《巫师3：狂猎》重制版技术访谈：重制缘由、MOD兼容与各平台性能目标

Now that CD Projekt RED has finally shipped The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered, the studio had some time to answer some of our biggest questions about the project. Various members from the team spoke with us about how the company will continue to embrace the RPG’s vibrant modding scene, the decision to revitalize a game that is now over a decade old, and even the performance targets that the studio was aiming for across platforms.

The Remastered project reportedly grew considerably in scope once the team began revisiting The Witcher 3 alongside Songs of the Past. Was there a particular moment or feature where you realised this needed to become a full remaster rather than another smaller update?

Oleg Shatulo: It wasn’t so much a particular moment as a set of circumstances that came together at the right time. Developing Songs of the Past led us to revisit The Witcher 3 as a whole and showed us where there were opportunities to modernize and improve the game. We weren’t focusing on any particular feature or aspect of the game, either — rather, we looked at the experience as a whole and concentrated on finding meaningful ways to bring the game up to date without moving away from what made it special. As a result, the improvements in Remastered encompassed everything from visuals to combat, character progression, accessibility, UI, and quality of life — as well as modernizing the underlying technology.

Yigsoft, which is leading development on Remastered, has roots in The Witcher 3 modding community. How has that background influenced which parts of the original game the team chose to improve, preserve, or leave untouched?

Bence Hambalkó: Yigsoft started as a small team with deep roots in The Witcher 3 community. Today, we’re a full-fledged co-development studio, but we maintained our community ties over the years. That background has given us both a deep respect for the original game and a strong understanding of the ideas, feedback, and issues that have come up within the community over time.

That perspective was something we could draw on when defining the scope of Remastered and it continued to inform our work throughout development. It helped us identify areas where we could meaningfully improve the experience while remaining mindful of what players already loved about the original game.

The Witcher 3 still has an enormous modding scene. With Remastered making significant changes to gameplay, visuals, assets, and underlying systems, how much effort has gone into ensuring existing mods and REDkit projects can make the transition without creators having to rebuild everything from scratch?

Hambalkó: Most transitions should be relatively smooth thanks to REDkit’s annotations, but where underlying systems have changed with Remastered, existing The Witcher 3 mods that rely on them will naturally need to be adapted. Our goal is to make that transition as painless as possible for creators — we have a dedicated Discord where members of the development team are active and can assist modders as they bring their projects over to Remastered.

In general, mods that add new content to the game should be less affected. If they were created independently of the existing content, in most cases we don’t expect them to encounter too many compatibility issues.

Some of Remastered‘s gameplay changes, including the revised combat, can be disabled for players who prefer an experience closer to the original. How did you determine where modernisation genuinely improved The Witcher 3 and where changing something risked taking away part of its identity?

Hambalkó: We were constantly playtesting, talking with our colleagues, meticulously testing everything, and paying close attention to what players were saying online. We wanted to understand which changes simply made the game feel better while still giving you the impression that “this is how it always worked” — where you might only realize how much has actually changed when comparing Remastered directly with the original — and which changes ultimately come down to personal taste. Identifying that distinction was key to finding the right balance between improving the game and preserving the experience players already knew.

Songs of the Past isn’t completely isolated from the existing game, mechanics such as Geralt’s new chain weapon can also interact with enemies outside the expansion. How much work on Remastered has involved preparing the existing world and systems for what Songs of the Past will add in 2027?

Hambalkó: The two projects are separate, but when it came to lighting and other technological requirements, the Remastered team took Songs of the Past into account throughout development. When making decisions in those areas, we considered both how they would affect the expansion and what the expansion would need from Remastered. We wanted Remastered to provide a strong foundation not only for Songs of the Past, but also for new content created by the community, so that both can continue to build on the game for years to come.

Yigsoft is leading work on Remastered, Fool’s Theory is heavily involved with Songs of the Past, and CD PROJEKT RED retains creative oversight of both. What have been the biggest challenges in making work from three different teams feel like one cohesive continuation of The Witcher 3?

Hambalkó: The biggest challenge was making sure that our priorities were aligned and that we maintained effective communication across all three teams. Everyone involved has a great deal of respect for the original game and is incredibly excited to be working on it, so we had a strong foundation to build on. From there, we had to focus on what would matter most to players and what would best preserve The Witcher 3 experience. That meant reviewing our work together frequently, communicating openly, and collaborating very closely throughout development.

Returning to an eleven-year-old game also means confronting thousands of small design decisions made by a very different version of CD PROJEKT RED. Was there anything the team rediscovered in The Witcher 3 that made you reconsider assumptions about how you’re designing RPGs today?

Shatulo: One thing that really stood out was how many of the decisions made more than a decade ago still hold up remarkably well today. When you spend this much time going through the game again, system by system and quest by quest, you get a renewed appreciation for how much attention went into building a world that feels cohesive and believable.

At the same time, some things that were perfectly natural in 2015 feel less intuitive to players today. Expectations around controls, accessibility, UI, and general quality of life have evolved considerably. That was an interesting balance for us: understanding which elements are part of the game’s identity and should be preserved, and which are simply products of the time in which it was made.

I wouldn’t say it made us fundamentally reconsider how we design RPGs today, but it was a valuable reminder that good design can age very well — and that sometimes modernization is less about replacing what was there and more about removing friction around it.

With the opportunity to substantially revisit The Witcher 3, what was the most ambitious improvement or feature the team discussed but ultimately decided would change the original game too much, or simply wasn’t feasible for Remastered?

Shatulo: From the very beginning, our goal was not to overhaul The Witcher 3 or turn it into a different game. We weren’t trying to make a remake or fundamentally reinvent its gameplay — for example, by turning the combat into something closer to a Souls-like experience.

Instead, we were very deliberate about where we drew the line. Every change, whether to combat and gameplay systems, visuals, or technology, was considered in terms of whether it improved the experience while still feeling like The Witcher 3.

There were certainly opportunities to push individual elements further, but preserving the spirit and identity of the original game was always more important than changing something simply because we could. The ambition of Remastered was to make The Witcher 3 feel its best today, not to turn it into a different game.

Can you break down the graphical modes, target resolutions, and frame rates for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered across PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Nintendo Switch 2?

Shatulo: On PlayStation 5, players can choose between two modes. Ray Tracing mode features ray-traced global illumination and targets 30 FPS, while Performance mode prioritizes responsiveness and targets 60 FPS. Both modes use dynamic resolution scaling to maintain their respective performance targets.

PlayStation 5 Pro offers the same two-mode setup, but takes advantage of the additional hardware capabilities as well as PSSR. Ray Tracing mode targets 60 FPS, while Performance mode targets 60 FPS at a higher resolution. With VRR and HFR enabled on a compatible display, Performance mode can run at an unlocked frame rate reaching up to 100 FPS.

On Xbox Series X, Ray Tracing mode features ray-traced global illumination and targets 30 FPS, while Performance mode targets 60 FPS. As on the base PS5, dynamic resolution scaling is used to balance image quality and performance.

On Xbox Series S, there is no dedicated Ray Tracing mode. Instead, Quality mode prioritizes resolution and image quality at 30 FPS, while Performance mode targets 60 FPS at a lower rendering resolution.

Finally, Nintendo Switch 2 has been specifically optimized around handheld and docked play. In handheld mode, we target 720p and 40 FPS with VRR. When docked, we target 1080p, running at 30 FPS on standard displays or targeting 40 FPS when HFR is available.

In particular, how does PS5 Pro improve upon the base PS5 experience in terms of resolution, ray tracing, image quality, and frame rate?

Shatulo: PS5 Pro allows us to take advantage of its improved hardware capabilities to deliver higher performance, resolution, and overall image quality. The console features the same two graphics modes as the base PS5 — Ray Tracing and Performance — but with significantly higher targets.

Ray Tracing mode targets 60 FPS, while Performance mode targets 60 FPS at a higher resolution. With VRR and HFR enabled on a compatible display, Performance mode can instead reach up to 100 FPS.

We also utilize PSSR, a feature unique to PS5 Pro, to further improve image quality and maximize visual fidelity while maintaining these higher performance targets.