The Witcher III - The patient did not need treatment. He was cured of his health

You can't look a gifted carrot in the teeth - an apt aphorism in the context of The Witcher III remaster. Update has been waiting for a little over two years. Looking ahead, CD Projekt RED and with the The Witcher, and with Cyberpunk 2077 has repeatedly traced the same approach - to release in a hurry, to spoil what worked well, to improve what no one complained, to invent something that everyone likes, and embarrass a little, so fans do not think that they got into the tale.

A complete list of updates will be at the end of the module. Well, we'll briefly list and analyze the most important. We'll start with the most significant and pleasant changes and finish with the controversial...and questionable ones.

Click on this line and you'll see a complete list of innovations:

Radiant witch, pay with minted coin

The December 12, 2022 update moved The Witcher to Next-Gen... At least the marketing campaign was built around that promise. Turns out, The Witcher III finally outgrew its stripped-down version on Play Station 4 Pro, moved to Play Station 5 and the Xbox Series S/X.

Beam tracing, dynamic anti-aliasing, and advanced dynamic range are the three pillars on which the new day's graphics hold up. Hair now doesn't go through armor, dark areas are even darker,-the torch is no longer useless!,-and the vast majority of models are now in 4K resolution. Particularly striking are the 4K textures up close: the stumps are no longer soapy, and the apples in the baskets now look like rendered 3D models in some Blender. But that's in theory...

...In practice we can see 27-28 FPS on Ultra PC settings with any hardware configuration, approximately the same on PlayStation 5. Hard dropouts in frames per second are treated by switching from Directx 12 to Directx 11, but many visual chips on the eleventh version will not work. To squeeze all the juice out of The Witcher III managed only through optimization, enjoy the picture on some GTX 1060 Ti on ultra settings will not work. The Witcher has ceased to be the most beautiful game for aging computers. At the same time it is sometimes difficult to notice the differences in graphics.

Self-imagination - a terrible force. After reading a notebook patch, the buyer of expensive graphics cards will certainly look at every stump encountered. Now try to answer which screenshot is the old version and which is the new one:

It's kind of complicated, isn't it? Answer: the top one is Next-Gen, although I'm not sure I didn't paste two identical screenshots by mistake...

...Except as a joke, in places Next-Gen does take its toll. For example: it's worth looking at the water - with RTX turned on, the reflections on the water surface are correctly displayed:

As a bonus: weather phenomena such as fog, rain and snow have become more voluminous and no longer resemble a stretched semi-transparent JPG-image. The density of grass and vegetation in general is now much higher.

The range of drawing, the most sore point on Play Station 4 Pro, has also undergone positive changes. Textures in the distance are no longer soapy, and you can view the entire location from an elevated position:

In the shadow of the eternal flame

In addition to cosmetic changes, added a new quest - In the Shadow of Eternal Fire. Take it can be in Wellen, preferably from level 15. Quest story retold will not, but it is worth noting the average quality of execution. For those who, after the update will dare to pass the game for the first time, "In the Shadow of Eternal Flame" will certainly be remembered for the atmosphere...

...And for those who have already gone through the game up and down, let me make it clear: don't expect anything breakthrough. In terms of the quality of the story, the presentation and fascination, In the Shadow of Eternal Fire is slightly above the level of witch orders from Toussaint, but with the variability of, say, the quest "Invitation from Keira". By the way, the magical lamp comes in handy here as well:

The reward for completing is not practical - a blueprint for the new armor of the Forgotten Armor of the Wolf School. It will be possible to make a new armor after a good half of the game. Why bother with the creation of a set of Wolf School, when the set of Griffon School with the new update shone with new colors? It's not clear.

But the Forgotten Wolf School outfit exactly replicates Henry Cavill's outfit from the Witcher series. It looks...peculiar:

Suddenly hardcore?

The balance has also been changed. The "Delicacy" skill became almost useless, the "Swallow" potion restores three times less health, and Geralt takes damage faster due to intoxication. The Manticore School's much-loved armor went to the trash...

...as did the ultimally powerful bundle of the aforementioned armor with the spamming Whirlwind ability. Spinning in the shadow of death to infinity is no longer possible: as soon as the animation passes one cycle, the ability is sent to a short but tangible recharge. Previously, due to high APM, spamming potions in Manticore's armor could do mind-blowing damage - forget it. Moreover, now all skills are pumped up to level 3, not 5 as it was before.

I don't remember a single complaint about the lack of Challenges in The Witcher III. Then why go along with the fashion and make the game a parody of another Soul'like...?

Getting the rough stuff out of the way was the right thing to do

Remember when I told you that Griffon School had become a lot more relevant? I'm sorry, that's half-true; Griffon is only good with a gamepad in hand. Griffon School is based on spells, and to activate them in the previous version you had to open the radial menu, select the desired spell, then apply it, then open the menu again... Well, that's all over now: you press the trigger and cast a spell on the button - that's it:

On the keyboard by default spells are in numbers, which is inconvenient. Fixed the problem by buying a gamepad.

But the most pleasant and unexpected correction: now to the Baron's estate will not have to run two minutes from the fast travel point. Now you can teleport straight to the courtyard... How many saved hours:

The most controversial picture with the Next-Gen update was on the Xbox Series S. This console was notorious for heating before, and now this problem appeared in The Witcher III. The heat went up another 3 degrees Celsius...

...But worst of all, on Xbox Series S you can run into texture bugs that players have already forgotten about. No, The Witcher III is still perfectly playable on the Xbox Series S, but the game is now hitting its limits.