News report
The Witcher 3 Remastered Hotfix 5.00c Fixes HairWorks Regression and Save Bug on PC
CD Projekt Red's October 1 PC hotfix rolls back a HairWorks regression, fixes a save and load path bug, and restores Classic 1.32 launch.
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Hotfix 5.00c targets two practical PC launch problems
CD Projekt Red released Hotfix 5.00c for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered on October 1, 2026. It is available for Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, Battle.net and Xbox Play Anywhere on PC.
The most performance-relevant change is a rollback. CD Projekt Red says it reverted a change that caused significant performance and visual problems for some users with NVIDIA HairWorks enabled. The studio does not publish a universal frame-rate improvement, affected-GPU list or benchmark delta.
| Area | Confirmed change | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| HairWorks | Reverts a change linked to significant performance and visual issues for some users | No universal FPS gain is claimed |
| Save and load | Fixes failure when the Windows Documents path contains certain characters | Specific path-handling bug |
| Velen visuals | Adjusts Bloom, vegetation lighting, saturation and Path Tracing lighting | No quantified performance claim |
| Classic version | Restores launching Classic 1.32 | Launch compatibility fix |
| GOG achievements | Fixes earned achievements not appearing in the unlocked list | GOG-specific |
The HairWorks fix is a rollback, not a new graphics mode
NVIDIA's Remastered launch material describes Linear-Swept Spheres for path-traced strand rendering on supported GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs. CD Projekt Red's 5.00c notes instead describe reverting a problematic change rather than introducing another HairWorks preset.
Players who disabled HairWorks because of the regression can retest it after updating, but CD Projekt Red has not said that every remaining Remastered performance problem is resolved.
The update also repairs saving, Classic launch and Velen visuals
Hotfix 5.00c fixes a bug that could prevent saving and loading when the Windows Documents path contained certain characters. It also restores the pre-next-gen Classic 1.32 launch option, repairs a GOG achievement-list issue, and fixes a voiceover-volume problem after pause-menu navigation.
Velen receives visual adjustments covering Bloom, vegetation lighting, saturation and Path Tracing lighting. The notes provide no before-and-after values or benchmark data, so these are targeted rendering adjustments rather than evidence of a broad performance rewrite.
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