Hot on the heels of the announcement that the project had been indefinitely delayed, developer CD Projekt Red now says The Witcher 3’s next-gen upgrade will be ready to launch later this year. The studio now plans to release the upgrade in late 2022.
“Let’s make this 7th anniversary even better, shall we?” reads a tweet to the official Witcher account. “We’re delighted to share that the next gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is planned to release in Q4 2022. See you on the Path, witchers!”
Just last month, CD Projekt announced that the remaining work on The Witcher 3’s next-gen upgrade would be handled by the publisher’s in-house development team, who took over the project from Saber Interactive, the developer behind remakes like the Crysis: Remastered series and the Halo: The Master Chief Collection. CDPR did not specify why responsibilities for the upgrade had been shifted to the in-house team, but said it was delaying the planned second quarter release date as it evaluated “the scope of work to be done”.
It seems that’s done now, and the path ahead isn’t a very long one. The next-gen upgrade for The Witcher 3 will likely be most impactful for console owners, but PC players get some welcome updates, too: this new edition of The Witcher 3 will feature ray-traced lighting effects and faster load times.
Of course, PC players have been messing around with the best Witcher 3 mods for seven years now. But a new version of one of our favourite RPG games of all time might be a good enough reason to start a new playthrough all the same.