Start The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered

The free Remastered upgrade

CD PROJEKT RED ships Remastered as an upgrade of the Complete Edition you already own, not as a new numbered sequel. On listed platforms the storefront updates the same product. Steam app 292030 still sells under the Complete Edition name and still dates the original release to 18 May 2015; the playable build on 29 September 2026 is Remastered. If you buy the game today on those PC and current-gen console storefronts, you are buying that current build.

The upgrade is free on GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Battle.net and Nintendo Switch 2 are additional Remastered storefronts. Nintendo Switch owners can claim the Switch 2 version. Xbox Play Anywhere is part of the Remastered feature list, so an Xbox Series save can move with that programme. Ukrainian text localization is also in this build.

Do not treat Songs of the Past as the free upgrade. That expansion is a paid third story pack, listed on Steam as Coming soon, and it requires Complete Edition. The press note from 27 May 2026 said a 2027 launch on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. It is co-developed with Fool's Theory and Yigsoft. Songs of the Past lives on the expansion path; the start page is for booting Remastered itself.

2015, 2022 and 2026 are different builds

Keep three products separate when you read a settings tip or a save warning. The 2015 original is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as it shipped on 18 May 2015. The 2022 next-gen update is the Complete Edition patch line (version 4.xx) that added ray-traced options and other then-current features. Remastered is the 29 September 2026 build: native DirectX 12, a rewritten skill tree, Path Tracing on PC, and the quality-of-life list in CDPR's 28 September notes.

Support articles still let you revert. Players can go back to 1.32 Classic and, after Remastered, to 4.04. That matters if a community mod pack only exists for an older executable. It also matters if you are comparing a screenshot from 2022 ray tracing with Path Tracing in this build — they are not the same preset.

Steam's store HTML requirements box can still show the older GTX 660 / Windows 7 list, with a note that requirements change on 29 September 2026. Do not size a PC from that box. The six-profile table on CDPR's support page is the Remastered table this site uses. Open PC requirements for the full columns, then come back here to pick first-hours settings.

The same Path on PC, PS5, Xbox and Switch 2

Remastered is one Path on every current box, with platform extras rather than split campaigns. PC holds Path Tracing, DLSS 4.5, FSR 4, XeSS 2.0, DualSense haptics where supported, and the in-game mod.io browser. PlayStation 5 adds multithreaded rendering, a Ray Tracing Mode that targets 60 FPS with enhanced lighting, and a Performance Mode that targets 60 FPS and up to 90 FPS on VRR displays. PS5 Pro stacks PSSR, VRR and uncapped frame rates on those modes.

Xbox Series X|S carries Xbox Play Anywhere. Nintendo Switch 2 adds handheld, Pro Controller, Dual Grip motion, Mouse Sensor, HD Rumble, handheld VRR and HDR, plus a motion-control tutorial. Switch 1 owners claim the Switch 2 build rather than buying the story again. Cross Progression remains functional after the expansion merge, so a save can still move between supported platforms when that feature is enabled on the account.

If you are on PC, start with the six-profile table and latest GPU drivers. If you are on a console, pick the graphics mode named in the platform row, then go to First hours for difficulty, accessibility, tutorials and a manual save. The story order does not change by platform: base Path, Hearts of Stone, Blood and Wine, with Songs of the Past waiting on its own store page.

How to use this play guide

This wiki is a Remastered field manual, not a quest encyclopedia and not a version-timeline site. Use PC requirements when you need the six official profiles, SSD rule and Windows 11 testing floor. Use Graphics when you are ready to turn on a raster preset, then an upscaler, then Path Tracing with Frame Generation. Use First hours for a spoiler-light setup: difficulty, accessibility, graphics preset and a manual save. Difficulty covers Just the Story and the Bard's Ballad preset. Expansions orders Hearts of Stone, Blood and Wine and Songs of the Past. Saves and mods covers old saves, the skill reset, Cross Progression and mod.io. Skills and combat covers the three-rank tree and the combat camera change.

Official numbers and names stay labelled as CDPR or Steam text. Experience-style advice — match the closest profile, turn Path Tracing on last, create a manual save before you tinker — is marked separately so it never looks like a hidden spec. thewitcher-3.wiki is an unofficial fan play guide, not a CD PROJEKT RED property. The official announcement trailer sits below if you want the publisher's own overview before you open a new game.

Official Remastered trailer

The official announcement trailer lives on The Witcher YouTube channel. It is the publisher's overview of Remastered, not a substitute for the PC table or the first-hours checklist. Play it here if you want the motion pass; then return to PC requirements or First hours for the actual start. The clip is the same IGk17XQ7IrQ embed CDPR put on thewitcher.com. It does not list the six PC columns, the SSD rule, or Bard's Ballad; those stay on the pages linked from the Path Board. Watch it once, then pick a hardware column or a first-session checklist. The trailer is also the right place to hear the 29 September 2026 free-upgrade claim in CDPR's own voice before you match a GPU column. Skip it if you already own the game and came here for the table; the Path Board still sits above this unit. Console players can watch it too: the upgrade claim covers PS5 and Xbox Series as well as PC.

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What the Path looks like in this build

The stills on this hub are official Complete Edition gallery shots bound to the Steam app. They are here to show the road, the cities and the kind of fight you walk into, not to preview a quest. Kaer Morhen in snow, a tavern interior, and a night fight with a leshen are all from that same first-party set. Use them as orientation, then leave through PC requirements if the hardware is the blocker, or through First hours if you already know the machine will run. Novigrad's roofs and the mountain road are the same gallery: they mark the kind of distances Remastered asks a GPU to hold, which is why the six-profile table exists before the first contract. A tavern interior is the other end of that scale: interiors, hair, and local lights are why RT columns exist at all.