The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered is available across PC and consoles as a rather massive upgrade/overhaul of the 2015 original. Done in conjunction with work on the upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, a new interview with VGC reveals that CDPR focused on tweaking the gameplay because it had felt it was “obvious” that combat and skill progression were the weakest parts of the game.
Senior designer Paweł Sasko, a consultant on the remaster, told the outlet, “The story is still relevant, you can play it, and it’s beautiful, and the characters are fun, but when you look at the gameplay side, it was obvious that this was almost the weakest side.” He notes that the common consensus among fans and critics was that the gameplay element was lacking in The Witcher 3. I’m not sure if I agree with that sentiment, but more than ten years later, combat in open-world titles has progressed quite a bit. What was originally acceptable has become rather quaint as different games have built on the foundation that The Witcher 3 started.
This consensus among the team is what led CDPR to expand the new remaster to more than just visual tweaks and changes. We’ve seen remasters in the past that add quality-of-life improvements to older games, but most tend to focus on the presentation aspects rather than substantial gameplay tweaks. For The Witcher 3, CDPR is introducing completely redesigned combat, a new skill tree, extra animations for attacks and finishers, improvements to general movement, and more. As Sasko tells the outlet, the team drew heavy inspiration from the work done for Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 update, which also introduced similar changes to the core mechanics.
“I would say [The Witcher 3] is quite fundamentally different,” Sasko explains. “Now, is the comparison to Cyberpunk 2.0 justified? I think it is justified. But is it that impactful? That’s a little harder for me to judge.” He brings up how Cyberpunk 2077 already had skill trees and was built for different play styles, whereas The Witcher has primarily been about Geralt and his distinct style of combat. This remaster doesn’t radically broaden the choices available, but players have more options in customizing Geralt to their liking. In that sense, the game is a truer RPG now.
Check out more Witcher content
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
