Prior to its release on December 14, CD Projekt RED has unveiled details about the upcoming next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as part of the patch notes.
The patch notes reveal a lot of information about the exclusive features that will be a part of the console and PC versions of the title.
When it comes to next-gen consoles and PC specific features, players with the next-gen update can expect to see ray traced global illumination and ambient occlusion, alongside various mods and mod-inspired content that improve the game’s visuals. The list of community-inspired mods include:
- The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project by HalkHogan
- HD Monsters Reworked by Denroth
- Immersive Real-time Cutscenes by teiji25
- Nitpicker’s Patch by chuckcash
- World Map Fixes by Terg500
The game has also upscaled the textures for characters like Geralt, Yennefer, Triss, Ciri, Eredin and more, to 4K. Along with a new photo mode, The Witcher 3 now supports AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.1.
The free next-gen update patch notes are here!
Check out what’s coming to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on December 14th! #TheWitcher3NextGen
⚔️ https://t.co/5WdQmCdzKv ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/rIuTZYftA3
— The Witcher (@witchergame) December 12, 2022
For PC players, the exclusive features include an ULTRA+ graphical setting, which “significantly increases the visual fidelity of the game.” However, don’t get your hopes up to try it out, unless you have a decent system that can handle the visual output. Moreover, there’s also DLSS 3 support for NVIDIA graphic card users.
Finally, for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 users, The Witcher 3 next-gen update will have a Ray Tracing and Performance mode. While the former will target 30 FPS alongside ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion with dynamic resolution scaling, the latter will offer 60 FPS with dynamic resolution scaling.
Xbox Series S players won’t be receiving any benefits of the ray tracing, however. Instead, it will have a Quality mode with “increased resolution and better image fidelity” at 30 FPS. Furthermore, PlayStation 5 users will have additional features in the form of adaptive triggers and haptic feedback on the DualSense controllers.
To know more about the other features that will be available with the next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, check out the patch notes from the developers at CD Projekt RED.
