, underneath it all is the perfectly preserved skeleton of the original game, for better and for worse.
On the plus side, that means all the excellent vocal performances remain. Geralt is heartwarming in his Slavic dourness. Softly spoken throughout, he’s got a bone dry, mordantly sarcastic sense of humour and isn’t shy with the banter, even when he’s talking man-to-man with the arrogant Nilfgaardian Emperor himself. His friends, enemies, and lovers are just as well realised.
Fighting was never the game’s strongest suit, but it’s been improved here. The Witcher’s magical signs are easier to cast, slipping more readily into the flow of combat, that now feels nimbler than it used to. It still lacks the complexity of other fighting systems, but it no longer feels like it’s letting the side down, with added finishing moves bringing a fresh flourish. Monsters have also been spruced up with additional aggression, their attacks and AI tweaked for a crisper, slightly faster moving world.
If you enjoyed Witcher’s TV outing, there’s a new quest that riffs on the show, as well as armour and weapons that will be instantly familiar. Skill trees have been completely reworked, and photo mode has a raft of extra options to play with. It also allows access to both DLC expansions: Hearts Of Stone and Blood And Wine, each of which adds well over a dozen hours to the already vast base game.
What’s also included, is all the old school bugs and glitches that have been catalogued by players over the years. In the opening section of the game the griffin’s head was missing exactly as it often was in the PlayStation 4 version, and you fix it in the same way, by fast travelling to White Orchard and back. We had to turn the music volume down below 50% to be able to hear dialogue properly and Witcher’s horse, Roach still supplies a world of unintentional comedy, walking along on his hind legs, climbing on top of unlikely objects, and frequently exhibiting peculiar, un-horselike behaviour.
Despite CD Projekt Red’s shopping list of changes, you’re still getting the rough with the smooth in terms of everything that was present in the original version. As is usually the case with remasters, the changes – the graphical polish, UI improvements, and more refined combat – merely keep pace with your rose-tinted memories of the original, leaving you to bask in the re-emergence of half remembered quests and characters.
It’s still an absolutely amazing game. The glorious sunsets are more intense than they used to be, the scenes of bucolic summery idyll brought more fully to life than they could be on last gen technology, but it’s the characters that really stay with you. It also conforms to CD Projeckt’s renowned generosity, the remaster arriving completely free for all existing owners of The Witcher 3.
At a moment when the games industry’s corporate masters are busy dismantling decades of carefully nurtured talent and experience in the name of slightly higher shareholder returns, it’s immensely reassuring to see a publisher act so confidently and differently from the wider market. It’s why the Cyberpunk 2077 launch debacle was forgiven and forgotten, which in an age of social media outrage is a miracle all of its own.
If you loved The Witcher 3 when it came out, this will be like coming home and if you missed it, this is an excellent excuse to find out what all the fuss was about. Especially with a sequel on the horizon.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered review summary
In Short: A gritty, funny, and often beautiful action role-players whose 4K visuals, improved combat, and countless refinements help it live up to decade old memories – even if it comes with many of the same bugs.
Pros: Still the best quest design in any role-player, with first rate voice performances. Fights are faster and more accurate feeling, with reworked UI and skill trees. The Witcher TV series inspired extras are fun.
Cons: Requires an extremely large amount of time to fully appreciate. Riding Geralt’s horse remains considerably funnier than intended. Narrow range of character models make for samey looking villagers.
Score: 9/10
Formats: Xbox Series X/S (reviewed), PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £39.99*
Publisher: CD Projekt Red
Developer: Yigsoft and CD Projekt Red
Release Date: 29th September 2026
Age Rating: 18
*free to existing owners of game; Hearts Of Stone and Blood And Wine are already available free to existing owners
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