The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered Announced as a Free Upgrade, Arriving September 29, 2026

CD Projekt Red used Gamescom’s Opening Night Live on August 25, 2026, to announce “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered,” a new version of its 2015 role-playing game coming September 29, 2026 to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and — for the first time — Battle.net. Anyone who already owns The Witcher 3 on a qualifying platform gets it at no extra cost. Battle.net’s inclusion comes from a new partnership between CD Projekt Red and Blizzard Entertainment. On Battle.net, players who pre-purchase or buy the new paid expansion will also get an exclusive Geralt-inspired Diablo IV cosmetic skin — it comes with buying that expansion, not with the free Remastered upgrade itself.

This is not the same thing as the free “next-gen update” CD Projekt Red released for The Witcher 3 back in December 2022. That update was a smaller patch: it added selective ray tracing for reflections, ambient occlusion and shadows, plus faster loading, but changed nothing about how the game played. Remastered goes much further.

Key facts

Announced: August 25, 2026, during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live
Release date: September 29, 2026
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and — for the first time — Battle.net
Cost: Free for existing owners of The Witcher 3 on a qualifying platform
Also free: The Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions, for every base-game owner
New-buyer price: A standalone Nintendo Switch 2 copy is listed at $59.99; no standalone price has been officially announced yet for PC, PlayStation 5 or Xbox
Also announced: A separate third paid expansion, set in a region called Letten, planned for 2027 — not included in the free upgrade

Timeline

May 19, 2015 — The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is originally released
December 2022 — A free “next-gen update” adds ray tracing and faster loading, with no gameplay changes
August 25, 2026 — CD Projekt Red announces Remastered and a new paid expansion at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live
September 29, 2026 — Remastered launches, free for existing owners
2027 — The new paid expansion is planned for release, with no specific date announced yet

What’s actually different this time

On PC, Remastered adds full path tracing, ray-traced hair, and support for Nvidia’s DLSS 4.5, AMD’s FSR 4 and Intel’s XeSS 2.0. The game also drops its old DirectX 11 rendering path in favor of native DirectX 12.

Beyond graphics, CD Projekt Red says it reworked how the game actually plays. Combat, movement and traversal, witcher-sign effects, monster behavior, and the handling of Geralt’s horse, Roach, have all been changed. The skill tree has been redesigned, and the update adds new finishing moves, an expanded photo mode, and a new transmogrification feature — it lets players change how a piece of armor looks without changing the stats underneath, so a strong late-game item doesn’t have to look the part.

Remastered should also not be confused with the separate, still-unreleased full remake of The Witcher 3 that CD Projekt Red has previously said it is building from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5. That project remains in development and has not launched; Remastered is an upgrade to the existing 2015 game, not that remake.

Who gets it free, and who has to pay

If you already own The Witcher 3 on a qualifying platform, you get Remastered at no extra cost; for original Nintendo Switch owners, some reports describe this as a separate free copy for Nintendo Switch 2:

Steam
GOG
Epic Games Store
PlayStation 5
Xbox Series X|S
Nintendo Switch

As part of the same release, the two existing expansions — Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine — become free for every current owner of the base game, whether or not they take the Remastered upgrade.

Because the original Switch itself isn’t getting the remaster, reports describe the Nintendo Switch 1 path as a separate free copy of the new Nintendo Switch 2 version rather than an in-place upgrade. Reports say owners who bought the original game digitally on Nintendo Switch can already place a free pre-order for the Switch 2 version, and owners of a physical Nintendo Switch copy can claim it once Remastered launches on September 29.

Players who don’t already own The Witcher 3 will still have to buy it. The one price reported for new buyers is for Nintendo Switch 2: a standalone copy is listed at $59.99. The company has not officially announced a standalone price for new purchases on PC, PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S.

Gaming outlets report that the Xbox version will also include Xbox Play Anywhere support, meaning a purchase there would work across both Xbox consoles and Windows PC; CD Projekt Red has not confirmed this detail itself.

A new paid expansion, revealed separately

Alongside the Remastered announcement, CD Projekt Red showed a first-look trailer for a third paid expansion. It’s being co-developed with Fool’s Theory, a Polish studio led by Witcher 3 veterans and known for the game The Thaumaturge. The expansion is set in a new region called Letten and is planned for release sometime in 2027, though no specific date has been announced. The trailer also showed a new “chain” weapon for players to use. It is a separate purchase and is not included in the free Remastered upgrade.

Where things stand

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was originally released on May 19, 2015, and went on to win numerous Game of the Year awards. Remastered doesn’t change that story — it’s a technical and gameplay overhaul of the same game, arriving September 29, 2026. Since the game hasn’t launched yet, there’s no review or hands-on verdict on the finished version to report.