The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered review: "An exceptional update that refines the rough edges to make a great RPG even better"

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. And, 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. And more largely, 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 almost 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 2.0 update CD Projekt Red released for Cyberpunk 2077, 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 it 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 just 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 now. In particular, the codex area of the main menu 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.

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