The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-Gen update was rolled out by CD Projekt Red (CDRP) on December 14th, 2022, two days ago. While we waited for this patch of one of the best games of all time, the update is causing significant performance issues for players. The update is free for everyone who owns the classic version of the game, irrespective fo the device they are playing it on. The update is fantastic, with improved graphics and tracing, but what issues are players facing? We will talk all about it here.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt classic came out in 2015, with the main storyline of Ciri disappearing, the Wild Hunt chasing her, and Geralt trying to keep her safe from all sorts of trouble, including the Nilfgardian Emperor Emhyr var Emreis. Besides the main story, the game had two significant expansions: Hearts of Stones and Blood and Wine. After the two, this is the most significant update the game has received, and that too after a long time.
Patch 4.0 of the game has multiple new additions in quests, VFX, ULTRA+ Graphics, and DLSS3 for supported hardware, and the list keeps going. Let’s see what’s more in this new update and what performance issues gamers face.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: What’s New?
The new patch has a download size of approximately 52GB on Steam, as I installed it after uninstalling the classic version. But if you update it, the download size would be around 45GB. The update brings new global illumination and additional ray-tracing options depending on the hardware. One of the best ideas in the update is the community-contributed mods, such as HD Monsters by teiji25 and World Map Fixes by Terg500.
The Best Changes:
- ULTRA+ graphics settings for PC – Affects most of the objects of the game, adding the extra touch
- DLSS 3 – But hardware dependable
- Photo Mode – Built-in photo editing settings
- REDlauncher My Rewards – Cool Swords and Armor Set
- Environmental View Update
- Xbox Series S Quality Mode/Performance Mode – Can increase resolution with an fps target of 30/60
- Additional Content – Not mentioning details here
In addition, options to set the camera distance for combat, exploration, and horseback have been made available in options. This is just a just of what’s new; for more, read the update notes here. Not even the update note has all the new features, so here’s a hint to explore everything again and discover what’s more to the game.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Performance Issues?
As soon as the update came out, players jumped on the update thread to get the latest version. But after playing the update, many reported frame drops in the midst; frame rates dropped below 50fps while I was playing it; though it only happened momentarily, it is happening more than once while playing. In addition, players are also experiencing screen freezes and graphic breaks. To be accurate, this isn’t what we expected, but it’s not new; updates usually go through these troubles. These issues might be due to the upgrade to DX12 and DLSS3 ray tracing, as reported by various users.
CD Projekt Red is aware of the bugs and is working on sorting them out. The game’s official Twitter account posted this on December 14th, 2022.
We are aware of the issues PC players have been reporting since last night's release of the update. We are actively investigating all of the reports and will be providing an update on particular issues as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience!
— The Witcher (@witchergame) December 14, 2022
The best way to stay clear is not to update the game for the time being. But if you have already updated it, you can always roll it back. But before you roll it back, try turning off ray-tracing and run it on DX11 through the newly added REDlauncer. Some users reinstalled the game after completely uninstalling it, and it worked fine; it’s worth a shot. Besides this, a new problem appeared when the PS5 expansion of the game disappeared from the Playstation Store, as reported by this tweet from CDPR. But the fix for this problem has also been released, so if you are playing it on PS5, try it.
We've just released a hotfix for PlayStation 5 players addressing this issue. The hotfix is roughly 2GB and will not change the in-game patch version.
Although everyone will receive it, it only addresses the issue for players from the affected territories. https://t.co/7QD1FfQi57— CD PROJEKT RED CS (@CDPRED_Support) December 16, 2022
Games have issues and bugs whenever a new update arrives, and I think every gamer understands it. So, for the time being, we will wait for the fix, complete the remaining quests, or maybe try our solutions.
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