CD Projekt Red set out to show off a sharper-looking Witcher 3. Plenty of fans watched the footage and came away convinced the 2015 version is still the better-looking game.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered, a major overhaul of the studio’s 2015 role-playing game, arrives next week. The timing is reasonable. The game is now more than ten years old, so it would be fair to assume it needs some work to feel fresh for players in 2026. Going by fan reactions to the newest clip, though, it may need less work than anyone thought.
Eleven seconds of fire and water
The official Witcher X account shared a side-by-side comparison of the 2015 original and the remaster. The clip is 11 seconds long. Geralt casts the Igni sign and hurls a burst of fire at a Drowner. The two are standing in a marsh, so there is plenty of water to pick up the glow from the Witcher’s hand.
The aim was clear: show off the upgraded graphics and the improved effects. It didn’t land. “Why does the remastered [version] look worse?” one reply asked.
The replies mostly agree
That reaction wasn’t unusual. A surprisingly large share of the replies said much the same. “Old one looks so much better!” wrote one user.
Another answered with sarcasm: “Did you put the before and after text on the wrong square because the left looks way better?”
Most of the criticism focused on reflections and color. In the 2015 release, one user argued, “The color and fire stands out more and looks more alive.” That’s a fair point. The original footage has a stronger orange tint, and the flames appear to ripple across the water more than they do in the remaster. If anything, the clip mainly shows how well the original has aged.
The graphics are only part of the update
The remaster goes well beyond lighting. It brings improved animations, reworked combat, better movement and mount handling, and changes to how enemies behave. The skill tree has also been rebuilt.
It also adds cross-platform mod support and several new accessibility features. Best of all, it’s free: anyone who owns the original base game gets the full overhaul at no cost, along with every expansion released to date.
A new expansion is coming too
The remaster comes ahead of Songs of the Past, an all-new paid expansion scheduled for next year. CD Projekt Red developed it with Fool’s Theory, the studio behind The Witcher remake, which is still in development.
Songs of the Past is expected to be roughly as big as Blood and Wine, which means a lot of content. Whether it will look better than the 2015 game now seems to be an open question.