PATCH NOTES 5.11.2026 – Following developer BioWare's closure under EA, a fan-made petition to "#SaveMassEffect" is gaining momentum. Its ultimate goal – encouraging EA to either resume development on now-canceled Mass Effect 5 or sell the IP to another studio – is a tough sell, especially given the publisher's track record. But the petition's popularity has opened an exciting new door for the RPG franchise: the opportunity for rebirth.

What's going on in gaming this week?

• After Mass Effect 5's cancelation, a Bioware co-founder is so touched by the #SaveMassEffect movement that he wants to reconnect with OG members of the dev team.
• CD Projekt Red keeps adding to its host of RPG experts, with ex-Kingdom Come: Deliverance devs added to its star-studded roster.

Why is this happening now?

• One of the petition's goals is to get EA to sell Mass Effect to a studio like CDPR, which continues to prove itself a home for RPG specialists.
• Hope has been rekindled for original BioWare and Mass Effect writers to band together once more, keeping a candle lit for the series' resurgence someday.
• Industry trends mean an eventual reboot cannot be discounted – even if #SaveMassEffect's demands aren't immediately met.

Meta Shift

• #SaveMassEffect's power is in what the petition represents, as long as fans can play the waiting game.

The news of BioWare's shuttering and the subsequent cancelation of Mass Effect 5 Universe was a bitter pill to swallow. So much so, many RPG fans refused.

#SaveMassEffect, a petition to rescue the canned franchise from EA's video game graveyard, has over 300,000 signatures on Change.org at the time of writing. These are promising numbers, but what hope does the petition have of actually meeting its goals?

The chances of EA selling or licensing Mass Effect to another developer or publisher are extremely slim. EA's habit of sitting on its sunsetted franchises has been widely reported over the years, so I wouldn't hold my breath. Fans are eyeballing studios like Larian and CD Projekt Red for the task all the same, though each studio is hard at work on their own RPGs.

But this might not be the end of Mass Effect, because games get rebooted all the time. Look at how Xbox is reviving Fable under Playground Games after original developer Lionheart shut down in 2016. Or how Larian Studios was chosen to develop Baldur's Gate 3, the first two games having been developed by BioWare in partnership with lapsed license-holders Interplay. EA even brought Dead Space out of a 10-year dormancy to remake the first game in the trilogy. #SaveMassEffect shows that there is still overwhelming passion and desire for a continuation of the RPG series – we just might need to be patient.

Patch Notes summary

Two weeks later, the buzz around #SaveMassEffect is still resounding. There's no telling if EA will reconsider its actions or acknowledge the petition at all, but whether or not it succeeds is beside the point. Its popularity speaks to the unified strength of players' voices in showing discontentment with corporate moves in an industry that continues to be rife with layoffs, studio shutdowns, and cancelations, as well as how important this franchise is to so many.

If it inspires even one handful of BioWare devs not to give up hope, which seems to be the case for its co-founder, it might be enough to keep Mass Effect's spirit alive long enough to see it resurrected sometime in the future. Even if, like Baldur's Gate, it might take a decade or two.

Related

Weeks after Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 hit Netflix, the anime has released a brand new music video featuring new scenes focusing on King and Avida's rather emotional backstory.

The music video, which you can watch below, was posted by Cyberpunk on YouTube and features the song ‘Watson’ by Petite Meller (ft. Oslo Green), which viewers will recognise as the end-credits theme for the anime series' second season. However, rather than splicing scenes from the show, which many music videos taken from movies and shows tend to do, Watson's video includes never-before-seen footage made especially for the tune.

The video, which credits 'story and creative direction' to Edgerunners creator Bartosz Sztybor, focuses on Weak Kingsley and Avida Yang, giving us an insight into the two meeting prior to the events of the season. The footage teases their relationship before their eventual breakup, which provides some much-needed context on why the two behave the way they do towards one another in the new anime.

While Sztybor worked on the music video, Edgerunners animation house Studio Trigger did not. Instead, the animation was provided by WIZZ Studio, which has created a number of animated shorts for music videos in the past, including the recent League of Legends Worlds 2026 Anthem.

Set in Night City, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is set in the same universe as the popular Cyberpunk video game franchise, and takes place one year after video game Cyberpunk 2077 and two years after the anime's first season. But the new 10-episode season is a standalone story, following washed-up cyberpunk legend Weak Kingsley as he searches for a sense of purpose in a world that’s passed him by.

However, the new video may be the last that fans see of the anime for a while, as Netflix has yet to renew the show for a third season. Speaking to ComicBook, the show's creator Bartosz Sztyboron shared hopes for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 3, adding, "There’s a lot of stories to tell in Night City and beyond." But suggested that Cyberpunk studio CD Projekt Red's quest for perfection could hinder progress. "I think the whole studio’s approach is that there always needs to be a perfect story and a perfect director, artist, or a studio that will be able to pull off this story," said Sztybor.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 is out on Netflix now. For more, check out our Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 review, and keep up with new anime on the way.

There was already considerable RPG pedigree at CD Projekt Red, but now it's gotten even stronger. Three lead devs from the company behind the Kingdom Come: Deliverance games were recently hired, making the available roster for Cyberpunk 2 and The Witcher 4 truly spectacular.

The first of the triumvirate of devs from Warhorse Studios actually made the jump over to Geralt of Rivia's domain back in November 2025, per LinkedIn. Karel Kolmann, a lead gameplay designer who worked on both Kingdom Come installments, is now at CD Projekt Red as a senior quest designer and has been for exactly one year.

Next to follow him was Zdeněk Glatz, a former lead level designer on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 who also contributed to the first game and helped sculpt the DLC. In May 2026, he stepped into the role of senior open-world designer within CD Projekt Red's machinations.

Lastly (for now), it's Zbyněk Zelinka, a lead technical designer at Warhorse who's now a senior gameplay designer for the home of Geralt and Cyberpunk 2077. He only joined properly in October, and he's got the least time at Warhorse of the three here, at seven years and ten months.

The other two are over eight years in their tenures for Henry of Skalitz. With so many years spent at one studio - a genuine rarity in the industry - I can very much imagine they were ready to try something different and expand their skillsets.

There's no telling right now what they've actually worked on, but since the remaster of The Witcher 3 has now shipped, and the Songs of the Past DLC is coming quite soon, it seems pretty likely at least one of them is working on The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2. Their expertise and talents will be an asset to whatever those teams are putting together; it's just a bummer we might be waiting a while still to see what they've all been up to.

Big RPGs like The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 have CD Projekt Red in a "dangerous place," warns BioWare veteran, with costs and sales expectations exploding

A Towerful of Mice is set during Keira Metz's storyline in Velen, and with a recommended level of six, is one of The Witcher 3's earliest ghost stories. Cobble together a haunted tower, frightened locals, and love persevering, and you're left with a traditional Gothic horror set in brackish Velen.

Our destination, Fyke Isle, is wreathed in fog. Sailing towards it, dark woods on either bank of a thin river, there are just two bright spots in the night – Geralt's bobbing white bun, and flashes of a pale drowner as it flits between the trees. I've completed A Towerful of Mice once before, but rather unhelpfully, the only part I remember is getting there via boat. Everything else is a mystery, but the basic premise is this: superstitious locals have asked sorceress-in-hiding Keira Metz to lift a curse from Fyke Isle. In turn, Keira asks Geralt for help – if only to keep the locals on-side while mage hunters scour the land.

Quest Log

Trick or treat

In the basement, ghostly peasants wonder why the room is packed with caged rats. Two flights of creaky stairs above, the nobleman's daughter pleads with her father to assist the locals. An unseen voice alerts them to the angry mob downstairs and their wispy shades disappear, but in the modern-day, a skeleton lies beneath a chair the nobleman was sitting in. By now, Fyke Isle's dread sits heavily: I'm jumping at every creaky floorboard and darting rat, and climbing up the tower feels as if I'm being drawn towards an unseen horror.

In that regard, A Towerful of Mice has more in common with classic ghost stories The Turn of the Screw and The Haunting of Hill House than The Witcher. It's a testament to how rapidly CD Projekt Red can knit and swaddle us into a story. The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077's quests thrust agonizing decisions upon players, but their consequences are only so monumental because we've been made to care so quickly.

Spoilers ahead

Like many of The Witcher 3's quests, A Towerful of Mice's violence hides heartbreak. In a hidden laboratory at the top of the tower, the ghost of the nobleman's daughter, Anabelle, reveals herself. Speaking to Geralt, she recalls taking a paralyzing potion – made to look like poison – to avoid dying at the mob's hands. The mob leaves, but when Anabelle awakens much later, she's still paralyzed – and being eaten alive by rats. She died thinking her lover, Graham, abandoned her (he was part of the mob, albeit trying to stop it), and suggests the curse will be lifted if Geralt brings her remains for Graham to bury.

The story adds up, but something smells rotten. And while I don't remember how A Towerful of Mice goes, 160 hours spent in The Witcher 3 is enough for me to trust my gut. I turn down Anabelle, who then asks if Geralt will instead bring Graham to seek her forgiveness. That seems fair – assuming Graham is willing – so I row back across the river and find him in a small fishing village. Still traumatized by that night, Graham is eager to help put Anabelle to rest and returns to Fyke Isle with Geralt.

Back in the tower's laboratory, Anabelle is revealed in her true form: a jawless Plague Maiden with sunken skin and a tendrilled tongue. To lift the curse, Graham has to prove he still loves Anabelle by kissing her. And while Geralt's professionalism has been a comfort throughout the quest, it doesn't help me when the cutscene's camera moves to follow Graham – moonlight shining on his neck makes it seem exposed in the darkness, and watching him draw closer to Anabelle feels like watching fingers inch towards a bear trap.

In a final Gothic flourish, true love wins out. Sort of. For a moment, Anabelle is a young woman again – then she's gone, and Graham is dead on the floor. The curse is lifted, quest complete, yet there's no celebration. Fyke Isle is still unbearably sad. But for an hour, it was real.

Cyberpunk 2077 just saw the release of update 2.5, a patch that accompanied the Edgerunners 2 debut on Netflix – and one that CD Projekt Red hoped would be very special.

Paweł Sasko, who is now working as Cyberpunk 2 associate director, reveals as much in an entry on the studio's official blog, explaining that the developers wanted the connection between all of Cyberpunk's media to feel "consistent" – which, yes, means Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077, as it "has always worked best when you can feel it's one consistent universe, a nexus of stories told from different perspectives."

He continues, referencing characters from both the RPG and its animated Netflix series: "V, Johnny, David, Lucy, the characters from our comics and now the new crew from Edgerunners 2 all experience the same world, but they see something different in it. I wanted the game to acknowledge that connection directly."

Not only that, but CD Projekt Red – and especially Sasko – wanted that acknowledgement to be great.

So great, in fact, that it (in the form of update 2.5, of course) would outshine the patch that accompanied the first season of Edgerunners four years back.

In Sasko's own words, "I wanted to create an update for the game that will be much more meaningful than the one we created for Edgerunners in 2022." That "one," as he says, was 1.6 – a patch aptly dubbed the Edgerunners Update, adding transmogs, cross-progression, and more.

This time around, update 2.5 has brought a new quest to the RPG that acts as a prequel to Edgerunners 2.

"Players will unlock a new quest that takes place before the events of the show, following the last job of Team King. It introduces King, Meshuga, Miguel, and Emily, and takes players into a part of Night City they have never properly explored before," Sasko describes – and, again, consistency between the show and game was key.

"From the beginning, believability and immersion were the most important for me. If these characters exist both in the game and in the show, they should feel like the same people," as he concludes. "That is why it was incredibly important to get the same voice actors from Edgerunners 2 into Cyberpunk 2077."

And so they did just that – and I'd argue that it's worked out quite nicely for CD Projekt Red, too.

Following Edgerunners 2 and update 2.5, the RPG did hit its highest Steam player count in three years, after all. It serves as a testament to the ever-growing quality of Cyberpunk 2077, I'd say, and, yes, how good the collaborative patch has been this time around.

CD Projekt Red just can't stop updating Cyberpunk 2077: "This world keeps giving us reasons to return to it."

It's been almost six years since the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, and in that time developer CD Projekt Red has been tirelessly updating the game initially with a flurry of bug fixes and performance patches, and then later with substantial content additions culminating in the Phantom Liberty expansion from 2023. And yet, even as the game's legacy has firmly been cemented as a generational RPG far removed from its half-baked launch state, it has another huge update, 2.5, which just came out last week.

The 2.5 update adds a new quest that serves as a prequel story to Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 on Netflix, as well as mod support for consoles, dual-wielding for pistols and revolvers, a new City Tours feature that gives you a guided look at Night City, new clothing sets, a new radio station, and more. It's a genuinely massive update to an already sprawling open-world adventure that's long since redeemed itself, and all CDPR has to say for itself is that it simply can't turn down an opportunity for a new update even as it works on a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel and a bunch of other new games.

In an official CDPR blog post, associate game director Paweł Sasko says the combined new features in Cyberpunk 2077 2.5 serve one goal to "make Night City richer, more coherent, and more believable, for our players," and that's why it was made.

"That is ultimately why we are updating Cyberpunk 2077 again," says Sasko. "This world keeps giving us reasons to return to it. Edgerunners 2 adds another perspective, 2.5 brings that perspective into the game, and at the same time gives players more ways to make Night City their own. For me, that is what a shared universe should feel like. Different stories, different people, different media, but one city that remembers all of them. And I hope players enjoy returning to it."

With a list of upcoming CDPR games that includes the new Witcher 3 DLC, The Witcher 4, a remake of The Witcher 1, the aforementioned sequel codenamed Project Orion, a new original IP codenamed Hadar, and probably more I'm forgetting about, I'm just surprised there's still budget and resources for more Cyberpunk 2077. I'm also very much not complaining about that.

CD Projekt Red has "hired so many modders" that Cyberpunk 2 co-lead says "I think half of the quest team is all former modders"

After years of waiting, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 arrived last week, and it's every bit the bright, vivacious exploration of Night City I hoped it'd be. One of the more memorable characters is Weak Kingsley, a well-built mercenary, and after someone managed to replicate his stats in Cyberpunk 2077, it's clear he's just a tad overpowered.

A former hotshot in the dystopian metropolis, Weak was eventually knocked off the food chain of violence and became a Solo who exists on the fringes. Regardless, he's managed to keep himself well-equipped, no easy feat considering most of his body is cyberware.

The YouTuber KhrazeGaming decided to explore what Weak is actually bringing to the table by piecing together his full loadout from when he was at the peak of his powers. Spoilers: things go a little too well.

Weak's main weapon is a special revolver that unleashes lightning with each bullet. This gun, called Coronation, is a highly upgraded version of the Burya, using multiple mods to create the desired firepower.

You sacrifice some overall damage, but the combination of bullets and electricity you can chain between enemies more than makes up for it. Khraze points out in his video that once you get the hang of the exact amount of charge you need, you'll see lightning bounce across groups of adversaries in a glorious display of destruction.

Who needs secondary weapons when you have 'Dan' and 'Ger' built-in; gorilla arms are the backup, and you can use those to chain takedowns and wallop whomever you're facing. These are built by focusing on blunt damage in the skill tree, complemented by the Quake ability, which is bolstered by AfterShock and Ripple Effect.

The video outlines the specifics of the Cyberware and such that help tie everything together. The result is ludicrous. Quite literally barreling through enemies like they're nothing. Weak was once called King, and that version clearly still exists in him. Going to be tough for Edgerunners season 3 to top this.

Cyberpunk 2077 lead says it's been a "hell of a weekend" as the RPG hit its highest Steam player count in 3 years thanks to Edgerunners 2 and 2.5 update

BioWare may be gone, but the legendary studio's legacy lives on through the countless developers who loved its RPGs. But in the case of CD Projekt Red, it's more than an abstract influence. As the first Witcher game celebrates its 19th birthday, CDPR is keen to remind fans that it wouldn't have been possible without BioWare's direct support.

"19 years ago, an ambitious dream to bring an iconic book series into the world of video games came to life with the release of The Witcher. It was the start of an unforgettable path, which wouldn't have been possible without our friends at BioWare," CD Projekt Red says in a Bluesky post.

"From lending us their Aurora Engine and sharing their knowledge, to giving us a spot at their booth at E3, their support helped turn our vision into Geralt’s first interactive adventure."

The makers of The Witcher have extensively credited BioWare's support in the past. CD Projekt started life as a distributor of PC games in Poland, which was once completely dominated by piracy. "Software is free, hardware is what you pay for," as CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwiński recalled in a 2017 interview with NoClip.

But CD Projekt began to find success by creating Polish localizations of games from around the world at a level of quality the pirates couldn't compete with. One of the company's early coups was a publishing deal for the original Baldur's Gate, the 1998 classic that had put BioWare on the map. It was a frightening deal for CD Projekt, since the company had to assume all the risk on an initial order of 3,000 units.

"Before we signed the deal, we were shitting our pants with [co-founder] Michal [Kiciński] that these 3,000 units can bankrupt us," Iwiński explained. "Because if we fail, you know, we're done. We're never seeing a lot of money in it, and maybe we'll not sell 3,000, or 1,000."

But thanks to CD Projekt's lavish treatment of Baldur's Gate, which included professional Polish voice acting, a deluxe collector's box, and a deal with a local publisher's version of Dungeons & Dragons, the company created a hit. 18,000 units had been ordered before the game even hit the market, and the game had sold 50,000 units "within the first year."

After building a successful publishing business, CD Projekt decided to expand into developing its own, original games. You probably know where this is going: the company secured the license for a series of fantasy stories legendary among Polish readers, and got to work on The Witcher.

Amid a scramble to secure a publisher for The Witcher, the company founded a development-focused subsidiary in CD Projekt Red. (Now, of course, the entire company is known as CD Projekt Red.) The studio would end up approaching BioWare to license the Aurora Engine which had been used to create Neverwinter Nights.

A year later, CD Projekt Red flew to Edmonton to show the Aurora-powered Witcher to the heads of BioWare. The studio's half-broken demo "magically" worked during this demonstration, and managed to impress. "You talk to the RPG gods, and they will rule on your demo if it's good or not. Imagine the amount of stress," Iwiński said.

In fact, BioWare liked that original version of The Witcher so much that the studio invited CD Projekt Red to show the game at a shared E3 booth. A tiny studio which few outside of Poland had even heard of would share space with a glitzy demonstration of BioWare's presumed next big hit: Jade Empire.

Ultimately, The Witcher would cast a much longer shadow than Jade Empire, but both BioWare and CD Projekt Red would find mainstream, mass market success with the likes of Mass Effect and The Witcher 3, respectively. The history of both companies are directly intertwined, and there's an alternate timeline where CD Projekt Red might've assisted BioWare in taking on Steam. Oh, what might have been.

Almost 200,000 Mass Effect fans sign petition to save the series after BioWare's demise, and both Commander Shepard actors are on board with fan efforts.

Cyberpunk 2077 is soaring the charts on Steam once again after a good three years thanks to a healthy mix of update 2.5, the second season of Edgerunners, and a whopping 70% off sale to boot – and CD Projekt Red has noticed.

With Cyberpunk 2 still underway, it's nice to see the original RPG continue to get love from fans and developers alike.

The recent 2.5 update introduced everything from a new quest as a prequel for Edgerunners 2 to support for, erm, adult mods on consoles, for example, proving that the game is very much active in both players' minds and CD Projekt Red's own.

The big patch (and second season of the Netflix series) has brought folks back to Night City, too.

A quick look over at SteamDB shows that, over the weekend, Cyberpunk 2077 hit a peak player count of 187,215 – its highest since October 2023, when it reached 274,526 after the release of its massive Phantom Liberty DLC and 2.0 update.

It's not all that surprising, then, to witness a similar spike following 2.5 now and all of its additions, and, of course, the Netflix series' new season, which dropped last week.

This isn't the first time the animated television show has helped boost the RPG's players, either – heck, way back in 2022, the same happened with the first season of Edgerunners. It probably also helps that the game's got a nice 70% discount on Steam currently.

What is especially notable, however, is CD Projekt Red's response. Over on X, Cyberpunk 2 associate director Paweł Sasko highlights the new rise in players.

"It's been hell of a weekend," he writes. "Peak of 187k concurrent players on Steam alone, a lot of hilarious threads and meme clips, it all fills my heart with joy."

He then looks to what more CD Projekt Red could do to make Cyberpunk 2077 even better after all these years: "Chooms, give us feedback, what we can improve, where we have missed the mark with 2.5? Your perception is everything." Talk about dedication.

Comments see fans commending the devs for their hard work (and, unsurprisingly, asking for more expansions and other additions) – but I'm honestly personally just looking forward to hearing more about Cyberpunk 2… whenever that may come.

CD Projekt Red has "hired so many modders" that Cyberpunk 2 co-lead says "I think half of the quest team is all former modders"

If there's one thing the GamesRadar+ RPG Club has taught me, it's that you've never seen it all. Just when you think you know an RPG inside out, it goes ahead and surprises you 10 years later. See, I thought I'd experienced every original side quest and monster contract in The Witcher 3 – given my many, many playthroughs – but the remastered re-release turned out to prove me wrong. On the shores of Skellige, after completing a particular contract at a particular time, a series of rather unfortunate events landed me in a pokey prison. Having no recollection of getting caught up in this mess before, I had no idea how I was going to get the White Wolf out of this one.

But the very fact that I couldn't wait to find out, and felt fresh excitement in an adventure I've spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours with, speaks to the magic of CD Projekt Red's sweeping fantasy adventure. It's not only teeming with things to see, do, and discover, but it directly reacts to the order in which you do things, and a decision to complete a contract at a certain time made me stumble my way into a missable quest that now refuses to leave my mind.

Quest Log

Wraiths and fog

It all begins with the haunting of a lighthouse out on one of the far islets of Skellige. The contract, The Phantom of Eldberg, is pretty standard for an experienced Witcher like me: investigate the area and find out why wraiths are attached to the location. It's all going well, having found the person responsible for tying the ghostly apparitions to the lighthouse. With a trophy in hand, I return back to a quaint little tavern to get my payment from a local called Jorund.

Only, the tavern is housing some hostile patrons who are none too happy at my being there, and with civil tensions at their peak with the passing of the king, things take a drastic turn. Before I know it, I'm in a bout of fistcuffs that quickly evolves into a clashing of blades. Poor Jorund pays the ultimate price, and as a stranger in a strange land, I'm quickly hoisted into a prison in the compound of Madman Lugos. What a day for poor Geralt.

I'd done this contract before, but it'd never ended like this. On previous runs, I handed in my wraith trophy and Jorund sat happily in the tavern, living to see another day. But, as I discovered, it's all about when you do this contract. Completing it before you do the King's Gambit kicks off a missable quest chain that I had apparently always managed to skip… probably due to my affinity for the Possession quest, or because I'd simply never picked up the contract early enough.

Regardless of the reason, I love the fact that The Witcher 3 constantly takes stock of what I choose you to do, and when I choose to do it. It puts real tangible weight behind my decisions in this world – something I live for in RPGs. And on this occasion, the game rewards me with a wild quest called The Cave of Dreams. If you've experienced this before, you know what I'm in for, but by all of the howling winds does it feel extra magical to witness it through the lens of the remastered edition's enhanced graphics.

Naturally there will be spoilers ahead for the Cave of Dreams.

Face your fears

Indebted to Lugos for letting me out of my pokey prison, I'm tasked with helping out his son, Blueboy Lugos, who's ventured to a cave with some companions to overcome a challenge of legend. Tales tell that anyone who enters the cave will face their fears, which are brought on by taking a mixture of hallucinogenic herbs before you delve into its depths. I'm already drawn to the concept, eager to see what the often implacable monster slayer Geralt's innermost fears will conjure.

At once, things start to get surreal. The cave comes alive with a giant, glittering razorback whale swimming through the air above the heads of the White Wolf, Blueboy, and his crew. It's a sight to behold, as are the school of fish that decorate the cave roof further in. Damn. It sure does look incredibly pretty. Pure camera mode fodder.

The events that actually unfold during the quest are what make it so memorable, though. Through every section of the cave, a character's fear comes to life. For warrior Uve Jabberjaw, it's the deceased king. Having previously insulted the monarch, Uve drastically cut out his own tongue as penance, and the past event clearly still haunts him. Then, in a more chilling turn, Blueboy faces his own father, whose anger and disappointment sets him literally aflame.

When I finally reach the scene of Geralt's fear, I stop to take it in: I'm looking at Kaer Morhen covered in a blanket of white snow. The nightmares that have plagued the witcher throughout the story make manifest here, with the imposing figure of Eredin, King of the Wild Hunt, materializing. It hits hard, not because Geralt is afraid of Eredin, but because he fears for the person the king continues to threaten: Ciri. The short confrontation gets to the heart of what makes The Witcher 3's story so memorable. It's about found family, protecting those you love, and never giving up the fight to keep them safe, and it once again reiterates how deeply Geralt cares for his ward.

If I ever needed further proof as to why The Witcher 3 continues to endure as one of the best RPGs going, well, this quest and the way I finally stumbled upon it is further proof. Now, excuse me while I go and see what else awaits me in the Remaster.

Mass Effect 5 is no more following the closure of BioWare after the EA buyout – but former developers believe it would've been an incredible RPG, had it come to fruition.

Tony de Waal, who acted as cinematic supervisor at BioWare and boasted some 29 years of experience at the studio, implies as much in a new LinkedIn post, explaining that he worked on everything from Mass Effect 2 to Dragon Age: The Veilguard – a game he says "was a herculean effort that tested the limits of even my workaholic mindset" – before Mass Effect 5.

"I believe we were making something special," he describes. "A level of autonomy and choice that no other game has been able to match."

The dev then references Baldur's Gate 3 team Larian Studios and CD Projekt Red, masterminds behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, recalling how BioWare looked to them: "We saw what Larian and CD Projekt were bringing to the table with their latest offerings, and started down a path to bring Mass Effect to the next level while remaining true to the Trilogy."

The cinematic mastermind closes by admitting "I'm sad you won't ever get to see what we were cooking" and paying tribute to his fellow devs, "some of the most talented people I've had the pleasure of working with throughout my career."

Interestingly, though, de Waal isn't the only BioWare veteran to reference Mass Effect 5 and how good it might've played had it been given the chance it deserved from EA to actually come to life.

Over on X, Derek Künsken, who introduces himself as both "a contract writer, and as a senior writer on staff" from BioWare, echoes this sentiment.

He isn't able to share too much aside from the fact that he was working on the new Mass Effect title and "what we were cooking was really cool," but that's got me wondering what could've been just as much as de Waal's own words do. I'm sure "really cool" is no understatement, after all.

It's disappointing to know that we won't get to experience what the devs had in store with Mass Effect 5 – and doubly so after hearing how amazing it may have been.

EA killing BioWare could lead to Mass Effect and Dragon Age rights being sold, former lead says, but they could just as easily "bury them in the vault"

While development is currently ongoing for Cyberpunk 2, Cyberpunk 2077 is still getting updates from CD Projekt Red. Amid conversations around the latest, Edgerunners-themed addition, the lead developers champion how prominent mods are, to the point that a significant amount of the current team have been plucked from the modding scene.

As part of one of the company's RedStreams, the discussion turns to modding and how it's helped leadership sculpt both Cyberpunk 2077 and its follow-up. The company has partnered with mod.io, major creators have been consulted on various ways to improve the RPG, and Pawel Sasko, the current Cyberpunk 2 associate game director and former quest design lead on Cyberpunk 2077, reveals that many of his colleagues came straight from making mods.

"A lot of modders, they were players who actually first played and actually got experience with customizing the game with the mods," he explains.

"For me, this is a foot-in-the-door technique, and a gateway into game dev," he continues. "You can see, and you can learn how things are made, how things can be built. We actually hired so many modders. I would say, at this point, half of the quest team is all former modders."

I'm not surprised in the least. What better talent to draw from than those who have intimate knowledge of playing the game, and literally building things for it? The ingenuity and understanding required for mods can't be understated - these are truly educated fans who not only understand something can be improved or added, but learn how to do it through making it themselves.

The depth of the Cyberpunk 2077 mod community speaks for itself; you can find everything from visual upgrades to whole new missions if you search through fan-made creations. CD Projekt Red is following the likes of Valve and Krafton here by hiring these people. Don't forget Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 and PUBG all started as mods, then became their own respective creations.

CD Projekt Red hasn't gone as far as publishing original games by these people yet, but they're definitely making Cyberpunk 2077 and its follow-up better. If you fancy working on The Witcher 4 or Cyberpunk 3, this might be the way you manage to do that.

Big RPGs like The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 have CD Projekt Red in a "dangerous place," warns BioWare veteran, with costs and sales expectations exploding

CD Projekt Red has detailed some of the new features coming to Cyberpunk 2077 for its 2.5 update, including a new quest that serves as a prequel to Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2.

In a new episode of REDStreams, the developers at CD Projekt Red teased what's coming in this week's new update. The highlight – which the team didn't shed much light on to avoid spoiling it – is a new quest that will be a prequel to what you're watching in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2, created alongside members of the show's team. Notably, it follows the last job of Weak Kingsley's team and will feature voice actors from the show – which presumably means Mr. Krabs himself, Clancy Brown, will be in Cyberpunk 2077.

On top of that, a new radio station for Edgerunner fans is being added, featuring 16 songs from both seasons of the Netflix series. There's also a Night City Tours activity, with Richard Night narrating a tour of the city, and the devs teasing some mysterious happenings throughout.

Aside from the new quest, the biggest news in this patch is Mod support coming to consoles – namely PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 – in the vein of The Witcher 3 Remastered. This will be done through Mod.io with Paweł Sasko noting that yes, the new mod menu will be "including the adult mods."

And as teased earlier this week, dual-wielding is being added to the game. These are featured as new skills in the "Cool" skill tree and allow you to use pistols and revolvers together; however, they're locked to these two weapon types, so you cannot dual-wield shotguns or sniper rifles. The devs note that any bonuses attached to the weapons that work on their own will carry over to dual-wield mode, but there will be some form of downside that wasn't elaborated on.

Extra player customization is also being added with the ability to alter your Cyberware, with the developers saying there will be 40 new looks for the tech. Plus, five new characters have been introduced into the world as "Glamdocs," with "new mocap, new voice over" and different styles attached to them.

There are also a number of technical and bug fixes, with the addition of a FOV slider on consoles arguably the most significant on the technical front. CD Projekt Red will undoubtedly post the full list when the update releases tomorrow on October 22.

Check out our Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 review here!

CD Projekt Red has confirmed a new Cyberpunk 2077 update is releasing this week, with content based on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2.

In the vein of No Man's Sky, CD Projekt Red has turned Cyberpunk 2077 from one of the most disastrous launches in gaming history into one of the most beloved games ever made. And just like No Man's Sky, this is partly thanks to the developers seemingly being unable to simply stop updating the game. One of the biggest free updates came along Cyberpunk Edgerunners' first outing, which added a number of new weapons, gear, and some new gigs, and four years later, CD Projekt Red is repeating the trick.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 released today, and the Studio Trigger Netflix anime series introduces a brand-new cast of characters and tells an entirely new story in Night City. So, since the Edgerunners content in the game won't be applicable, CD Projekt Red has confirmed there's a new update based on Edgerunners 2 coming later this week, on October 22.

In a post on Twitter, the Cyberpunk account advertised the 2.5 update with new key art showing V standing alongside one of Edgerunners 2's quartet of protagonists, Weak Kingsley, ammid a shootout. Alongside this news, in a post on the Cyberpunk website, CD Projekt Red confirmed a new episode of REDstreams will air tomorrow on October 21 at 5pm CEST (4pm BST | 11am ET | 8am PT).

While details are scarce at the moment, the website does drop two tidbits of info, namely, "cyberware customization" and "a new dual-wielding playstyle" coming to the game. Based on the first Edgerunners update, I have to imagine some new gigs are part of the package, or at the very least, some cosmetics based on the characters leading the new anime series.

Check out our Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 review here!

PATCH NOTES v19.10.2026 – As the latest Resident Evil film gets turned back into a video game and early Edgerunners 2 reviews suggest great things ahead, video game worlds have become the stars of the best adaptations – and it's a blueprint for the future.

What's going on this week in gaming?

• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 reviews are in and largely positive.
• Zack Cregger's acclaimed Resident Evil movie has come full circle after a fan turned it into a classic PS1 survival horror game.

Why is this happening now?

• Game adaptations are more successful when they build on the source game's universes instead of delivering exact retellings.

Meta Shift

• Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil prove that game worlds, not characters, offer the best opportunities for adaptation.

Turning a beloved video game into a film or TV show has always been challenging, but Zach Cregger's Resident Evil and Edgerunners season 2 proves it can be done if the respect is mutual. By taking the respective circumstances or settings of the source material – Cyberpunk 2077's Night City and Resident Evil's Raccoon City – and shaping them around new characters, both adaptations retain the spirit of the games while telling a new story.

It's a departure from what we usually see when we think of a game being adapted into a show or film. 2026's Return to Silent Hill beat-for-beat rehashes legendary survival horror game Silent Hill 2, but its 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes proves something was lost in translation. Paul W.S Anderson's slew of Resident Evil spin-off flicks acquired cult status for how famously silly they are, though lined up with more recent adaptations like Return to Raccoon City, are looked back on more kindly these days. The Witcher TV series saw moderate success due to actor Henry Cavill's genuine love of the games and book series, but audiences have been divided since his departure from his role as Geralt of Rivia.

A large part of this is down to audience expectation versus reality. Video games bring us some of the most powerful characters in entertainment, and we get to know them through a specific lens and perspective. Recasting those characters and giving them new faces, voices, or storylines as they cross over to new mediums is tricky because there is already something to compare it to.

The makers of Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil 2026 understand this. Both feature locations, iconography, and situations that will be familiar to fans of the video games – Edgerunners even features the same HUD players see in Cyberpunk 2077 when calling someone on the holophone – but never to the detriment of new viewers.

Writing new characters into well-defined, preordained worlds also sets firm parameters for the action that can take place there without risking a retcon of canon events as seen in source games. It creates a believable place to tell relevant stories, which has proven a magical combination for Edgerunners and Resident Evil. I hope the directors of the Zelda movie and God of War movie adaptations are taking notes!

Feedback Loop

• The success of Edgerunners and Zack Cregger's Resident Evil reinforces the power of intertextuality.

By writing new stories in familiar worlds, Edgerunners and Resident Evil are adding to a canon universe and have been accepted as a part of it – both by gamers and game developers alike.

To incorporate Edgerunners into the game's own canon, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red added new items, music, and mission chains that reference characters and events from the anime. Resident Evil was already self-referential, but as a movie about the experience of playing survival horror video games, it now has an extra layer of metatextual irony after being turned back into a PS1-era fixed camera-angled video game. These are just two examples of the different ways games and their adaptations can find confluence with one another when they aren't fighting to breathe the same air. It proves that adapting games into film and TV shows doesn't have to be hard when directors adapt the right things, adding value and layers instead of reshaping what was already there.

Patch Notes summary

Continued hype around the Resident Evil movie and Edgerunners 2's promising reviews are setting a new benchmark for game adaptations in 2026. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each medium and avoiding debates around story reinterpretation, these adaptations are proof that game worlds are far more flexible than the characters that inhabit them.

Related stories:

As CD Projekt Red continues to grow with projects like The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 in the works, some industry veterans are worrying that it's all becoming a bit too ambitious to make sense financially in the long run.

Mark Darrah, BioWare veteran who was co-director of Dragon Age: Origins and executive producer of Anthem, shares those concerns as part of an interview in the Summer Eternal Anthology (as reported by Rock Paper Shotgun recently).

He first discusses the likes of GTA 6 and how its sheer size has affected the video game industry, with developers and publishers falling into the trap of hoping to make the next Grand Theft Auto.

Should some move away from that dream, the future could be brighter. "If that all goes away, then you'll get a bunch of room to make it work with titles that need to sell 3-4 million units," as Darrah says. Think Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. "That's much more attractive."

And, why wouldn't it be? "I don't want to be working on something like GTA, where if this thing doesn't sell 50 million units, it's going to lose money," after all. "That's insane."

He worries about CD Projekt Red in particular, in this context. Darrah feels the studio is now part of that huge GTA-like game space.

"Their games now need to sell 15, 20 million units to make money," the former dev says. "That's a really dangerous place to be." I suppose he's not wrong there, either. It's never easy to make that much back, even with an IP as big as The Witcher. Plus, it's not a situation one would want to be in, regardless.

I'm not too concerned about CD Projekt Red's success myself, but it does make you wonder.

Heck, the company is currently working on a downright plethora of new games, from The Witcher 4 to Cyberpunk 2 to the ever-mysterious Project Hadar, which has just now moved on from its world-building phase to some prototype testing. There are loads of upcoming CD Projekt Red games, put simply, that much is for certain.

The Witcher 4 dev is "still predominantly using people" over AI in development, says CEO, but "everybody has to make those judgments on their own"

Once again, the GamesRadar+ RPG Club demands blood as we set out to explore standout missions in The Witcher 3 Remastered. Which perhaps makes it all the more appropriate that, when asked to write about my favorite mission in The Witcher 3, my mind immediately went to classically-eccentric side quest "The Oxenfurt Drunk".

Well, actually my first thought went to The Bloody Baron storyline, but everybody writes about the Bloody Baron, and how much is there really left to say about it at this point? But there's a small side quest I love almost as much, partly because it does so much to make me realize the thing I want to see most in Witcher 4.

Quest Log

Shots, shots, crossbow shots!

An optional Witcher Contract found and set in the titular town, The Oxenfurt Drunk has Geralt find the killer behind multiple victims drained of all their blood - gee, I wonder what esoteric horror could be behind this! The twist is he discovers in the wake of a bit of corpse-prodding autopsy that every victim was well over the limit to drive and horse and cart, leading to the realization that this particular vampire has a penchant for blood with a high alcohol content. I won't make the Bloody Mary joke if you don't.

Twenty minutes later, Geralt is drunkenly staggering around crime scenes with a dozen vodkas inside him, trying to lure out the Ripper-Tippler with a series of bawdy tavern songs and a coquettishly exposed neckline. It feels like the kind of atrociously bad idea that a D&D party would come up with, and I mean that as an honest compliment.

So yeah, it's a fun little quest – the Contracts are reliably the best part of Witcher 3, to my mind – but it also shows the one place where I think the game had so much more room to flex. Namely, in all the investigation and intelligence that makes Geralt far more than some burly hired goon.

Research and Bedevilment

If Witcher 4 is going to shake up any part of the formula – or even introduce an optional difficulty mode – as we wave in Ciri as the new hero, my greatest wish would be for something that really gamifies the intellectual side of monster hunting.

As it goes now, the usual pattern is that Geralt finds some yellow glowing tracks and follows them until there's a tuft of fur, a mangled corpse, or a Resident Evil-style lab note. Then he stares at the clues before telling the audience he's deduced that the monster is a Lesser Striped Whifflepog or whatever, at which point the Pokedex entry for the Whifflepog appears in the Bestiary as if summoned by voice command, telling you exactly what tinctures, oils and spells are needed to kick its head in most effectively.

And that's all genuinely fine, but a bit uninvolving, especially for a sequence of events that happens so frequently across the game. Speaking as somebody who loves investigative detective games and piecing clues together, I'd much rather have deduced all these things myself, allowing for the thrill of getting it right, and the potential fear of getting it wrong. Rather than tell me what I'm about to fight, give me the full bestiary from the start, some giant old tome I can flick through between fights or even fill out myself with additional player-written notes, an ever-evolving monster hunter's journal.

Then, when I find the crime scene, I can examine the clues around me and make some educated decisions, without Geralt just blurting the answer like a God of War NPC. Hmm, a nighttime attacker, a city dweller, medium-sized claws, a blood drinker… To the indexed glossary, batman! Now the Bestiary can tell me what's needed to kill a Katakan Vampire, assuming that's actually what it is and I haven't pulled the wrong conclusion from the data.

And at the same time, the unique alcoholism of this particular vamp is something I can consider accordingly as an additional element that wouldn't be in the book, but can be folded into my strategies nonetheless. Maybe I could work out the strategy to wander drunkenly around the town instead of Geralt, or perhaps lace a wine bottle with blood and leave it out in plain view, ideally under a big anvil hanging by a tenuous string.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much, but Baldur's Gate 3 really opened the door for this kind of immersive gameplay, and I don't get the sense that the creators of Cyberpunk 2077 seem very workshy.

The Monster Manual

To me, this deductive skillset is the very thing that makes Geralt a witcher, far more than any silver sword or toxin immunity. It's the space where an off-the-peg burly warrior brute becomes something more, an educated hunter who knows how to exploit weaknesses and analyze nuanced information. And with Ciri being new to The Path in The Witcher 4, her having less experience would facilitate a more involved, methodical research process. Geralt materializes in the series with most of this knowledge memorized, but Ciri is still using reference material.

Witcher 3 was always great at showing off Geralt's intellect, but clearly wasn't comfortable about the idea of gamifying it too hard, perhaps for fear of alienating or confusing the audience. And yes, it is arguably a lot to ask from them. But in a post-Elden Ring world, I don't think people are fearful of having to read between lines or make deductions, and even if not, there'll be a billion online guides to hand if it's all proving too perplexing. So if another Oxenfurt Drunk shows up in Witcher 4, I'll be excited to make that revelation myself – even if I show up prepared to fight half a dozen goblins instead.

The original vision of Cyberpunk 2 is already evolving beyond what its director had in mind, though it sounds like it's been to the benefit of the dystopian RPG.

In a new blog post on CD Projekt Red's website, Gabe Amatangelo discusses his views on game development. In short, while he is in charge and ultimately responsible, he doesn't want to create bottlenecks by having to approve every decision, which means trusting the team he's building around him.

"I had the idea of Cyberpunk 2 in the beginning, but it evolves as I involve more people," he says. "And it evolves as I empower the team and individuals within them to contribute. It becomes something else, right? It becomes this thing that I've shepherded, but it's ultimately a reflection of the team's hearts and souls. And I look forward to sharing that."

Part of that involves defining what the cyberpunk genre is within itself. For Amatangelo, "It's my childhood," because "questioning things was just part of my growing up." Being a screamer in a hardcore punk band certainly helps with shaping those ideas, though the developer adds, "the cyber part of it is both exaggeration and expression, neon lights and loud noises. It's about exploring the extremes of dehumanization."

Of course, as per Amatangelo's desired approach, that means being open to what others think Cyberpunk represents, too, as that helps "put forward new ideas" and "figure out the next step."

"I had a lot of people saying, 'Oh, cyberpunk means this.' 'Cyberpunk means that,'" he explains. "And I said, 'Yes! You're all right and you're all wrong!' Punk means different things to different people, but the core is the ability to pose questions — to ask why."

At the time of writing, CD Projekt Red hasn't given us any indication of when Cyberpunk 2 will release, though it appears the focus is currently on The Witcher 4. That said, per the blog post, with more than 180 developers working on the game, it's likely moving forward at a good pace. And given Cyberpunk 2077's rough launch, we imagine this one will get all the time it needs.

On top of The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, CD Projekt Red boss says Project Hadar is the studio's "biggest undertaking to date" – and they've finally finished building its world.

The ever-mysterious new Project Hadar – an IP that CD Projekt Red had first unveiled back in 2022 – is apparently well underway, with lead developers implying that the world-building stage is just about complete… and then some.

We've not heard much about Project Hadar over the past four years, really. Sure, last month CD Projekt Red was searching to hire 50 more devs for the secret "by the end of this year," but nothing concrete has really come up – no story, world, or character information.

But it's chugging along nicely, and joint studio CEO Michał Nowakowski tells PAP Biznes as much (as machine-translated via both DeepL and Google).

The lead first describes just how big Project Hadar is – so big, in fact, it's somehow even more massive than the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3… and even The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, it seems. "This has been our biggest undertaking to date, taking us several years," as Nowakowski puts it.

At this point, however, he can confidently say CD Projekt Red has a coherent vision for its world and its key elements.

Not only that, but the devs have started properly working on the game now that they're about finished building the world and conceptualizing the more important things – "although it's not yet in pre-production."

There are "small prototypes" in the works and CD Projekt Red is testing some gameplay elements, as per Nowakowski, but we shouldn't hold our breath for any significant reveal any time soon, I'd wager.

Project Hadar – whatever it may actually be – will stand as CD Projekt Red's first-ever fully proprietary IP. Everything before it, from Cyberpunk to The Witcher series, has stemmed from pre-existing content, whether books or tabletop RPGs or, well, you name it.

That makes the cryptic project especially exciting, even when compared to all the other upcoming CD Projekt Red games, of which there are admittedly many.

CD Projekt Red boss is "excited" about working with Paramount on the Cyberpunk 2077 movie, and one star is already trying to join the cast

There's always value in being an originator, even if what comes after proves more prolific. Doug Cockle is the original English-speaking voice of Geralt of Rivia, stepping into the role for the first The Witcher, and he's revealed that Henry Cavill, who brought the character into live-action on Netflix, actually invited him to the premiere, though it took some proof for him to humor the reach out.

Cockle spoke about the encounter during an interview with Ginx TV. "[Henry] gave me credit for a great performance, and said that my vocal performance as Geralt was influential in his decisions about his own performance," he recalls, before providing a humorous anecdote about the pair meeting properly.

"Henry reached out, three or four weeks before the London premiere of the Netflix, and said, 'Hey Doug, it's Henry here, you want to come to the premiere?'" Cockle remembers. "I didn't believe it was him at first; I kind of told him off, because I get a lot of weird DMs, and I thought this was probably some weirdo, and he sent me a picture!"

Generally, such precautions are good. There are a lot - a lot - of scammers on social media, and one of the most prevalent forms of trying to get in touch is by pretending to be someone famous or influential whom you already follow or potentially interact with.

Stories about people losing quite a lot of money to these crooks are heartbreakingly common. Thankfully, Cavill seems to have understood what was going on, and provided proof. Cockle went to the event, and the two talked a little about the grumpy protagonist and the franchise as a whole.

"We had a lovely chat, I hung out with him and his entourage for the evening," he says. "By entourage, I mean his family." Cavill has since abdicated the role, and Liam Hemsworth's taken over. Cockle is still going strong with Geralt, returning for the Songs of the Past DLC and The Witcher 4. If Hemsworth ever decides to slide into those DMs, he better have a selfie ready.

The Witcher 4 dev is "still predominantly using people" over AI in development, says CEO, but "everybody has to make those judgments on their own"

I recall many things from my 140-hour initial playthrough of The Witcher 3, but taking in the scenery is not one of them. Between monster contracts, heartbreaking questlines like The Bloody Baron, and far too many games of Gwent, the position of the sun in the sky was never of concern to me.

But The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered has put all that on its head. I wanted to hone in on a specific quest for this first instalment of October's RPG Club, exploring how White Orchard's griffin-slaying contract feels with the new combat and reworked skill tree now in play thanks to the new update. So tell me why I've just spent almost five hours treating The Witcher 3 like an open world photo op, seeking out the best sunsets in town?

Quest Log

Heavens above

Aside from all the half-naked bodies (which have always been there in this dream sequence), the first thing I notice upon starting a new save is how jaw-droppingly vivid, colorful, and vibrant it is.

Shadows are richer, the contrast between Geralt's bare chest and the marbled oak furniture behind him starker than Yennefer's state of undress. I walk out onto the balcony and can almost feel the sun's golden warmth pouring over Kaer Morhen, setting aflame the emerald and sage and every other fancy word you can think of to say "green" in its lush surrounding wilderness.

It boggles the mind. I'm playing The Witcher 3 on my six year-old gaming laptop. Yes, I updated my graphics card drivers especially for this occasion, but I was prepared to miss out on the best of the remaster's visual upgrades given the age of my rig. Turns out that even without ray-tracing and occlusive lighting, The Witcher 3 has never looked more magical.

When I'm let loose in White Orchard, I try to stay on track. Well, as on track as you're supposed to be in a game like this; White Orchard is the starter town for a reason, offering a snapshot of the game's many systems and mission types in one handy place as Geralt sets out to find Yennefer with witcher mentor, Vesesmir. Wraith in the Well is a great introduction to the planning that goes into each monster hunt. For a taste of The Continent's political landscape, Twisted Firestarter sees me tracking down an arsonist who burned down the local forge after the blacksmith supplied arms to invading Nilfgaardian forces. Elsewhere, I help a sweet old dear get her prized frying pan back from the home of a dead man. You know, just normal things.

I have to admit that since it has been some time since I last played The Witcher 3, some of the combat enhancements might be lost on me. If anything, I find myself running into more bugs than before – Geralt refused to dive to fetch some herbs once, forcing me to reload, while he petulantly decided that dodging is for losers and massively showed me up in a brawl outside a tavern. But at least I can stop and snap some pretty pictures in Photo Mode when I'm not reloading to fix said bugs.

To griffin-ity

By the time I get around to the griffin-slaying contract, I've reached Level 3 and completed all nearby side quests. It took a bit of time; White Orchard is not for level grinding, since there's a whole game and two DLC (soon to be three when Songs of the Past launches next year) to do that in. But it does mean that I can start exploring the reworked skill tree nice and early – thank god.

I have no shame in admitting that my first Witcher 3 build was utter chaos. I had no idea what I was doing, assigning random mutagens here, mismatching them with other-colored abilities there, never properly upgrading skills after they were first unlocked. But CDPR has made it far more visually intuitive, doing away with the need to blow all your points in a specific category before you can unlock higher-tier skills.

They branch out more naturally now – I'm going for an Igni build at this early stage, since few things can shrug off a bunch of sparks in their faces, which smoothly branches out into the Aard ability tree to let me skip the lower levels outright. It's a far smarter, more user-friendly rework compared to the original – though given how much I struggled with Cyberpunk 2077 at first, maybe I've just gotten used to the developer's flair after all.

Going up against the griffin is easy, if a little daunting. You never feel truly ready in The Witcher 3; some high-level enemies go down surprisingly fast with the right oils rubbed on your silver sword, while others (cough Detlaff cough) give me far more stress than I'd care to rehash here.

It also doesn't help that after fetching herbs and finding the abandoned griffin's lair – RIP griffin wife – all I want to do is take photographs of everything. I'm so consumed with documenting my new Witcher 3 journey like a photojournalist, taking time framing each shot just so, that when Vesemir hands me a crossbow, I panic. Uh, how do I use this again?!

After downing three accidental potions and casting Igni at my horse (sorry Roach), I finally work out how to equip the blasted thing. It's pretty useless, if I'm honest; I'll stick to using the Igni special attack, a stream of continuous fire that reaches a surprising distance, to stun the beast and bring it crashing down to earth for some melee attacks.

It's on toward Vizima now that the brute has been slain, and time to meet Yennefer. But not before I snap another juicy shot of Geralt and his winged prize. I'm sure that there's more I'll appreciate about the remaster update later down the line – I haven't even experienced the new missions that came with the next gen update, after all – but for now, I'm quite happy playing The Witcher 3 in a state of awe and wonder. Each new sunset brings another exciting rush to snap a picture before it's too late, even if Geralt's hair looks startlingly blue or blonde in certain lighting. CD Projekt Red's bold enhancements of The Witcher 3's color palette has turned it into a true fantasy for me, and at this rate, it'll take me a very long time to leave Velen.

So it's just as well that next week, another member of the GamesRadar+ team will take you on an adventure into one of their favorite sections of this big, beautiful game! Until then, I'll see you on The Path.

The Witcher 3 Remastered is impressing fans all over again following CD Projekt Red's new patch targeting the revamped RPG's visuals and more.

In case you missed it, The Witcher 3 Remastered saw the release of patch 5.01 yesterday – an update that does everything from fix boats moving "uncontrollably" to adding Bloom, Light Shafts, and Depth of Field as options to the game's settings on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

You may not think much of those if you're on PC, but console users are practically convinced they're playing something different with how much of a difference there is. The PC tweaks are nothing to scoff at, either.

Over on Reddit, one player explains how they were "worried that the update wouldn't solve my problems with the game," but it turned out better than they thought: "I didn't expect it will look this good."

Comments show fellow fans agree, with an especially amusing reply saying, "Mine is so improved that I've been just slowly moving around on my horse too just taking in the scenery." Valid, honestly.

Other threads elsewhere echo this sentiment, with a side-by-side comparison on Twitter showing how much better The Witcher 3 Remastered looks after patch 5.01.

"CDPR released an update for The Witcher 3 Remastered that massively improves the visuals," it reads. "They fixed the brightness and color tonemapping and the shadows look way punchier now. It honestly looks like a proper remaster now."

The top response is similar: "That's so good!!! The remaster really felt off to me compared to the beautiful contrast of the original game."

Put simply, patch 5.01 is finally putting the "Remastered" in The Witcher 3 Remastered – and retaining the original RPG's beauty to boot. As another post comparing the post-update game states, colors "are now far more accurate to the intended art style" than they were prior to the patch.

And, honestly, I'm in agreement here. Sure, it's already the top-scoring game of 2026 on Metacritic – but there's always room for improvement, and CD Projekt Red knows it.

The Witcher 3 Remastered leads to new Steam player peak of nearly 140,000 as CD Projekt Red celebrates its 11-year-old RPG's resurgence: "Much love."

Just one day after going into development at Paramount, the co-CEO of video game studio CD Projekt Red has shared his excitement for the upcoming live-action Cyberpunk 2077 movie adaptation.

"We're excited about Paramount as a future partner who shares our creative ambitions for the Cyberpunk franchise," said Michał Nowakowski on Twitter. "We look forward to sharing more details at the appropriate time." CD Projekt Red will be heavily involved with the upcoming adaptation, serving as co-producers alongside the producer behind the live-action Transformers movies, Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

Released in 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 is set in a fictional metropolis known as Night City in California and follows a mercenary known as V (Vincent/Valerie) who is accompanied via biochip by Keanu Reeves' rockstar and terrorist Johnny Silverhand. However, when the Silverhand chip begins to rewrite V's own consciousness, the two must work together to save one another and confront the powerful Arasaka Corporation.

No plot or casting details have been released at this time, but one actor has already put himself forward to play V. Smile star Kyle Gallner replied to the announcement by posting a picture of himself with a buzzcut just like V, writing, "Take me to Night City." It seems that fans want Paramount to seriously consider Gallner for the role, as one replied, "Thank you for listening to us! We've been manifesting for so long," and another added, "This would be perfect casting."

The upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 movie won't be the first time the popular game franchise has been adapted on screen. In 2022, Netflix released anime show Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, also produced by CD Projekt Red. The first season follows an Arasaka Academy student living in the violent Night City, but Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2, which is set to return on October 20, will focus on a new set of characters.

The Cyberpunk 2077 movie does not yet have a release date. For more, check out our list of the best video game movies and keep up with upcoming video game movies.

A live-action Cyberpunk 2077 movie is now in development, and CD Projekt Red is co-producing it.

The film is in development at Paramount Pictures, with the video game studio co-producing alongside Lorenzo di Bonaventura, according to a new report from Deadline. di Bonaventura is best known for producing the live-action Transformers and GI Joe films. No additional details about the film or its plot have been reported.

CD Projekt Red also co-produced the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime series, which was released to wide acclaim in 2022. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 is set to land via Netflix on October 20 with a whole new cast of characters, who'll hopefully face a bit less tragedy than their predecessors. A new Cyberpunk game is also in development, though very few details have been revealed about it, either.

While Cyberpunk 2077 brought the setting to a much broader, more mainstream audience, the video game is itself an adaptation of Mike Pondsmith's tabletop role-playing game, simply titled Cyberpunk. Pondsmith explained in a 2017 interview with Eurogamer that CD Projekt Red has the rights to develop new Cyberpunk stories from the year 2077 in the fictional timeline onward, while he continues to work in the earlier eras on the tabletop game.

For Paramount's part, it's found success with several video game adaptations over the years, including the Sonic the Hedgehog films. It's also distributing the upcoming Street Fighter movie.

The list of the best video game movies is actually getting pretty competitive these days, and hopefully Cyberpunk 2077 will be a worthy contender in that space. Check out our list of all the big upcoming video game movies for more in the meantime.

The Witcher 3 Remastered has been out in the wild for a good few days now, but it's evident that CD Projekt Red isn't finished tidying up its revamped RPG just yet – and the new patch 5.01 serves as proof.

That's right, yet another update for the free upgrade to The Witcher 3 is upon us, squashing a good few bugs and addressing various complaints from fans across all platforms (except for the Nintendo Switch 2 – for now, anyway).

The full patch notes from CDPR outline all of those, starting with gameplay fixes for everything from boats moving "uncontrollably" to specific skills that haven't properly been working.

There are also UI tweaks galore and fixes specific to both PC and console players, starting with the former. For example, I'm seeing a plethora of GPU-related changes targeting the game's settings, like Dynamic Resolution Scaling and GTAO Quality.

Over on the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 end, there are entirely new settings: Bloom, Light Shafts, and Depth of Field options, with optimizations and more to boot.

As for the Switch 2 edition, well, CD Projekt Red is on it.

"In addition to this," the studio adds at the end of Patch 5.01's lengthy notes, "we are also working on an update for the Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered, introducing closer parity between all versions of the game, including the same global changes as on other platforms."

That, plus some other improvements.

It sounds like the developers aren't done with any of The Witcher 3 Remastered, though, if I'm honest. I think they'll keep tinkering with it as long as folks share complaints, and they seem to be implying as much, too.

Paweł Sasko, who is currently on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel as associate game director, instructs fans to "please keep us updated about any thoughts you have" over on Twitter, for instance.

So, there you have it: The Witcher 3 Remastered can only get bigger and better than here, and it's already the top-scoring game of 2026 on Metacritic, having beaten out CDPR's base RPG from 2015.

Looking for more new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for some other great titles to anticipate.

As Blizzard continues to flesh its PC storefront Battle.net out with the likes of The Witcher 3, Xbox CEO and executive vice president Asha Sharma doubles down on what the World of Warcraft studio has said before – it's not trying to create another Steam.

Yes, Blizzard partnered with CD Projekt Red to see The Witcher 3 make its way onto its own storefront – but that doesn't mean Battle.net will continue to accept just any game willy-nilly, or that it's a one-to-one Steam competitor.

Andrew Guerrero, Blizzard's vice president of product management and global insight, confirmed as much last month, saying the company isn't "trying to do the Steam or Epic Games Store thing."

He said Blizzard already has its "audience," a "passionate core of people that play Blizzard games and games similar to Blizzard," assuring that they'd only "get after" titles for Battle.net should they make sense for that core.

Sharma is now saying the same herself, telling Xbox in an internal town hall (as per Windows Central) that Battle.net will grow, and is actually nearly retaining as many users as Steam already – but it'll never be Steam.

She hints that it'll instead be a more selective, curated storefront than platforms like Steam or even Microsoft's Xbox PC. Sharma also teases that the partnership bringing with CD Projekt Red bringing games like The Witcher 3 to Battle.net will grow, too, although carefully.

In her words, "We will do it the right way for those communities." So, there's clearly a sense of executives taking utmost care with the whole situation.

As it stands now, Battle.net really isn't anything like Steam, anyway. It's primarily a home for Blizzard's own lineup of games, from World of Warcraft to Diablo 4 and the like.

Sure, there are other partner titles, like Call of Duty entries and Xbox Game Studios gems such as Avowed and Sea of Thieves, but it truly is a more particular store than its competitors.

How will that work out in the long run? Well, I suppose only time will tell.

Xbox Helix is seemingly pulling a Steam Deck, CEO discusses devices for players "on the go" with "a great console first"

Those of you who were around for the launch of Assassin's Creed Unity will no doubt remember the cursed images that surrounded the release. Upon the game's release, players were horrified to find a recurring issue in which NPCs wouldn't load properly, leaving their faces replaced with floating eyeballs and hair. And now, The Witcher 3 fans are facing the same demons, thanks to the remaster.

The Witcher 3 Remastered arrived last week, on September 29, and by and large, it's been satisfying. There is a plethora of new settings to tinker with, and the coat is more than enough justification for old fans to come back while providing an incentive for newer ones to finally head out on Geralt's biggest quest.

But it's not a perfect experience. An increasing number of players are finding themselves facing a monster stranger more surprising than anything they encounter around the Continent. Occasionally, out of nowhere, someone they're talking to will become nothing more than teeth and eyes, as if afflicted by a curse that strips them of their flesh and blood.

Several have posted about this on Reddit. "This is not the first character I found having this issue," reads one of the earlier posts. "Their body restored after I left the inn for another quest then came back to them."

They include images of the first character, at the inn, then another merchant on the street, demonstrating that it's not an isolated issue. Several others have joined them, each equal parts terrifying and hilarious.

One makes the comparison with Unity, pointing out that they found it at the end of a questline. The examples are from disparate playtimes, the longest being 15 hours in. To get that far without seeing any kind of noticeable bug in an RPG as large as The Witcher 3 is pretty good innings, I'd say.

Much like the low-poly pigeon, I kind of hope CD Projekt Red leaves this in, too. I mean, what harm? Maybe we could do with being a little creeped out every now and again, it keeps life exciting.

The Witcher 3 Remastered leads to new Steam player peak of nearly 140,000 as CD Projekt Red celebrates its 11-year-old RPG's resurgence: "Much love"

The Witcher 3 Remastered dropped early last week, gracing fans of Geralt's legendary 2015 adventure with a revamped RPG – one that's proven so popular, in fact, that it's boosted CD Projekt Red's playerbase like never before on Steam.

It's been one heck of a wild weekend for The Witcher 3, seeing as it managed to hit a new all-time player count peak on Steam… 11 years or so after its initial launch. This comes thanks to the recent remaster, of course, but it's mind-boggling nonetheless.

You'll find the data over on SteamDB, which shows that the game hit its record of 137,724 players just 18 hours ago. It surpassed 120,000 concurrent players last week within hours of the remaster's launch, but clearly, even more players have jumped back into Geralt's adventure in the days since.

Prior to last week, the RPG's previous record on Steam came back in January of 2020, after The Witcher Netflix series debuted, starring the ever-charming Henry Cavill as protagonist Geralt. And that peak? Well, it was just 103,329, which now sort of feels like small potatoes – and the big jump has caught CD Projekt Red's eyes, too.

Paweł Sasko, who is currently on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel as associate game director, is thrilled, for one.

In a post over on Twitter, he writes, "There is plenty of you on the path this weekend, my dears witchers. Much love and gratitude for playing our games." Attached is a screenshot of the Steam player count peak, highlighting that very nifty new record of 137,724 white-haired Witchers playing the remaster on PC.

It's also a well-deserved figure if you ask me, all things considered. The Witcher 3 Remastered is one heck of a revamp.

The new free upgrade boasts everything from massive visual overhauls to "improved combat" and much, much more. It's also not just performing well on Steam or PC.

It's currently the top-scoring game of 2026 on Metacritic, narrowly beating out the original RPG from CD Projekt Red, too. The developers are set on tweaking it for the better, too, promising more updates to come as players report any issues they're having.

Looking for other new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for some great titles to anticipate.

There's a massive laundry list of changes in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, but you know what the singular best one is? They fixed those accursed trees Roach gets stuck on when you're on horseback.

The Witcher 3 has long been recognized as both a pivotal RPG and open-world game, but it's undeniable there's a host of little frustrations that have always been present in the fantasy epic. Chief among those, for me, was the way Roach would always get stuck or snagged by trees as you rode by them – and while that may seem like an innocuous change on paper, that no longer happening is a genuine major frustration taken off the board.

More largely, it's indicative of what The Witcher 3 Remastered is on a larger scale. No one really asked for this update, or even expected it, but it's hard to deny that it improves The Witcher 3 pretty much across the board. It's made me think about how quickly we move on from video games in general, and how I wish we'd have more chances to return to games of the past, not just with visual remasters or remakes – but an integral look at how the core systems and experience can be refined or improved.

An old friend

When The Witcher 3 released, I was still in college, living in a tiny house that was, somehow, even smaller than a two-bedroom apartment. I remember being locked in my closet of a bedroom for 300 hours, entranced by The Witcher 3 and the world it effortlessly weaves. As someone, at that time, without friends, overworked, and destitutely poor, there was something about Geralt's experience that deeply resonated with me. A character locked into a path he never chose, but trying to make the best of it.

While I don't want to focus too much on the original experience of The Witcher 3, I can say that returning to the game again years later has only grown my appreciation of it. The Witcher 3's writing felt like a step above in 2015, but even over a decade later, there are very few games that can match it. The complexity of its morality and choices, the way those side quests effortlessly weave into the overarching narrative, and Geralt's fascinating growth as a father all still have real emotional heft. Of course, none of that is lost with this remaster, and it also includes The Witcher 3's two expansions. Two exceptional tales that reflect Geralt in new ways, digging into regret and redemption in Hearts of Stone, and longing for a peaceful life in Blood and Wine.

The remaster doesn't make The Witcher 3 feel like a new game; it's ostensibly the same experience, shining highs, warts, and all. That's by and large a good thing, as the messy nature of The Witcher 3 is ultimately what makes it so intoxicating – a grand journey and riveting world that feels living, breathing. But so many of those warts have now been papered over and made less egregious, if not nonexistent now. It's a bit like your friend dying their hair and getting a new haircut – you never imagined them with that hairdo, but now that you see it, it's really working.

This remaster feels very much in line with the Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update CD Projekt Red released for its sci-fi RPG, and I'm honestly a bit blown away by the sheer amount of changes across the board here, and how thoughtful many of them feel.

The most obvious alteration in this remaster is a complete graphical overhaul, with lighting in particular being given the most attention. For the most part, the visual upgrade makes The Witcher 3 even more stunning, with environments especially given an extra pop. The Italian Riviera-inspired fields of Tuissant shimmer in the sunlight, and you can almost feel the thick humidity of Velen's swamps. Hair physics have also been touched up, and character animations look even smoother.

While I largely think the visuals lean into The Witcher 3's distinct blend of realism and stylization even more, there is the occasional character that looks just a bit wonky in the upgraded visuals. Equally, this visual upgrade seemingly comes with a few new performance issues. Playing on PC I've occasionally run into slowdowns in some of the busier scenes or combat encounters. But it should be noted that CD Projekt Red has already committed to performance improvements.

While you likely wouldn't notice unless you were deliberately looking for it, there's a whole wealth of new animations spread across combat as well. Geralt has new visual effects for casting Signs, new combat finishers, and idle animations. These changes are subtle, obviously, but add a greater sense of variety, especially when you combine them with the sweeping changes made to gameplay systems.

The Witcher 3 Remastered's visual upgrade is nice, but where the majority of changes lie for this version of the game is in gameplay changes. Again, I must state here how utterly thankful I am to be rid of that godforsaken tree problem.

But the change I legitimately enjoy the most is the overhauled skill system, which feels much smarter, streamlined, and encourages experimentation. The original game's skill system was, in short, a mess. Even just the layout of the skill system has been entirely changed, resembling more of a proper skill tree now rather than just a slapdash grid of things to choose from. This visually makes a whole lot more sense, providing a nice new sense of progression. But under the hood, there have also been changes to refine bonus values for skills, synergies between certain skills, and more.

It's a bit hard to drill down into exactly how this changes things, but after a few dozen hours, I can say I absolutely found The Witcher 3's progression more satisfying with this system. It feels drastically easier to make "builds" now, and really fine-tune what kind of Witcher you want to play as, whether that's a sword-slinging expert or a crafty master of bombs and potions.

To complement these changes, combat has a new "Modern" camera that tracks closer to Geralt to make the action pop, while enemy behavior has also been very slightly tweaked. These changes aren't enough to make The Witcher 3's combat one of the all-time greats, but it does go a decent way to making battles feel more dynamic and challenging. I particularly like the new camera design, as it feels like even that slight shift in perspective makes battles feel more like crunchy knock-down brawls, rather than tactical RPG affairs – a shift that fits the game's tone better.

My other favorite change is an overhauled menu, which is much simpler and easier to navigate. In particular, the codex doesn't feel nearly as cumbersome, to the point that I actually enjoy reading some of those character bios and books without having to dig through a metaphorical pile.

The way you move through The Witcher 3's world and engage with it has also been nicely touched up and made less aggravating: climbing doesn't feel as cumbersome, some quest tracking is easier, Witcher senses feel clearer to use, it's easier to run away from combat, and the list goes on.

Again, a lot of these are changes that you simply wouldn't notice if you weren't looking, but as someone who's put a good 600 hours into The Witcher 3 over the last decade, the difference is palpable. This remaster simply looks and feels better to play in so many ways, not changing the overall experience, but enhancing it – a game that already got a "next-gen update" last year.

While remasters or remakes certainly aren't anything new, it's extremely rare to see a studio take a brush to a past game to truly touch it up, really dig down to the roots and say, "What can we do to make this even better – take out some of those frustrations that couldn't be erased initially?" These video games that take thousands of man-hours, years of people's lives poured into them, deserve that chance in so many ways. It's just a shame more don't get it.

But in The Witcher 3's case, the sprawling RPG has simply never been better.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the publisher.

Tracking down your own gaming prey while you wait for The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past expansion and The Witcher 4? Our games like The Witcher 3 recommendations can point you on the right path, while our best open world games and best RPGs rankings have even more in store.

You know the iconic low-poly pigeon from The Witcher 3? The one that became a running joke in the community, and miraculously made it in the remaster? They're taking over the whole damn RPG, thanks to some modders who're dedicated to low-poly supremacy.

Bit of backstory, if you're not clued in: there's a bird in The Witcher 3 with distinctly anachronistic textures. Where most everything else in the fantasy world is gorgeous and smooth and well-rendered, this feathered NPC is angular and blocky, as if they just migrated over from Primal on the PS2.

Needless to say, players fell in love, and it's managed to survive the 11 years since without being changed by CD Projekt Red. It even escaped a do-over when the devs put together the substantial upgrade in the new remaster, because it's our blocky pigeon now, and we love them.

But it doesn't have any low-poly friends. Being one of one is a lonely existence, just ask Gonzo in Muppets From Space. Well, a mod fixes this. "He is back. And he is tired of being ridiculed," starts the description for Low-Poly Pigeon - The Revenge, which transforms every Griffin on Geralt of Rivia's sprawling adventure into smaller and more rectangular animals.

"Every Griffin encounter, every hunt and every supposedly terrifying aerial attack is now carried out by the same bird you once laughed at," writes modder grapedia. "Their sounds have also been replaced with pigeon cooing, so they will calmly announce their arrival before trying to kill you."

Incredible, terrifying, and beautiful, all at once. "He could not fight back on the internet," grapedia continues. "He could not stop the memes. But here, in the Northern Realms, things are different. The pigeon finally has claws, wings, several thousand hit points and absolutely nothing left to lose."

This is his game now, we're just playing through it. And just like that, I'm overcome with an urge to start a new save in the remaster. Never underestimate the power of a cute bird.

"We're working on it": The Witcher 3 Remastered gets 2 hotfixes in 1 day as CD Projekt Red promises more improvements to the RPG amid ongoing performance issues

The Witcher 3 Remastered only just released, but CD Projekt Red is already addressing some of the revamped RPG's most pressing issues – on both consoles and PC, too.

Two new patches have rolled out today for The Witcher 3 Remastered, with the first arriving on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S earlier in the morning.

CD Projekt Red unveiled it in a post over on X, explaining that it addresses everything from lighting issues to problems with DLSS in the Xbox Play Anywhere version of the game. All that, plus "various other adjustments to ensure parity with the PC version" of the RPG," apparently.

The developers clarified that they're "investigating" further issues, too, and also "preparing a hotfix for PC" – a hotfix that came mere hours after the console-specific patch.

As per the official Witcher website, it tackles everything from saves not working properly to audio volume… and, yes, the NVIDIA Hairworks problem that's tanking PC performance for many players.

Unsurprisingly, CD Projekt Red isn't finished yet, either.

Global community and social media director Marcin Momot confirms as much, first covering the PC hotfix and how "the rough size of the download is 5GB."

According to him, the devs "plan to have the fix on consoles for the volume issue," too, with "no date" set as of now – but, still. "We're working on it."

Paweł Sasko, who is currently on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel as associate game director, writes something similar in his own post. "Our work continues my dears to provide you with the best possible experience on The Witcher 3 Remastered," it reads – so, yeah.

There you have it, folks, CD Projekt Red isn't going to stop tinkering with its new remaster until every wrinkle is ironed out… and I don't think that'll be the case any time soon. If you run into any issues yourself, be sure to flag it, as it's evident the studio is paying close attention to our feedback.

Looking for more new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for some to anticipate.

The Witcher 3 Remastered is finally upon us, gracing us with yet another journey through CD Projekt Red's iconic RPG – but it sadly isn't going smoothly for everyone.

Some players, particularly those on PC, have run into performance issues. With the new free upgrade and all its visual overhauls, this doesn't exactly come as a surprise, but it's still not acceptable by CD Projekt Red's high standards – so, yes, the devs are on the case.

The studio reveals as much in a post over on Twitter, explaining that it's managed to figure out the cause of some fans' performance woes on the computer: NVIDIA tech.

Or, to be more precise, the NVIDIA tech that makes Geralt's hair look oh so realistic as it renders and simulates more dynamic hair.

As CD Projekt Red writes, "We've identified an issue related to NVIDIA Hairworks that may significantly affect performance" – and, yep, that's that tech. For now, the studio has a temporary solution: "We recommend disabling that setting until this is addressed in a patch."

Although it's not a permanent fix for the problem, it's evident that the team is cooking up a more impactful update as it alludes to a future "patch" on PC following its quick advice.

Comments show unhappy players across other platforms, though – not just those using their computers for The Witcher 3 Remastered. As the top response reads, "Please fix The Witcher 3 Remastered on base PS5. The performance is absolutely horrible right now."

Others below it echo this very sentiment, outlining how even the RPG's "performance mode" doesn't properly work for them.

In other words, it seems that there may be at least a few more wrinkles for CD Projekt Red to iron out, performance-wise – but something tells me the devs will be on it fast. Who knows, the PC patch they mention might even turn into a larger patch addressing problems that console users are having, too.

Only time will tell… but, thankfully, the remaster is doing well aside from these hiccups. So well, in fact, that it's currently the top-scoring game of 2026 on Metacritic, beating out the original 2015 RPG by a solid two points.

Searching for some other new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for more.

Now that The Witcher 3 Remastered is finally here, we're all looking forward to CD Projekt Red's new expansion, Songs of the Past – but we don't need to rush through the RPG's other DLC, apparently.

Fool's Theory – the partner studio working with CD Projekt Red on the expansion – creative vision director Karolina Kuzia-Rokosz confirms as much in a new interview with VGC.

She implies that the upcoming content will actually work around the player and what they've done in the RPG so far, rather than requiring them to have completed both Hearts of Stone as well as Blood and Wine prior to engaging with Songs of the Past.

"From a practical side, people will be able to start Songs of the Past immediately after finishing the main story," she explains.

"So, you do not have to finish the expansions. However, when it comes to the timeline, those expansions were before, so we continue with the story that Geralt really wanted to retire, but then he cannot because his best friend asks him for this one last favor to accompany him."

Sounds good to me – and, again, there's no need to fear missing out. Songs of the Past works on your time, so to speak.

"And then we, of course, continue the story depending on whether the player has finished the second expansion or not," as Kuzia-Rokosz says. "We carry that in the story, in dialogue, consequences, and so on."

How? Well, I suppose we'll have to wait and see… "But you do not have to finish previous expansions to start Songs of the Past."

It's great news for those of us with a serious sense of FOMO (at the best of times, if you're me), plus it leaves time to complete everything The Witcher 3 has to offer, which is, uh, a lot.

On average, according to How Long To Beat, anyway, folks spend a whopping 27 hours and a bit enjoying the Blood and Wine expansion. That number rises to over 40 for fans wanting to 100% it – so, yeah. A lot is an understatement, really.

Songs of the Past itself releases sometime next year, with CD Projekt Red only having given us a 2027 launch window. I've got my own fingers crossed it comes sooner rather than later, though – especially seeing as we can apparently dive straight into it.

Searching for new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for more to look forward to.

The Witcher 3 Remastered has finally arrived, coming as a free upgrade for players who have the original 2015 RPG – and, apparently, those who borrow it, too.

If you happen to own the old Nintendo Switch version of the game – yes, the one from 2019 – you can insert it into your Switch 2 and access the full digital version of The Witcher 3 Remastered for Nintendo's newer console.

A genius user over on Reddit figured out the real-life "hack," so to speak, sharing a screenshot as evidence that they were able to snag the revamped RPG without having to pay for it.

Yep, this also means that you can theoretically borrow a copy of the Switch game and just use it momentarily to register the remaster on your Switch 2, effectively rendering it entirely free for folks with pals who own The Witcher 3 already.

As the Redditor writes, "My brother and I were able to claim the full game virtual game card for both of our accounts with the same single cartridge!" Hey – if it works, it works.

Fans seem thrilled that CD Projekt Red and Nintendo have allowed for this, unsurprisingly.

One commenter sums it up perfectly: "That's a genuinely generous way to handle it. Most publishers would have charged an upgrade fee, and letting the cartridge unlock a digital copy for more than one account is more than anyone expected. CD Projekt keeps doing this sort of thing and it's a big part of why people forgive them for Cyberpunk's launch."

Yes, they referenced the disastrous Cyberpunk 2077 release – one that has been remedied, mind you – but they're not exactly wrong. This was a great way to handle The Witcher 3 Remastered.

As another fan says, "That should be a common thing with physical [copies], good job CD Projekt!" I'm inclined to agree myself, honestly. Here's to more companies following suit… and a Songs of the Past launch that's just as successful.

Searching for some other new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of all of the upcoming CD Projekt Red games for more.

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past is a new expansion coming to The Witcher 3, and it promises to be the last new outing for Geralt before The Witcher 4 heads our way.

CD Projekt Red officially announced the third expansion back in May following a healthy string of rumors. With only the title to go on initially, Songs of the Past's official reveal came during Gamescom 2026 following the announcement of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered. The studio then showed off a demo of the expansion during a series of RedStreams, and offered more insight into the new region it will be drawing us into, as well as some story details.

Even though I personally find it hard to believe (because what is time), The Witcher 3 came out all the way back in 2015, it continues to be one of the best RPGs around over a decade later. While it's definitely exciting to know there's a slate of upcoming CD Projekt games in the works, I'm happy to have some big reasons to return to The Witcher 3 thanks to the remaster and the upcoming DLC. So, if, like me, you can hardly wait to experience a new adventure with The Butcher of Blaviken and you find yourself wanting to learn more about what's in store in Songs of the Past, read on as I breakdown everything you need to know about the expansion.

The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past release date specualtion

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past release date is slated for sometime in 2027.

The 2027 launch window was revealed when the expansion was first announced, but we're still awaiting a firm release date. With The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered landing on September 29, 2026, and The Witcher 4 "targeting" a 2028 release, Songs of the Past looks set to bridge the gap between the two sometime next year.

While we'll have to wait it out for an official update on the release date, it would be pretty neat to see Songs of the Past arrive in May to mirror the original release of the base game all the way back in 2015.

The Witcher 3: Songs of the past platforms

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past expansion is coming to PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series X when it releases in 2027.

Since new content is coming to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in the remaster and Songs of the Past, CD Projekt Red confirmed changes have been made to specs, with amended minimum requirements on PC, which are:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600, Intel Core i5-8400
  GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB
  VRAM: 6 GB
  RAM: 12 GB
  Storage: 70 GB SSD
  OS: 64-bit Windows 11

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past trailer

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past location

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past takes place in the new realm of Letten, an expansive region that CD Projekt Red says is a fully realized open-world "comparable in scope" to the sizable Blood and Wine expansion.

As detailed in the Gamescom 2026 Showcase Supercut video, Letten is yours to freely explore just like other regions in the expansive RPG, and is "packed with new quests, interesting characters, places to find, and monsters to find". The area is known as "the land of the plenty", with a lush, idyllic look and feel.

Said to be heavily inspired by the Polish and English countryside, with pagan-like architecture and customs, the world setting is "sheltered from the conflicts" that affect other parts of the continent.

The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine added a huge new region in the beautiful setting of Toussaint, which set the scene for a host of memorable questlines. To know Songs of the Past is echoing this scale is very exciting indeed. If you'd like a refresher on the Blood and Wine expansion, you can check out our original The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine review for more.

The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past story

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past's story follows Geralt as he travels to Letten to help his friend Dandelion with "a family matter".

With the Gamescom 2026 showcase giving us a look at a demo of the upcoming expansion, the new region is actually revealed to be Dandelion's homeland, and as the member of a noble family (Dandelion's real name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, with the title of Viscount of Lettenhove), you'll actually be able to visit the grand manor where the lovable bard grew up.

The footage shows all is not well at home, though, with black banners denoting signs of mourning, which speak to why Dandelion has returned after many years away.

While CD Projekt Red is keeping most of the story under wraps, the studio also teased that there's a dark secret lurking beneath the surface of Letten, and of course, we'll get wrapped up in it, too. Venturing to the Garden of Thorns, which is said to be the only flawed spot in the region that everyone avoids, you'll be joined by Dandelion's cousin Lilla as you go there to investigate an old Lettenhove family legend.

As the pair approach a thorny gate in the garden, Geralt remarks that Dandelion might be in it, which links to one very salient point: Dandelion is missing. As our guided hands-off demo of the expansion at Gamescom 2026 explores, Geralt had some kind of ominous dream after a wild night during local celebrations in a location known as Belleteyn. Upon waking, Dandelion is gone, and his absence leads the White Wolf to team up with Lilla and set out to the Garden of Thorns in search of his friend.

Interestingly, during a RedStream at Gamescom 2026, the team at CD Projekt Red said Geralt gets pulled out of retirement for another adventure, which seemingly suggests this takes place after the events of Blood and Wine.

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past gameplay

We've gotten to see some work in progress for The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past gameplay thanks to the Gamescom demo, which not only shows off some very beautiful vistas that Geralt explores by boat and on the back of his trusty steed Roach, but also some combat in action.

With the visual improvements of The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: Remastered bringing to the idyllic setting of Letten, the Songs of the Past will also benefit from enhancements the remaster introduces to the combat system, with an updated camera and better targeting for more precision during encounters.

As you take new quests and explore the region, you can also expect to come across new enemies. When Geralt goes through the Garden of Thorns, we're introduced to a new monster in the Swarmion, a ghoulish-looking enemy that protects itself with a swarm of hornets.

While Geralt will once again have his swords and signs, during this combat encounter CD Projekt Red shows off Geralt's new chain tool. Operating much like a grappling hook, the chain latches onto the Swarmion so the witcher can yank the enemy closer and land a hit with his silver sword. But more excitingly, the chain also features a weak point system, and should you exploit it at the right opportune moment, you can execute some bloody finishers.

For more on the changes introduced in the remaster, you can find our guide to what's new in The Witcher 3 Remastered.

The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past development

The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past is being co-developed by CD Projekt Red and Fool's Theory.

Known for isometric character-driven RPG, The Thaumaturge, Fool's Theory also provided support for the gameplay and tools programming for Baldur's Gate 3, and is also working with CD Projekt Red on the upcoming Witcher 1 Remake.

It's not often that you get an expansion of this scale for a game that was released over 10 years ago, but CD Projekt Red says it wouldn't have been possible without the RPG's remaster which launched in September 2026. With so many advancements in technology since 2015, it makes sense that the Remaster and its various overhauled features opened up the door to a shiny new expansion, too.

While you can snap up the remaster as a free upgrade if you already own the game (with the two previous expansions included at no additional cost), Songs of the Past will be a paid expansion. CD Projekt Red has yet to confirm The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past price, but I'll be watching out for more updates.

For more, check out our pick of the best games like The Witcher 3.

Today marks the release of The Witcher 3 Remastered, a big update to CD Projekt Red's monumental RPG. On the heels of this, we're also getting an expansion, Songs of the Past, next year – only 12 years into the game's life. Why? Well, because the devs simply felt they had more ground to cover.

"It was a great opportunity to tell something new about already established characters and to show them from a different angle," Karolina Kuzia-Rokosz, creative vision director at CDPR support studio Fool's Theory, tells VGC.

"What I mean is, this is still a fully-fledged expansion and a richer story first and foremost, but then we have Geralt's best friend with us, who also faces some important stuff in his life, right?" she adds.

She's referring to our old musical companion, Dandelion, whose backstory forms the backdrop Songs of the Past. You're visiting his home region of Lettenhove, where our monster-hunting hero winds up uncovering and slaying some nasty pieces of work.

Creating an entire slab of DLC sprang from wanting to dig into Geralt's supporting cast just that much deeper, and seeing what emerges. "We always wanted to say more about the people who are important to Geralt," Kuzia-Rokosz adds. "So, it isn't like we wanted to strongly conclude something, more that we still believe that there is still more to say about Geralt."

This is as true mechanically as it is narratively. The new chain weapon is actually something CD Projekt Red tried to implement in the base game, but couldn't. Geralt of Rivia's misadventures around the Continent have already given us hundreds of hours of entertainment, and it seems we'll get to enjoy plenty more before his shift is over and we get The Witcher 4.

The Witcher 3 Remastered did not, in fact, change the RPG's hilarious low-poly pigeons, much to fans' delight: "Glory to low poly."

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered launched only a few hours ago, but it's already broken the 2015 RPG's all-time player record on Steam and shows no signs of slowing down.

It's been 11 years since the launch of The Witcher 3, and being the great game it is, it's had many peaks over its lifetime. Looking at SteamDB, after debuting with a healthy peak of over 92k concurrent players on Steam in its launch month, it eventually surpassed its own record five years later in January 2020, shortly after the first season of The Witcher TV series aired, bringing in 103k players.

Even though it's had its highs since – thanks to the TV show and the 2022 next-gen update, for example – The Witcher 3 has never surpassed that 2020 peak… until now. Within hours of launch, The Witcher 3 Remastered has pushed the RPG past its old record, and it keeps gaining more and more concurrent Steam players basically by the minute. It's at 120,324 at the moment, but I've had to update this multiple times since I began writing this article.

And, as you may have noticed, in many parts of the world at the moment, including the US, UK, and Europe, we're in the middle of a working day. A huge chunk of players won't have even had the chance to dive into the remaster yet, so we can definitely expect this to go up further in the hours to come, and perhaps even more come the weekend.

It'll be interesting to see if CD Projekt Red gives any insight into how many of these are returning players versus completely new ones. The Witcher 3 Remastered is available as a free update to anyone who already owned the base game, so there's a huge incentive there for veteran fans to return to the RPG (assuming they needed one in the first place).

And, so far, it's not just the player count that's looking positive. The Witcher 3 Remastered's Metacritic score doesn't just make it the best-rated game of 2026, but also the best version of The Witcher 3 to date.

The Witcher 3 Remastered did not, in fact, change the RPG's hilarious low-poly pigeons, much to fans' delight: "Glory to low poly."

The Blood of Dawnwalker, the brand-new vampire RPG headed by The Witcher 3 veterans from CD Projekt Red, plays host to one of the most controversial game mechanics out there: a time restriction that leads to some serious FOMO.

In case you're out of the loop, the game has you playing under a strict 30-day and 30-night schedule. Within those 30 days and nights, you must resolve the main story (and do as you please in between quests, of course). Everything you do can carry a time cost with it, though, making it more stressful.

It is core to the game, though, if you ask me, and implemented well – and Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael "Cromwelp" Douse agrees.

The Larian Studios developer reveals as much in a new post over on X, explaining that he's nearing the end of Rebel Wolves' RPG. "I'm horribly close to the end of Dawnwalker, a game that reminds me of playing Legacy of Kain for the first time as a wean," he writes. "It's been such a great ride oozing with gothic vibes and brilliant antagonists."

That's when he brings up the whole time restriction thing – a feature he welcomes with open arms.

"I'm surprised there's any backlash to the 'time mechanic,'" Douse admits, referencing all of the controversy the feature has sparked.

Heck, the first and biggest mod for The Blood of Dawnwalker reworks it altogether, proving that it's not exactly beloved by lots of fans. The devs themselves said that upcoming sequels might scrap the feature or at least change how it works, too, stating that they actually "rebalanced" it prior to launch as well.

Douse finds it a solid feature, however. "It's a perfectly interwoven narrative tool that cleverly disguises the fact that you need not play the game like The Witcher," as he puts it.

He also has ideas for The Blood of Dawnwalker's future: "In a sequel I'd love to see Rebel Wolves double down on the gothic overtones. The world they created where humans and vampires coexist alongside low fantasy social conflict is so perfect for an RPG series."

While "it isn't going to be the series where Coen has 30 days to solve a problem," there are other ways Rebel Wolves can maintain its now-established unique identity. As Douse concludes, "I can see a dozen ways Dawnwalker could become its own massive, brilliant thing. I'm so behind these guys."

Same, honestly – and I've still got plenty of hours to pour into the game myself… and, no, the time restriction isn't getting in the way.

It's one of those things I feel sounds frightening on paper, but when you actually get into the game, it's not so bad. I've spent so much time with the RPG already, and I've never felt as though I'm left wanting for more – it's all about balance.

Interested in one of this year's most intriguing new games yourself? Be sure to read through our The Blood of Dawnwalker review to learn more about it.

The Witcher 3 Remastered is finally here, bringing everything from "improved combat" to massively reworked visuals with it – reworked visuals that had fans worried the RPG would lose its iconic low-poly pigeons.

Yes, you read that right. In case you don't recall them from the 2015 release, the pigeons are exactly what they sound like: hilariously low-poly assets that are cursed… in the best way possible, of course.

Much like Final Fantasy 14's own low-poly grapes, The Witcher 3's new graphical overhaul has sparked fears of a potential loss of said pigeons. These have been all the more solidified with screenshots of the game's supposedly revamped pigeon design.

Just have a look over at Reddit, where one player shows a side-by-side comparison, writing, "Pigeons Remastered." Comments show distraught folks, and threads elsewhere online are largely the same.

One person on Twitter shouts, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO," for instance, while another similarly alerts fellow fans to the presumed change.

I have good news, though – this is all "a false alarm," as Kotaku editor Ethan Gach confirms in his own post. The "new" pigeon design is actually just what the street pigeons look like. Our beloved flying pigeons are intact.

It comes as a great relief, of course – because what could be more important than the pigeons, am I right? Players are happy, anyway, that's for sure.

As one person puts it in response to Gach's welcome confirmation, "The pigeons are still there! I repeat. The pigeons are still there! Now with glorious path tracing. Share so that people are made aware." The top reply? "Glory to low poly."

Glory to low poly indeed, anon. Glory to low poly indeed.

Now that the matter of low-poly pigeons in The Witcher 3 Remastered has been settled, we can all enjoy the game. After all, it is currently the top-scoring game of 2026 on Metacritic, beating out the original RPG by two points.

CD Projekt Red isn't done with the game yet, either, with new expansion Songs of the Past arriving sometime next year – and, you know, all the other exciting upcoming CD Projekt Red games, too.

The Witcher 3 Remaster overhauls skill trees, adds new quest markers, brings a mode to "reduce cognitive load," and more, CD Projekt Red reveals in patch notes.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered is finally here, and in very positive but perhaps wholly expected news, its early reviews place it as the best version of The Witcher 3 yet, based on its Metascore. Even better, it's currently 2026's best-rated game of the year on the site, too.

11 years on, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that The Witcher 3 is a very good game. With a Metacritic Metascore of 92, the 2015 RPG is labelled as one of the site's must-play titles, and for good reason. The Complete Edition, which comes with the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions, sits lower with a Metascore of 85, but that's thanks to most of the reviews for the release being logged for the Switch version, which had some mixed ratings due to its worsened performance on the platform. The PS5 and Xbox Series X versions, on the other hand, averaged out at an incredible 94, but these sadly didn't help the Metascore since significantly less reviews were written for them.

But it's a Metascore of 94 that The Witcher 3 Remastered is currently holding onto, based on nine reviews logged on PC. There's definitely room for fluctuation here – the Metascores of the previous two releases were based on 79 and 65 reviews, respectively – but if it's able to maintain this, it appears we have the very best version of the game on our hands. You'd hope that'd be the case, of course – it's meant to be a shinier, improved version of an already fantastic RPG – but clearly, it manages to live up to those expectations.

What's more, this score actually puts The Witcher 3 Remastered right at the top of Metacritic's list of the best games of the year – currently tied with twin stick shooter Sektori. That means it's beaten big hitters like Resident Evil Requiem, Pokemon Pokopia, and Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave.

We'll soon be seeing fan reactions start flooding in, too, as the Remastered version of the game just went live less than an hour ago at the time of writing. There are certainly worse ways to pass the time waiting for The Witcher 4.

The Witcher 4 dev is "still predominantly using people" over AI in development, says CEO, but "everybody has to make those judgments on their own."

The remaster of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt comes out tomorrow, and CD Projekt Red has released a list of the most notable changes you'll find in the mammoth RPG. You've got plenty of audio and visual improvements, of course, but there are some deeper tweaks to be mindful of, too.

One such example is in the skill trees. "Skills are now organized into a skill tree and each skill has three ranks," read the notes. "Unlocking new skills now requires having the necessary prerequisite skills rather than spending a set number of skill points."

Your existing skill points will be reset if you're importing a save file, so be wary of that, and several of the skills have been renamed to be more appropriate to what they represent. No examples are given, so it'll be worth scanning through to re-orientate yourself across your entire build.

A real quality-of-life improvement is that quest markers have been altered in your world map. Incomplete questlines have their own marker now, letting you choose what you're up to much more easily.

Another change that I quite enjoy is that meditation will now give you a neat little time-lapse rather than just putting you into a menu. This is the kind of little detail that can improve immersion, especially in longer sessions, and I'm glad it's now part of the game.

A big addition is the Bard's Ballad mode for accessibility. It's "designed to reduce cognitive load for players who experience mental fatigue or have difficulty concentrating. It streamlines gameplay by simplifying certain mechanics and disabling select features for a smoother, more focused adventure."

Anything that makes games like this more approachable and relaxing is good by me. Even the photo mode's got a look in here, with loads more options for your camera work, including the power to insert any character into the frame after you've picked your shot. Mighty.

Have a perusal of everything once the update lands tomorrow. Then you can start preparing for Songs of the Past to arrive next year.

The Witcher 3 writer behind the RPG's most iconic questline returns to CD Projekt Red after 10 years, right on time for The Witcher 4

Although The Witcher 3 came out over a decade ago now, it still boasts some of the greatest talent the video game industry has known – especially in the writing department.

Karolina Stachyra is no exception, having worked at CD Projekt Red as a senior writer on The Witcher 3 from 2012 to 2016.

She helped shape the "main storyline," as her LinkedIn profile highlights, but she also designed some of its greatest questlines – including what might just stand as the greatest of all: Bloody Baron. Stachyra created a good chunk of expansion content, too, like the Dead Man's Party quest.

In other words, she's incredibly skilled… and after about 10 years, she's returning to the beloved Witcher studio as an "expert writer" – right on time for The Witcher 4, you know.

Stachyra doesn't actually specify what projects she's working on now, however, so it might not be The Witcher 4, to be fair. There's a small chance she's contributed to The Witcher 3 Remastered or Songs of the Past as well, considering the timing.

Stachyra's profile says her new stint at CD Projekt Red started in February this year, when she joined as a freelance consultant. August is when she stepped into her presumably more stable role as expert writer – but that's all the LinkedIn specifies, really.

It's exciting to see, nonetheless, especially as her return marks yet another talented arrival at the studio. Back in May, there was senior Kingdom Come: Deliverance designer and writer Zdeněk Glatz.

Before that, CD Projekt Red welcomed other Warhorse Studios veterans, an ex-Baldur's Gate 3 dev, a former Mass Effect lead, and more – over 220 new developers, in fact.

The future looks bright for the company, if you ask me, with so much in store. There's The Witcher 4, of course, but also Cyberpunk 2 and other new titles shrouded in mystery. In other words, it's a brilliant time to be an RPG stan… that's for certain.

Searching for new games to wishlist? Browse through our roundup of the best upcoming CD Projekt Red games to keep an eye on.

The Blood of Dawnwalker features a controversial time restriction that adds a layer of stress to every decision and quest in the RPG – and according to Rebel Wolves, it was actually a lot more difficult to grapple with prior to the game's launch.

That's because, as director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who has the likes of The Witcher 3 under his belt from his time at CD Projekt Red, tells Eurogamer in a new interview, the mechanic was far more strict during early development – until fans shared their concerns following the game's reveal about it being too challenging, that is.

"We had at first a more restricted time where it was harder to beat the game," Tomaszkiewicz recalls. "But, after all of those voices, before release even, we knew that it can be a problem and we rebalanced it this way to give the buffer for the people to not fear this."

Although Rebel Wolves largely kept the RPG's opening the same, the studio did change "the main game, besides the prologue, because we were afraid that people will complain too much that it's too restricted."

I mean… how much worse could the original take on the mechanic have been? "Quite" a bit, according to Tomaszkiewicz.

"You needed to think about everything even more carefully. But we started to speak with Mateusz [Tomaszkiewicz, creative director] and the rest of the team about what we wanted to achieve, and we figured out that we don't want to create a mini-game from it. We wanted to give the player the proper feeling and proper emotions in the main story."

That checks out, honestly. As Tomaszkiewicz concludes, "This is the purpose of the main story, not to create a challenge for it." I'd say it feels well-balanced to me – but, considering all of the drama the mechanic in its current iteration has stirred, Rebel Wolves certainly made the right choice in simplifying it.

Heck, the first and biggest mod for The Blood of Dawnwalker reworks the time restriction altogether, proving that it's an uncomfortable feature for lots of folks.

Tomaszkiewicz himself also said that upcoming sequels might scrap the feature or at least change how it works. With the new update coming next month, I wonder whether we'll see some tweaks to it a bit earlier on, too – guess we'll have to wait and see.

Interested in one of this year's biggest new games yourself? Be sure to read through our The Blood of Dawnwalker review to learn more.

The Witcher 3 Remastered is coming to all players as a free update on September 29, and new footage from developer CD Projekt Red suggests you'll want to take a close look at what settings you have enabled, because I fear some details and atmosphere may be lost in translation.

CDPR posted a new side-by-side comparison for The Witcher 3 and its upcoming remaster on its channels, and boy has it stoked some conversation. The clip sees Geralt torching a group of Drowners in a swamp with a flame spell, both pre- and post-remaster.

I hate to say it, and I'm surprised to say it given how good the remaster has appeared in footage until now, but the new version looks worse to me. With zero hyperbole, I had the "before" and "after" clips mixed up for several seconds, to the point that I checked CDPR's YouTube and Twitter to make sure the studio hadn't made a mistake in the labels.

The caveat here is that we don't know the exact graphics settings or hardware environment that were used for these side-by-side clips. Maybe some elements were disabled to emphasize others. The video also comes with a disclaimer: "Work in progress. Does not represent the final look of the game." But we are just days away from the remaster's launch, so I don't know how much work is left.

A few changes stand out. The skin and muscle of the Drowners feels less detailed, not necessarily because it is – you can see the same creases and patterns if you look close, though they do seem scalier in the original – but perhaps because of the bizarrely glossy, metallic shine they have in the remastered clip. Either these are rare Chrome Drowners or GPUs have gone too far.

The fire effect lingering on the Drowners arguably looks more realistic in the new version, but it feels less powerful to me – artificial, less like an inferno and more like a torch. In the new version, it looks like there is fire on them; in the OG, they look to be on fire. The remastered clip also doesn't have the same fiery, scarlet reflections in the water, which is strange given how gorgeous the updated water is otherwise. The lighting on the plants, which are certainly lush, also seems less affected by the fire itself in the remaster.

Maybe this is a function of when during the in-game day these clips were recorded, but the original Witcher 3 has more noticeable fog and a rich, dusky atmosphere with a warm redness to it, while the remaster feels almost sterile in its path traced brightness. Combined with the missing fire reflections, the new version feels a bit washed out, and this is worryingly close to the color shortage and vibrancy famine that we've seen in some other remasters as well as modern AAA games.

I look at this clip and I feel a clash of contrast. A lot of individual components might look better up close in the remaster, but when you pull back and see the whole canvas, the original game looks more cohesive to me, not to mention more saturated. Maybe that will change when I'm actually in, and accustomed to, the remastered game world, but a lot of these differences feel pretty empirical. I have a pretty beefy PC, so I would definitely throw this remaster under the microscope when we get it in our hands.

Many other people seem to feel the same. "Why removing the colours and the fog?" replies one Twitter user. "Hope you add those sparkles and reflection you did a great job," says a YouTube viewer. "Lighting and Clarity in the latest looks great , but I really liked the red glow/filter (idk) in the before," agrees another.

CD Projekt Red has now moved on from its in-house REDengine and adopted Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4, but co-CEO Michał Nowakowski says that wasn't due to the technical issues that Cyberpunk 2077 ran into.

What's new in The Witcher 3 Remastered?

The Blood of Dawnwalker is getting quite a hefty update in October, with a new difficulty option, combat changes, and more – and perhaps even New Game Plus, if we're lucky.

That might be pushing it, though – but the update is a significant one, from the sounds of it. Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who has the likes of The Witcher 3 under his belt from his time at CD Projekt Red, reveals as much in a new interview with Eurogamer.

First, he teases the new difficulty mode, which is actually an easier option rather than a more difficult one. And, honestly, as someone invested in The Blood of Dawnwalker myself, I get why.

"We will introduce an additional difficulty level, but an easier one, because many people are asking for a more easy difficulty," as Tomaszkiewicz says.

"The Story mode which we have right now will be a different difficulty… and we will add a new Story mode which will be even easier for people who don't want to experience the combat, they just want to learn the story and go through the game without this gameplay challenge."

As for the old "Story mode," the lead says "we will call it Demanding or something like this" instead.

Combat is similarly being tweaked, with Rebel Wolves moving away from its, erm, controversial target-locking system. You know, the same one that swaps who you're fighting if you use a stun ability (like my favorite, chucking a bunch of sand in an enemy's eyes).

The director explains that this feature is "my fault," and actually "worked differently" initially. In October, they'll be swapping back to that old system because "people complain" about the current one (guilty as charged).

"There will be three hits you need to take off this stun. We will see how people will react to that because, as I said, it can create another bad feel, but we will see. Maybe people will switch between targets fluently and if they want to just stun, it will be fine, and if they want to stun and hit a few times, it will be also fine."

Then, there's the issue of performance on PC – but Tomaszkiewicz does admit that taking things from 60 frames per second to 120 isn't a huge priority… although Rebel Wolves is still on the case.

"It's not a shooter – it's not a game where it's so important. But people want to have good performance or performance above good: it's fine. We're working on it and we will still work on it."

There's also the whole running away from combat thing, of course. As it is now, it's pretty dang difficult to get away from enemies – but it won't be for much longer.

"Right now we're doing the fix where when you run or escape, you will ignore the nav mesh and it will be fluid; it will not be clunky," as Tomaszkiewicz states. "We're working on escaping from combat and running in combat and it will be a big change for people."

And, what's more, enemies will be less spongy as Rebel Wolves addresses balance.

There's quite a bit to this new The Blood of Dawnwalker update, it seems, and it's not too far off. Tomaszkiewicz himself says "it's quite close" and "will be somewhere in the beginning of October," concluding, "It will be the big patch which will deliver a lot of upgrades for people."

Interested in one of this year's biggest new games yourself? Be sure to read through our The Blood of Dawnwalker review to learn more.

Good news for Xbox users: CD Projekt Red says that The Witcher 3 Remastered will be part of Microsoft's Xbox Play Anywhere program come its September 29 release.

What exactly does that mean? Well, put simply, folks who play The Witcher 3 Remastered on the Xbox Series X|S will be able to play on PC as well… entirely for free.

CD Projekt Red confirms as much over on Twitter (as machine-translated via the platform's own built-in software, DeepL, and Google), stating that the Xbox version of the RPG's remaster will support Xbox Play Anywhere, the program that allows us to play Xbox games on our computers, too.

It's quite good news, seeing as people won't have to 'double dip,' so to speak, should they already own The Witcher 3 on Xbox – and it's made all the better by the fact that the remaster itself is arriving as a completely free upgrade for those of us with the base game in our libraries.

We've got everything from "improved combat" to massively reworked visuals to look forward to with it, too, which is just the cherry on top.

This marks yet another win for the Xbox brand as well, seeing as it's had a few (and then some) recently.

There's the whole disc-to-digital program that's rolling out, allowing users to claim digital copies of games they buy physically. Then, there's the fact that Physint, Hideo Kojima's upcoming project, has now moved from PlayStation to having Xbox as its publisher. All in all, Microsoft's gaming arm is clearly celebrating various wins.

CD Projekt Red's free availability on PC for Xbox users is another, I suppose. Now we just need to (im)patiently wait for The Witcher 3 Remastered… and all the other upcoming CD Projekt Red games, from The Witcher 4 to the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, whenever it may come.

But, with the remaster and new expansion Songs of the Past in the works, I'd say we'll have plenty to tide us over.

The Witcher 3 "is not a monument" says lead writer ahead of Songs of the Past, which means "adding a new expansion is not such a huge deal."

The launch of Cyberpunk 2077 was a trying time for CD Projekt Red. After years of anticipation, the RPG arrived glitchy and broken, leading to a number of post-launch patches and updates to make it more playable. It was the last major release from the studio to use REDEngine, its in-house engine, before switching to Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4, but one of the company's leaders contends this is more of a coincidence.

Michał Nowakowski, the joint CEO of CD Projekt Red, appeared on the Deconstructor of Fun podcast (thanks, VGC), where he explained why the decision was made to change technology.

"A lot of people think like this, but this is a bit of a false assumption, I would say," he explains when asked about if the sci-fi blockbuster influenced the choice, "because the issue with Cyberpunk was not really REDengine itself.”

The logic internally was that CD Projekt Red makes games, and the REDEngine was really a byproduct of doing that. "The dream of the company was actually never to make technology, it was to, yes, create visually and technically cutting-edge games," he adds. "But most importantly telling the stories in the most convincing and immersive way."

The incentive to switch came about when we got that The Matrix Awakens demonstration of Unreal Engine 5. At that point, the technology wasn't quite where CD Projekt Red would like, but Nowakowski and the rest of the company's leadership could see it was going to be formidable.

"If we form a relationship with Unreal and if we work on certain things which are specifically required to make games of the size and scope and certain technicalities about it that we need for the games, it could actually work," he recalls thinking. "And that's where we came to the table with the guys from Epic. That's where we made the strategic collaboration."

Now CD Projekt Red is one of the few developers helping to forge the engine from the inside. Which makes sense, since not only is it being used for The Witcher 4, it's behind the remaster of The Witcher 3 as well.

"We're actually, I think, the only team in the world outside of Epic that deals with the inside of the 'black box' that the engine is. Nobody else is doing that except for us and them, which we do through collaborative efforts together," he comments. We'll start seeing what improvements this all provides when The Witcher 3 Remastered arrives in just over a week.

The Witcher 3 "is not a monument" says lead writer ahead of Songs of the Past, which means "adding a new expansion is not such a huge deal."

Although The Blood of Dawnwalker only launched this month, fans are already waiting to see what the former CD Projekt Red masterminds behind the vampire RPG have in store – and it looks like it'll be New Game Plus.

Now that we know The Blood of Dawnwalker will have sequels of some flavor in the future, fans have been wondering whether the current game itself will perhaps get a New Game Plus – and yes, yes it will... much like The Witcher 3 did after its own launch.

Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz confirms as much in a new stream on YouTube, casually admitting, "New Game Plus? Yes, it's coming." It's only something folks have had on their mind since The Blood of Dawnwalker's release, you know.

He then doubles down that, yes, "it's coming" – but Rebel Wolves isn't ready to share when exactly that'll be. As Tomaszkiewicz throws in, "But I won't tell you when."

It's likely to be part of some free update later down the line, of course, although there's no real way to tell when said update (if it turns out to be part of one) will drop. The Blood of Dawnwalker recently got a little patch, after all, which proves the studio is actively working on it.

What will New Game Plus entail, though? Could it axe the controversial time mechanic that the game's biggest mod reworks, giving us a bit more leeway in what we do and how we experience the RPG's story?

Maybe – I mean, Tomaszkiewicz did also just state that upcoming sequels might scrap the feature altogether, or at least change how it works. There's no knowing what New Game Plus looks like until it's here, of course, however.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a tad more freedom, personally, come New Game Plus – but I'll be happy to see any new content or difficult come to The Blood of Dawnwalker either way, whether we lose the time limit or not.

CD Projekt Red fans stay loyal: About 58% of The Blood of Dawnwalker's Steam player base also played The Witcher 3

The Blood of Dawnwalker has been largely well-received by most fans, much to the delight of the former CD Projekt Red masterminds heading the vampire RPG – but there's one controversial mechanic that's brought up time and time again: uh, literally time.

In case you're out of the loop, time is core to The Blood of Dawnwalker. You're given 30 days and 30 nights to save protagonist Coen's family and complete the main story, and everything in the world between then can cost you time slots.

How you choose to spend your time is, however, largely up to you – but the stress and sheer fear of missing out is undeniably real. So much so, in fact, that the game's biggest mod reworks the cycle altogether.

Now that we know The Blood of Dawnwalker will have sequels of some flavor, it comes as no surprise that folks are wondering whether they'll employ the same time mechanic – and, well, the answer is maybe.

Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz tells Eurogamer as much in a new interview, explaining that Rebel Wolves – the studio comprised of veterans with credits on bangers like The Witcher 3 – isn't quite sure what it'll do yet.

"We didn't decide it, to be honest," he says. "We will play with it. If we will have parts of the story, or the whole story, to which it fits, then we will use it. If we will have stories where it does not fit, we will not force it. We will play with this system and we will try to use it to boost the urgency of some events in the game. But I'm not saying that in every game we will have the same scheme or loop – it's not like this."

That's not all, though. Tomaszkiewicz drops a bit of a teaser, too: "We are also considering and researching some other crazy ideas which can make the RPG genre different to surprise people in the future."

Color me intrigued – the day and night cycle (as well as the whole 30 days and 30 nights thing) are already very unique to the genre… what more could Rebel Wolves have in store? I personally can't wait to find out.

So, there you have it – The Blood of Dawnwalker sequels (whenever they may come) might feature a similar time mechanic as their predecessor… or they might not. We'll just have to see when Rebel Wolves is ready to unveil any future projects.

CD Projekt Red fans stay loyal: About 58% of The Blood of Dawnwalker's Steam player base also played The Witcher 3

As The Blood of Dawnwalker sinks its fans into the community, I've been keeping an eye on player sentiment. Some, like me, have been transfixed by the plethora of choice available. I love how the vampire RPG's open world unfolds at your own pace despite the 30-day timer – which isn't as punishing as I thought it would be. Others have bones to pick with its design elements, from wrestling with awkward camera angles in combat to the curious lack of proper stealth.

While I find it an impressive effort from a non-triple-A studio like Rebel Wolves and am more than happy to forgive its maiden voyage a few teething problems, there is a more simple reason many players might expecting something different to what they get. Namely, I think some were expecting more than just Witcher 3 vibes in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Twinsies?

Ever since the game was first revealed in January 2025, discussions around The Blood of Dawnwalker inevitably bring CD Projekt Red into the conversation. Reddit is still awash with very similar questions today: how much like The Witcher 3 is The Blood of Dawnwalker, really, and does liking one mean you will love the other?

Well, the answer really depends. As a project created by ex-Witcher 3 developers – a tagline that, admittedly, has been done to death by myself and fellow games journalists in the leadup to the game's launch – it does share some DNA. By that, I mean both Geralt and Coen exist in medieval high-fantasy worlds, and that dialogue choices shape the story you will experience.

The game director himself is "really comfortable" with the comparisons, but having played both The Blood of Dawnwalker and The Witcher 3 to completion, let's be real. The two RPGs are mechanically and tonally alien to one another.

While playing Dawnwalker for the first time, I thought back to the closed-doors Witcher 3: Songs of the Past demo I was privileged to attend at Gamescom 2026.

Watching Geralt run barefoot through the leafy countryside town of Letten before punching a dude in the face to get his best friend's lute back, all in time to swan into a mansion wearing last night's gladrags – it's the kind of lighthearted opening fodder Coen of Laslea couldn't dream of. We never get a glimpse of a happy Coen; the game starts in a black plague fever dream throwback, and things never get better for the unlikely hero.

Even when Songs of the Past's mysterious drama starts unfolding – companion Dandelion has vanished, and it's up to his sister and Geralt to search for him – there's a warm, almost self-aware familiarity about it. There are tough decisions to be made in The Witcher, but this world is as much a campy fairytale as it is imperiled. Case in point: Geralt gets so stoned in one mission that his horse can converse with him.

That tonal balance can be seen in Geralt's new-and-improved combat capabilities coming in the DLC. Not only does he still have his trusty steel and silver swords at his back, for man and monster respectively, Geralt will have a silver hook on a chain for fancy ranged attacks. It'll be a new stand-in for the crossbow come the expansion's 2027 launch, a throwback to the source novels that gives Geralt even greater combat diversity and shows off his status as a tried-and-true battle master.

But then, there's Coen in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Anyone who comes to Rebel Wolves' RPG expecting a Witcher 3-like combat experience will be sorely disappointed. Without his witchcraft or vampire abilities, Coen is all melee, all the time. The directional blocks and dodges are another fresh challenge, requiring keen reflexes and even greater dexterity since Coen cannot simply dodge-roll around the battlefield and buttonmash to success. So why are we all comparing Dawnwalker to The Witcher 3?

Separate ways

I'd say the exact same thing even with combat put aside completely. Coen has a time constraint. Geralt does not. Coen's actions in the open world get punished by edicts, increasing pressure on the player as you fight back against vamp lord Brencis. Geralt's are not.

When I see prospective Dawnwalker players asking how lively or dense the open world of Vale Sangora is compared to Geralt's Continent, I wince. Coen's world is not the size of a literal country. It does not have the enemy or mission variety of The Witcher 3, which had a book series and two games to draw upon, and as the first game in a would-be saga, nor did I expect it to.

I feel partly responsible for the constant hat-tipping to The Witcher 3 that set The Blood of Dawnwalker up for these comparisons. It was a way into the new IP that, at the time, created an immediate touchstone for players to better understand the overall vibe and style of the game before we knew much about it.

But now that Dawnwalker is out in the wild, hear my plea: It's time to leave Geralt alone and appreciate Coen on his own merit. Comparing the first in a potential saga to a soon-to-be four-part video game series sets up unrealistic expectations for everyone. I wonder if the comparisons will hold up when The Blood of Dawnwalker closes in on its modern day timeline, or if Cyberpunk 2077 will be the new chosen one?

Check out all the upcoming RPGs for 2026 and beyond if you've had your fill of Vale Sangora.