The Witcher 3 Remastered Adds Path Tracing, DLSS 4.5, FSR 4 and XeSS 2 on PC

CD Projekt Red has published the full change list for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered one day before its September 29, 2026 release. On PC, the upgrade adds path tracing, Ray-Traced Local Shadows and Ray-Traced HairWorks alongside broader changes to lighting, materials, reflections, shadows and tone mapping.

The renderer also moves to native DirectX 12 with multithreading. CD Projekt Red says the change is intended to improve performance and visuals, but it has not published a universal PC performance uplift. The remaster's heavier ray-tracing modes and revised system requirements mean the practical result will depend on GPU, CPU, resolution and selected settings.

The PC-specific feature list confirms NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction, AMD FSR 4 with Frame Generation and Anti-Lag 2, and Intel XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation and Low Latency. CD Projekt Red specifically states that FSR 4 is supported on Radeon RX 7000 Series and newer graphics cards, while unsupported GPUs fall back to FSR 2.

That gives the remaster unusually broad coverage of current reconstruction and frame-generation stacks, but the feature names should not be read as equivalent performance or image-quality claims. CD Projekt Red's announcement confirms support; independent testing is still needed to compare quality, latency and performance across implementations.

The remaster introduces an improved shading model, updated textures and models using assets from The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project, revised foliage lighting and shading, new image-based lighting, updated screen-space reflections and shadows, GTAO ambient occlusion, reworked bloom and improved subsurface scattering. HDR calibration has also been expanded.

These changes make the September 29 release materially different from a simple high-resolution asset pack. The renderer, lighting stack and reconstruction options are being revised together, which is also why CD Projekt Red warns that the PC system requirements have changed and recommends installing current graphics drivers.

Remastered adds an in-game cross-platform mod system powered by mod.io and further REDkit improvements. Players can browse and install supported community mods through the game's Mods menu after linking the relevant accounts.

The update also reorganizes skills into a prerequisite-based tree with three ranks per skill, resets existing skill points, adds equipment appearance reforging, revises monster combat behavior, expands Photo Mode and adds new accessibility options. Existing owners can upgrade to Remastered for free within the same supported platform ecosystem when it releases September 29.