The Witcher 3’s free next-gen update is out now, but some players report performance issues
Folks, lurking in your games library right now is the prettiest, shiniest Geralt you’ve ever seen, but you might want to let him sit for a while before you take a look. The Witcher 3’s free next-gen update is out for everyone who owns the game, bringing with it graphical improvements, gameplay tweaks, and integration for a few of the game’s most popular mods. But some players say they’re running into freezes and framerate dips that mostly seem to revolve around the game’s ray tracing and DX12 implementation.
Of the 2000 or so Steam reviews that The Witcher 3 has received in the last day, 418 of them have been negative. Most of the complaints mention performance issues, with reviewers asking why their beefy graphics cards seem to take such dramatic hits from the game’s ray-tracing, even at 1080p (opens in new tab). Some users on Reddit, meanwhile, report crashes (opens in new tab) and DX12 issues (opens in new tab) in addition to ray tracing woes (opens in new tab).
It’s still worth giving it a try if you’ve been looking forward to it. After all, the other 1600 Steam reviews the game has gotten today have been positive, and other Reddit users are having a grand old time with the update. Plus, it’s not like the patch costs anything but bandwidth. Still, be prepared to turn off ray-tracing (or even roll back to an old patch (opens in new tab)) if you run into issues.
I’ve reached out to CD Projekt to ask about these issues and will update if I hear back. For now, a tweet from the company (opens in new tab) says it’s actively investigating the problem and will provide more info as soon as possible.
If you’ve somehow managed to dodge any info about the patch since it was announced (opens in new tab) in the ancient days of September 2020, it’s a free upgrade for all owners of The Witcher 3 that adds ray tracing, DLSS, higher-res textures, and various other graphical bells and whistles. It’s also adding in armour from the Netflix series (opens in new tab), some quality of life changes (you no longer have to open a loot menu to harvest herbs), and integrates a few graphical and bugfix mods.
For those of us who don’t run into trouble, it’s a nice treat and a welcome return to one of the best RPGs of all time (opens in new tab). For the rest, well, hopefully a patch is forthcoming, and quickly. I don’t think I’ll be able to enjoy Christmas if there are still people out there unable to enjoy a properly ray-traced tub Geralt.
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