Witcher 3 Remastered Release Date: Free Upgrade, Switch 2, Price

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered launches September 29, 2026, and for most people who already own the game, it costs nothing. CD Projekt Red is pushing the remaster out as a free upgrade to everyone who owns The Witcher 3 on Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X|S, and it's bringing the decade-old RPG to Nintendo Switch 2 for the first time with a native build. If you're searching for the exact release time, what changed under the hood, or how much a fresh copy costs on Switch 2, here's what CD Projekt Red has actually confirmed.

When does The Witcher 3 Remastered release?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered arrives on September 29, 2026. CD Projekt Red confirmed the date during Gamescom's Opening Night Live on August 25, 2026, alongside the reveal of a new paid expansion. The studio has said the remaster unlocks at the same moment across every storefront — PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 — rather than staggering the release by region or platform, so there's no reason to wait on one version over another to play first.

That simultaneous rollout matters because the base game has been sold continuously for more than a decade across five storefronts. Rather than patch each version separately over days or weeks, CD Projekt Red is treating September 29 as a single global switch-flip: existing installs update in place, and new purchases ship with the remastered build already baked in.

Is The Witcher 3 Remastered free?

Yes, if you already own the game on a qualifying storefront. CD Projekt Red's own announcement is explicit that Remastered is "a free upgrade to all owners of the game" on GOG, Steam, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Anyone who owns the base game — even the original 2015 release without either expansion previously purchased — now gets Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine bundled in at no extra cost as part of the update, according to CD Projekt Red's press materials.

Xbox owners get an extra perk: CD Projekt Red has confirmed Remastered will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title, meaning an Xbox Series X|S purchase (or free upgrade) also unlocks a full PC copy through the Xbox app at no additional charge.

If you don't already own The Witcher 3, you'll be buying a new copy rather than claiming an upgrade. CD Projekt Red raised the price of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Complete Edition on Steam from $39.99 to $49.99 in the weeks before the remaster's launch, and that $49.99 list price is what a new purchase costs going forward on that storefront (Steam's store page was showing the edition discounted from that $49.99 base at the time of writing). Pricing on PlayStation and Xbox storefronts is expected to track similarly, though CD Projekt Red hasn't published a separate itemized price sheet for those stores. If you're deciding which box to play the remaster on in the first place, it's worth comparing what a PS5 versus PS5 Pro actually buys you in performance headroom, since the remaster's heavier ray tracing and lighting work will lean on that extra power.

What's actually new in The Witcher 3 Remastered

CD Projekt Red has framed Remastered as more than a visual polish pass — the studio has publicly listed more than 30 individual changes spanning graphics, combat, movement, and interface systems. On the visual side, the confirmed changes include:

• Reworked lighting and a new shading model, including subsurface scattering
• Improved ray tracing, with ray-traced hair effects
• Updated environment, NPC, and monster textures
• Reworked foliage shading and ground-truth ambient occlusion (GTAO)
• An expanded photo mode

On PC specifically, CD Projekt Red has confirmed the remaster moves the game to native DirectX 12 with rendering parallelization, and adds a path tracing mode alongside support for NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 (including its newer Ray Reconstruction feature), AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS 2.0 for upscaling and frame generation. Those are the same class of features CD Projekt Red used to modernize Cyberpunk 2077's rendering, now applied to a decade-old open world.

None of this requires new hardware if you're playing on console — PS5 and Xbox Series X|S owners get the visual overhaul as part of the same free update, without needing anything beyond what already runs the current version of the game.

Combat, skill tree, and UI changes

The systems-level changes are where CD Projekt Red is making its biggest pitch to lapsed players. According to the studio's own announcement, Geralt's combat has been reworked with smoother animation transitions between attacks and targets, more responsive controls, new finishing moves, and a combat camera that now adjusts dynamically during fights instead of holding a fixed angle. Witcher Signs also get new visual effects to make each cast read more distinctly on screen.

Beyond combat, CD Projekt Red has confirmed:

• A revamped skill tree with restructured branches and new perks
• A new transmogrification feature, letting you change gear's appearance while keeping its stats
• Reworked mount handling for Roach and updated monster behavior
• A reworked looting system and an updated quest-tracking interface
• An added "immersive meditation" option

Taken together, it's the kind of quality-of-life pass long-time RPG fans tend to ask for after a decade of genre evolution — closer in feel to how a modern action-RPG's encounters and menus are paced, without changing the story, quests, or world itself.

The Witcher 3 Remastered on Nintendo Switch 2

The headline platform news is the jump to Nintendo Switch 2. CD Projekt Red featured the Switch 2 version on a Nintendo Direct broadcast and confirmed it as a native build rather than a cloud-streamed port, launching the same day as every other platform: September 29, 2026.

CD Projekt Red has detailed several Switch 2-specific control options for the version:

• Motion controls for casting Witcher Signs, firing a crossbow, tossing bombs, drinking potions, and speeding up or stopping Roach
• Gyro aiming for more precise combat targeting
• Mouse control support as an alternative input method
• Touchscreen support for browsing the map and menus, and for playing Gwent

On price and upgrade eligibility, CD Projekt Red has confirmed that anyone who owns The Witcher 3 on the original Nintendo Switch — digital or physical — gets the Switch 2 Remastered version for free. Digital Switch 1 owners can pre-order it now at no cost through the Nintendo eShop; owners of a physical Switch 1 cartridge claim their free upgrade on launch day. For anyone buying in fresh with no prior Switch copy, Nintendo's own Switch 2 store listing prices the standalone Remastered release at $59.99. CD Projekt Red has not yet announced a physical Switch 2 cartridge release; as of this writing, that remains unconfirmed.

Platforms and pricing at a glance

If you're weighing whether to play the remaster on a console, a handheld PC, or a dedicated gaming PC, it's worth checking how something like the ROG Xbox Ally X vs. Steam Deck OLED stacks up on specs and price, since path tracing and ray-traced hair are the kind of settings that hit handheld GPUs hardest.

How to get the upgrade

For PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S owners, CD Projekt Red says the upgrade applies automatically — there's no separate purchase, code, or menu toggle required beyond installing the update when it goes live on September 29. Your existing save files, mods (where applicable), and both expansions carry over as part of the same update.

For Nintendo Switch 2, the process depends on what you already own:

• If you own The Witcher 3 digitally on the original Switch, pre-order Remastered for free right now through the Nintendo eShop.
• If you own a physical Switch 1 copy, you'll claim the free Switch 2 upgrade on launch day, September 29.
• If you've never owned the game on Switch, Remastered is available to pre-order as a standalone $59.99 purchase.

Xbox owners who want to try the game on a handheld or laptop in the meantime can also lean on cloud play through Xbox Game Pass, depending on which Game Pass tier they're subscribed to, though CD Projekt Red hasn't detailed Game Pass availability specifically for the remastered build.

Songs of the Past: the next paid expansion

Alongside Remastered, CD Projekt Red used the same announcement to reveal Songs of the Past, a new paid expansion set for release in 2027 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. Unlike Remastered itself, this one isn't free — it's a full paid add-on.

CD Projekt Red has described the expansion's setting as Letten, a new region billed as "an idyllic land of rural tradition that hides a dark secret just below the surface." The studio's early materials also mention a new chain weapon, previously unseen enemy types, reunions with established characters, and morally complex choices — in keeping with the tone of the base game's existing expansions. Songs of the Past is currently available to wishlist on select storefronts, though CD Projekt Red has not published a specific release date beyond "2027."

Why CD Projekt Red is doing this now

The Witcher 3 already went through one major technical overhaul: the free "next-gen" update released December 14, 2022, which added ray tracing, improved textures, and a photo mode to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Remastered is a second, larger pass roughly four years later — one that pushes further into path tracing and the latest upscaling technology while also touching combat feel and interface systems that the 2022 update left mostly alone.

It also gives CD Projekt Red a fresh entry point into a new console generation. Nintendo Switch 2 launched without a native version of one of the best-reviewed RPGs of the last decade, and Remastered closes that gap on day one of the platform's life for this particular game, rather than arriving as a later port. Between the free upgrade for millions of existing owners and a brand-new hardware audience on Switch 2, CD Projekt Red is positioning September 29 as a moment to pull The Witcher 3 back into the conversation ahead of the Songs of the Past expansion in 2027 — and, further out, ahead of the studio's next mainline entry, The Witcher 4.

What's next

The near-term timeline is straightforward: Remastered goes live everywhere on September 29, 2026, with the update applying automatically for existing PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S owners, and the new Switch 2 version claimable for free by existing Switch owners or purchasable for $59.99. CD Projekt Red has said additional detail on Songs of the Past — including pricing and an exact release date — will follow ahead of its 2027 launch. Anyone deciding what to play the remaster on, or how to budget for new gaming hardware around it, can also compare cross-platform pricing and specs, including how a PS5 stacks up against a PS5 Pro, before September 29 arrives.

Written byJonah Reyes

Jonah Reyes leads Pandromeda's gaming coverage: console and handheld hardware, release dates, pricing changes, patch notes and the business moves behind the biggest franchises. He sources every date and price from the platform holders and publishers themselves, and says plainly when something is still only a rumour.

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