“Make it shine again”: CDPR Wants The Witcher 3 Remastered to Feel Like a 2026 Game

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is getting another major update on September 29, but CD Projekt Red has a broader goal for this version than simply improving its visuals. The studio wants the RPG to feel at home alongside games released in 2026, which means revisiting systems that have remained largely unchanged since its original launch. As PC Gamer notes in a latest interview with CDPR executive producer Jakub Kutrzuba:

CDPR realised that only doing another technical update ‘would probably not be enough.’ The team wanted to make it ‘shine again’ and give both veterans and new players an experience that wouldn’t contain any ‘bad surprises’ or anything that would make them think that The Witcher 3 got old.

That puts the focus on parts of The Witcher 3 that you spend time with throughout the entire adventure. CDPR has been looking at the little frustrations that can build up over a 100-hour RPG, with the aim of cleaning them up without tearing apart the game people already know.

CDPR Wants The Witcher 3 Remastered to Match Modern Games

The previous next-gen update, released in December 2022, had a more focused job. CDPR built that version around newer hardware, improving the technical presentation of The Witcher 3 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. This time, the studio is looking at the game itself and asking where its older systems could still get in the way of the experience.

That covers areas such as combat, animation, camera behavior, enemy behavior, pathfinding, accessibility, and quality of life. These changes are intended to address problems that can make a game feel dated even when its world, writing, and quests still hold up years after release. Kutrzuba summed up what CDPR is aiming for in a few words:

We wanted to make it [comparable] with any other game which is launching these days.

That is undoubtedly a fairly ambitious standard for a game that first released in 2015, especially an open-world one with as many interconnected systems as The Witcher 3. CDPR’s approach is to make targeted changes where they can improve the experience without rebuilding the RPG from the ground up.

The Remaster Goes Deeper Than a Visual Upgrade

Credits: CD Projekt RED

The technical work has not been ignored either. Kutrzuba says the Remastered version is substantial on that front, with CDPR also reworking the underlying presentation while it revisits gameplay and other systems.

With the remaster, it is even bigger and it’s also quite heavy, maybe even heavier on the technical level.

The studio has also spent time on areas that have been sitting largely untouched since The Witcher 3 launched. That includes how Geralt moves and fights, how the camera behaves, how enemies respond, and the smaller interactions that you repeat throughout the campaign.

But what is more important is that we are touching these aspects of the game which weren’t touched since we launched it. I’m talking about the animation. I’m talking about the gameplay. I’m talking about the quality of life, how you actually play the game.

For returning players, those changes could be more noticeable than another texture upgrade because they ought to affect the way the game feels in your hands. CDPR’s own test is telling too: Kutrzuba says the team has found it difficult to return to the older version after getting used to the new improvements.

The real test will come when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered launches on September 29. Until then, CDPR’s goal is clear: make one of its most celebrated RPGs feel like a game that belongs in 2026. What changes are you hoping to see most? Let us know in the comments below!