Gone, but never forgotten…

The review embargo has lifted and every clip I watch is burning my eyes with the over saturation and over brightness of scenes. I'm not against technology or progress but I think ray tracing is a plague for older games where scenes had very careful manual lighting that set the scene and dictated the mood. Yes ray/path tracing is more realistic but takes away from the composition. YouTube compression is present but not an argument to dismiss this because the art direction is still clearly visible and some sources and extremely high quality. Everything is overly bright, overly orange and all areas now look like Toussand with 5 ReShades applied.

I feel each has its benefits and we can downgrade anytime to our liked version.
But assets have highest detail in remaster only.
Lighting, tone, brightness depends on individual interests.

These are not mine, nor I own this. I found from youtube. Sharing for info thats it. PS5. Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr9mEdi83UY

I never finished the game but I have high hopes now!

It's FREE and it's OPTIONAL! They never had to do it in the first place and nobody is forcing you to play the remastered version.

The number of people complaining is unbeliavable!

Stop being ungrateful brats and just keep playing the old version if you don't like the new one.

Lets respect the Devs and the work and passion they put in beautiful game.

Rant over.

Day 1:
CDPR announces a free next-gen update for The Witcher 3, including the expansions, available even to people who own the base game.

Reddit: HOLY SHIT!!!
SCREAMING. CRYING. APPLAUSE.
WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE.
A FREE UPGRADE?!?!?!?! Rockstar suxxx!!!!

Day 2:
Guys, I played this game for 15 minutes back in 2015. Is it actually worth coming back to?

I mean, it only sold like 65 million copies, has been discussed to death for the last decade, and there are approximately 700 billion hours of gameplay footage on YouTube, so I’m still not sure.

For reference, my favorite games are NBA 2K25, NBA 2K26, NBA 2K27 and NBA 2K28.

Day 3:
When do you guys think the Complete Edition is going on sale?

Because apparently I can’t just buy the base game for two buttons and a shoelace anymore.

Day 7:
Guys, this is NOT FAIR.

My dog ate my PS4 disc.

If I scream “I OWNED THIS GAME!” loudly enough into my DualSense, will my PS5 recognize that I deserve the free upgrade?

I technically played Ringo with the disc and the dog won.

Day 11:
I have a $899 PS5 Pro, a 120-inch TV, a $99 Deluxe Edition of a game that doesn't come out until November, and a surround sound system worth more than my car.

If I buy The Witcher 3 from a guy on the street for $3, do I get the PS5 version?

Asking for my wallet.

Day 12:
I have the PS4 disc.

Where exactly do I put it in my $899 digital-only PS5 Pro?

Day 13:
Will my save file from 2015 work with the new version?

I haven't touched it since 2015, but this is obviously extremely important.

Day 15:
I played for 15 minutes in 2015.

Should I start a new game or continue from where I left off?

I don't remember anything except that there was a horse.

Day 22:
Triss or Yen?

DAY 22 AND WE'RE ALREADY AT WAR.

Day 34:
I watched some YouTube gameplay and Geralt's hair doesn't sit properly.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

I spent $0 on the upgrade, and the hair physics still aren't perfect.

Where do I demand a refund for the money I didn't spend on this free remaster?????11

New armor set, Cosmetics and Gwent card in Witcher 3 Remastered that you can claim.

DLSS/FSR turned off.

I'm so excited and I'm going to be waking up at 6am to play tomorrow

There go all my plans for clearing out my unplayed games

One night to go!

That wall turned from 3D to 2D real quick. The whole image lacks depth and clarity.

A lot of doomer content about visuals is clogging my feed. The thing is, I don't care about visuals. I want to know about combat and gameplay. In the 11 years since W3 came out my eyesight has gotten so bad I cannot tell the difference between the screenshots bots are posting.

Yes it did take me 3 times to make this post. I kept Mr. Magooing the title.

I’m excited to play it and see what all looks better. Those that just want to be miserable and complain…it’s a free update. Idk what you’re wanting exactly

First of all, for someone who doesn’t know who he is: he’s a Youtuber who makes videos about optimizing PC games. Imo, his optimized settings are even better than those from Digital Foundry and Hardware Unboxed. Because of this he's quiet popular in PC community.

Since I can't post Twitter links here. He said this -

"I think the biggest and most obvious visual upgrade is the lighting quality, which has improved significantly. The addition of GTAO and better shading also helps elevate the overall presentation.

On the flip side, Global Illumination is currently broken in some areas (Beauclair is a clear example). additionally the gamma is completely off, making some areas look extremely washed out. Disabling Bloom and lowering the gamma helps a bit, but it still doesn't make the image look accurate or consistent with the original version.

Overall, just like STALKER 2’s Update 2.0, I expect the visual changes here to be divisive. The original still has its strengths, but the improvements particularly in lighting and shading are substantial."

He also posted a video about this, which you can check out in his post if you’re on X.

This video captures the game from ps4, ps5 and ps5 pro and then properly compares them. On PC, for some reason, path tracing has messed up with tone mapping, and the whole game looks like a toussaint, and that gritty feeling is gone. Console versions still retain much of the same original tone.

The draw distance improvement and extra foliage are my favourite, though I think pop-in seems a lot noticeable, just not this in video much