The Witcher 3 Remastered Announced as a Free Upgrade With Both Expansions

By Jaymo | Yesterday

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is most likely one of the best games you can play in life. Once you did, it is hard to find another game that reaches this type of “peak”. And the following was not the announcement I expected to see at the end of Gamescom Opening Night Live. Everyone thought CD Projekt Red would just show us a little bit more about the Songs of the Past expansion, but they had much greater plans. And that is why we love them so much!

CD Projekt Red has announced The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, a huge new version of the beloved RPG that will launch on September 29, 2026.

And the best part is that it is completely free for existing owners!

If you already own The Witcher 3 on GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S, you will get the Remastered version as a free upgrade. But CDPR did not stop there. The Remastered edition also includes Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. So if you already own the base game but never bought either expansion, you will be getting both of them as part of this upgrade. For free. Yes. You are not dreaming.

So now that you are aware, take a look at the beautiful trailer we got for the Remastered version!

The Witcher 3 Is Getting a LOT of Changes

If you think this is just a couple of graphical improvements, you are about to have your mind blown! CD Projekt Red describes The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered as a huge modernization of the game, with improvements across visuals, gameplay, and performance. Basically, everything will be better.

They did not give specific details about things, but they did list pretty much everything that changes, and there is still more to come! But here is what we managed to gather:

Upgraded Visuals
Enhanced Combat
Improved Traversal and Movement
New Witcher Signs Effects

Revamped Mount Handling
Enhanced Monster Behaviors
Revamped Skill Tree

Transmog System

Expanded Photo Mode
New Finishers
Cross-platform MOD Support
Immersive Meditation
Refined Animations
New Quest Tracking
UI Improvements
Looting Rework
Refreshed Motion Blur
New Accessibility Features
Updated Textures

Foliage Shading Rework
Tutorial Modernization
HDR Improvements
GTAO
Improved Menu Navigation
Ray Tracing Improvements
Global Lighting Rework
New Shading Model
Subsurface Scattering
New Tone Mapper
PlayStation 5 Pro Support
Nintendo Switch 2 Exclusive Features
Nvidia DLSS 4.5
AMD FSR 4
Intel XESS 2.0
Path Tracing on PC
Ray Reconstruction on PC
Raytraced Hair
Native DX12
Rendering Parallelization

And this is not even the full list, more is still to come! So if you were expecting a simple visual upgrade, that is definitely not what this is. CDPR is effectively going back through a huge part of the game and reworking systems that have not been touched in years.

The Remaster Is Also Coming to New Platforms

The Remastered edition is not limited to the platforms getting the free upgrade. CD Projekt Red has also announced that it will be available on Nintendo Switch 2, and the game is also coming to Battle.net through a new partnership with Blizzard. The Switch 2 version is particularly interesting, considering how ambitious The Witcher 3 remains technically.

CDPR has not stopped at simply bringing the existing version to the new hardware either, since it is the Remastered edition that’s coming. You can pre-order the remastered version on both platforms as of right now.

On top of that, the new collaboration with Blizzard will also bring The Witcher to Blizzard games such as Overwatch and Diablo 4!

A Perfect Setup for Songs of the Past

There is obviously a reason CD Projekt Red is doing all of this now. The Remastered version arrives ahead of The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past, the game’s upcoming third expansion, that is planned for 2027. That expansion will introduce a new region and another story for Geralt, with CDPR previously describing its size as comparable to Blood and Wine.

The Remastered version therefore gives us a much more modern version of The Witcher 3 to play through before the new expansion arrives. And considering that Songs of the Past is intended to be the final expansion for The Witcher 3, this feels like CDPR giving Geralt’s original adventure one last upgrade before moving on.

And the end of the Remastered trailer says it perfectly:

“There is never an ending that is not also a new beginning.”

After all, this last expansion will also set up Ciri’s future for The Witcher 4.

Considering just how much CD Projekt Red appears to be changing, this is starting to look less like a traditional remaster and more like a second life for The Witcher 3.

And honestly, with Songs of the Past coming next year, and The Witcher 4 the year after, I cannot think of a better excuse to return to the Continent.

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