Can you believe The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is already seven years old? We haven’t stopped talking about the game, the franchise, everything surrounding it, ever since. The amazing story, the memorable characters, the expansions that were as good as the main game itself, Gwent, Henry Cavill basically begging to become Geralt onscreen… the game resulted in the franchise becoming a household name among nerd culture as a whole. The ports never stopped coming. First we got the impossible (and amazing) Switch port, but we all knew that a next-gen version, taking advantage of those consoles’ horsepower, was inevitable. And it’s finally here.

Let’s face it: we all love The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but the game was very flawed, especially at launch. It was glitchy, it had framerate issues. Characters would T-pose, occasional crashes would occur, and so on. It wasn’t all that different from Cyberpunk 2077 at launch in terms of issues at launch, with Cyberpunk just having more of them in the same time frame. Even after a ton of patches and improvements, The Witcher 3, on consoles, still had a limited framerate and all that, limitations caused by the Xbox One and PS4’s hardware.

This is no more. This brand new next-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt features two display options. Quality gives you ray-tracing (well, not on Series S, obviously) and sexier resolutions, while Performance gives you the much coveted 60fps we’ve been clamoring for ever since 2015. There’s a few hiccups here and there, sure, but this brand-new framerate is a game changer. This game finally feels fluid. It feels much smoother, a lot more enjoyable to traverse. Grabbing Roach and blasting through the woods at this prettier framerate is good and all, but the real change lies in the combat. All that previous input lag we all knew existed, but tried hard to ignore, is gone. The combat in The Witcher 3 finally feels smooth and juicy.

Visual and performance improvements aren’t all that’s new in this particular version. Although, that alone would already be enough to warrant this as the best version of the game so far. There are a handful of new content packs, namely a few new gear sets (including the gear from the Netflix show), new skins for some main NPCs in order for them to look more like their TV show counterparts, and a brand new quest. It’s not a particularly long one, nor a difficult one in any regard (I beat it at level 4 even though the recommended level was 16), but hey, it’s still more Witcher 3 content in 2022, fully voiced and all, and that will NEVER be a bad thing.

There are a few more quality-of-life improvements as well. You can play the entire game on an over-the-shoulder angle if you wish, which somehow felt better during combat. Loading times have been drastically diminished, to the levels of the next-gen port of Cyberpunk 2077. Even on Series S, they are minuscule, making fast travelling actually feel like, well, fast travelling. Finally, but no less important: there is a brand new photo mode, which I’m currently using as often as I did in Ghost of Tsushima.

Is there anything else that needs to be said? The The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was nearly perfect back in 2015, mostly hampered by bugs (which have already been fixed) and the hardware they were running on. The hardware issue is no more, with these next-gen versions letting you play these games the way they were intended to be experienced, with nearly no loading times, improved visuals, and a much sexier framerate. Is it worth revisiting it yet again? Absolutely! It might be a nearly 150 hour long RPG (counting the expansions and Gwent, of course), but it’s just way too good to be set aside.

 

Graphics: 9.0 The prettiest The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has ever looked on console, with jaw-dropping vistas and a much improved framerate. With that said, well, the character animations are still robotic at best, same as they were in 2015.	Gameplay: 9.5 The improved framerate does wonders with the overall responsiveness of the game, especially the combat. That one is still divisive among people, though I truly think the faster performance makes it a lot more enjoyable than before.
Sound: 10 That soundtrack. That voice acting. No glitches like the ones found in the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch versions, leaving the sound department untouched and pristine.	Fun Factor: 10 Is it more of the same? Yes. But when the same is one of the best RPGs of all time, and you can now experience it with the best visuals and performance, am I even allowed to complain?
Final Verdict: 9.5

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Xbox Series S.

A copy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition was provided by the publisher.