The Witcher 3 remastered arrives September 29 as a free upgrade with revamped combat and visuals
CD Projekt Red has announced a full remaster of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, set to launch on September 29 as a free upgrade for all existing owners on PC and consoles. The surprise reveal came during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026, where the studio also showed off a brief look at an upcoming expansion titled Songs of the Past.
The remaster goes far beyond a simple resolution bump. CD Projekt Red has promised a sweeping list of changes, including upgraded visuals, enhanced combat, improved traversal and movement, new Witcher sign visual effects, revamped mount handling, enhanced monster behaviours, a revamped skill tree, transmogrification, an expanded photo mode, and new finishers. Additional features mentioned in the expanded list include reworked looting, refined animations, better quest tracking, foliage shading reworks, and improved menu navigation.
Level design lead Miles Tost took the stage at Gamescom to discuss the project. "You can tell that the team definitely poured their hearts into this one," he said. "Features! My favourite one is the visuals. New textures, updated rendering, advanced path tracing, foliage, you name it. Geralt has never looked this good, even after all those years of retirement."
Tost also highlighted the combat overhaul. "It's more modern, smooth, and precise. We updated the camera, targeting system, added new animations, and what I like a lot, new finishers." He noted that the ability system has been completely revamped to give players more options, describing the remaster as a full-fledged RPG that now offers greater flexibility.
The remaster will include all existing expansions for The Witcher 3, and CD Projekt Red has made Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine available for free as of August 25. This means that anyone who owns the base game will receive the remaster and all its content at no additional cost.
This is not the first time The Witcher 3 has received a major upgrade. The game originally launched in 2015 and saw significant improvements over the following 12 months, during which CD Projekt Red addressed bugs, UI issues, and gameplay complaints. A next-gen upgrade for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S arrived in 2022, with enhancements also ported to PC. The remaster announced at Gamescom 2026 represents the third major overhaul of the game.
The remaster will also be coming to Nintendo Switch 2. The original Switch port, while a technically impressive effort, was criticised for its visual compromises and performance issues. If CD Projekt Red can apply the same optimisation techniques it used to bring Cyberpunk 2077 to Nintendo's new hardware, Switch 2 owners could see a significantly improved version of the game.
The decision to offer the remaster as a free upgrade stands in contrast to the practices of some other publishers, who have charged for similar re-releases. CD Projekt Red's approach ensures that long-time fans who already own the game can access all the improvements without paying again.
The announcement of Songs of the Past, a new expansion, suggests that the studio is not finished with The Witcher 3's world. The expansion was shown alongside the remaster at Gamescom, though further details about its content and release date have not been disclosed.
With the remaster arriving in just over a month, players who have not yet experienced The Witcher 3 will have a compelling reason to dive in, while veterans can look forward to revisiting the game with a host of modern enhancements. The combination of free upgrades, free expansions, and a new expansion on the horizon makes this a significant moment for one of the most celebrated RPGs of the past decade.