The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered arrives September 29 as a free upgrade

A free rebuild, not a re-release

CD Projekt Red is giving The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt a full remaster, and it goes live on 29 September 2026. The studio confirmed the version will run on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2 and Battle.net. The headline detail for the many people who already own the 2015 role-playing game is the price. There is not one.

The remaster is a free upgrade for existing owners on qualifying platforms, CD Projekt Red said in its announcement. Anyone who owns the base game gets the rebuilt version, and the studio is also giving every owner the two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, free to anyone who does not already have them. That folds the game's best content into one package at no charge.

What actually changes

This is not a resolution bump with a new logo. CD Projekt Red lists reworked combat with new finisher animations and updated Sign effects, revamped mount handling, smarter monster behaviour and a reworked skill tree. It also adds transmogrification, which lets players change how gear looks without giving up its stats, and the photo mode has been widened.

The technical work runs deeper than the surface. Game Informer reports the remaster brings ray tracing improvements and modern upscaling, listing DLSS 4.5, FSR 4 and XeSS 2.0, along with cross-platform mod support. The aim is a version that holds up on 2026 hardware without asking anyone to buy the game a second time.

Movement and traversal have been touched up alongside the fighting, and CD Projekt Red says monster encounters have been reworked to behave more convincingly. The two story expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, are built into the remaster rather than sold on the side, so a newcomer who installs it inherits the whole of Geralt's story in one go, and existing owners who skipped the expansions get them for nothing.

Switch 2, and a paid expansion in 2027

The Switch 2 release matters on its own. It is the first time The Witcher 3 runs natively on Nintendo hardware, rather than through the cloud streaming that carried the version on the original Switch. The remaster does not come to that older console.

CD Projekt Red is not treating this as a farewell to the game. The studio confirmed a paid expansion, Songs of the Past, for 2027, co-developed with Fool's Theory. It adds a region called Letten, described in the announcement as an idyllic land of rural tradition that hides a dark secret, plus a new chain weapon and enemies players have not fought before. The remaster itself was co-developed with Yigsoft.

The timing tells the story. A free, native Switch 2 build and a fresh paid chapter keep an 11-year-old game in front of new players and give returning ones a reason to reinstall. For existing owners, the move is simple: on 29 September the upgrade should be waiting, expansions included.