The Witcher 3's next-gen upgrade is coming: Here's what to expect

By Eric Abent/

Back in September, before the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 were on shelves and before Cyberpunk 2077 launched to all sorts of drama, CD Projekt Red announced plans to create a next-gen version of The Witcher 3. In the time since then, CD Projekt Red has more or less gone silent on the next-gen upgrade for The Witcher 3 – which is understandable considering it's been dealing with things like ransomware attacks and angry fanbases – but today we're finally learning more about when it will land.

In a post to Twitter today, CD Projekt Red lead PR manager Radek Grabowski revealed that the next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be landing at some point in the second half of this year. That's all we're getting for now, but this is at least confirmation that the next-gen update is still in the works.

As for what that next-gen update will entail, right now that's anyone's guess. CD Projekt Red hasn't shared too many details about what it will offer, but back in September, it did say it would leverage the ray tracing capabilities and faster load times of both consoles. We also know that it will include both of the expansions – Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone – and that it'll be a free upgrade for anyone who already owns the game on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or PC.

If you don't already own the game, you'll be able to purchase the next-gen version directly, but we don't have a price for the standalone version yet. We can probably also assume that the next-gen version will offer some kind of 60 frames per second performance mode and another mode that supports 4K resolution, but that's purely speculation on our part.

So, there you have it: the next-gen version of The Witcher 3 will be here before we close the book on 2021. We'll let you know when CD Projekt Red shares more details on it, so stay tuned.

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