The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a singleplayer third-person action, RPG and open world game in the The Witcher series.
The Witcher 3's Next-Generation update releases on 14 December 2022 for everyone who owns the game as a free update.[1] This will include DLSS 3, FSR 2.1, ray-traced global illumination, ray-traced ambient occlusion, dynamic resolution scaling and more broader implemented screen space reflections (previously exclusive to water surfaces), improved textures, with a new ultra+ settings to modify and tinker around with background characters, foliage density, level of detail etc. The update will also feature a photo mode, new DLC quest and costumes based on the Netflix show, dynamically hidden minimap, scalable subtitles, expanded controller customization, pausable cutscenes, previously pre-rendered cutscenes are now real-time[2], Chinese Simplified subtitles and audio, several quest bugfixes.[3][4]
General information
- PC Report
- Official Forums
- Official Witcher Wiki (Fandom)
- Official Witcher Game Series Wiki (Gamepedia)
- The Witcher 3 Nexus Mods
- GOG.com Community Discussions
- GOG.com Support Page
- Steam Community Discussions
Availability
- All the digital distribution versions come with free bonuses that include the soundtrack in MP3 and FLAC formats.
- No version of the game requires either GOG Galaxy or any type of authentication, activation, or digital distribution software.
- The initial 2015 release has 4 DVDs, while the 2016 Complete Edition release has 6 DVDs.
Monetization
| Type |
Notes |
| DLC
| The minor DLC include cosmetics, items, quests, or the new game+ mode. |
| Expansion pack
| Expansion packs include campaigns separate from the main one. |
| One-time game purchase
| The game requires an upfront purchase to access. |
DLC and expansion packs
| Name |
Notes |
|
| 'Ballad Heroes' Neutral Gwent Card Set |
Free. |
|
| Alternative Look for Ciri |
Free. |
|
| Alternative Look for Triss |
Free. |
|
| Alternative Look for Yennifer |
Free. |
|
| Beard and Hairstyle Set |
Free. |
|
| Blood and Wine |
|
|
| Elite Crossbow Set |
Free. |
|
| Expansion Pass |
Includes Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. |
|
| Hearts of Stone |
|
|
| New Finisher Animations |
Free. |
|
| New Game + |
Free. |
|
| New Quest 'Contract: Missing Miners' |
Free. |
|
| New Quest 'Contract: Skellige's Most Wanted' |
Free. |
|
| New Quest 'Fool's Gold' |
Free. |
|
| New Quest 'Scavenger Hunt: Wolf School Gear' |
Free. |
|
| New Quest 'Where the Cat and Wolf Play...' |
Free. |
|
| Nilfgaardian Armor Set |
Free. |
|
| Skellige Armor Set |
Free. |
|
| Temerian Armor Set |
Free. |
|
Essential improvements
Patches
- The retail release requires a launch file to play. Further patches require activating on GOG.com.[5]
Skip intro videos
Skip loading screen narration videos
|
Edit user.settings config file[citation needed]
|
|
Add this setting:
[LoadingScreen/Debug]
DisableVideos=true
It will auto-skip loading screen videos (which you can also skip by pressing space on a keyboard and square/X on PS4/Xbox controllers respectively).
|
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
Save game data location
- Cross-save is available with the Nintendo Switch version of the game.[9]
Video
In-game graphics settings.
|
Edit user.settings config file[citation needed]
|
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\user.settings with a text editor.
- Find
Resolution=XXxYY and set your resolution (e.g. Resolution=1152x648).
- If you want to use a resolution lower than 1024x768, also find
FullScreenMode=X and Change X to 1 or use borderless mode.
- Save the file and launch the game.
|
|
Add FOV slider (Patch 1.30)[11]
|
- Download FOV Slider and Custom Localization Fix.
- Extract
modFOVSlider\ and modCustomLocalizationFix\ to <path-to-game>\Mods\.
- Extract
modFOVSlider\bin\ and modCustomLocalizationFix\bin\ to <path-to-game>.
- Start the game and set the FOV using the slider in the options menu.
- Going over 89 will break interior lighting and cause severe rendering/performance issues. Game uses Hor+ scaling with vertical measurement; 89/90 is equivalent to 119/120. If you like 110 or 100 or 90, then you want 80 or 70 or 60 respectfully.
|
- Game uses SSAA for cutscenes, but uses low-quality edge smoothing during gameplay.
|
SMAA via SweetFX[citation needed]
|
- Download custom SweetFX
- Extract archive contents to
<path-to-game>\bin\x64 and replace DLL's with ones from "x64" folder
|
Change in-game cinematic framerate
|
Modify user.settings file[citation needed]
|
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\user.settings with a text editor.
- Change
MovieFramerate to which you desire (e.g. 60 or 120).
|
Disable Cinematic Supersampling
|
Modify user.settings file[citation needed]
|
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\user.settings with a text editor.
- Add
MovieUbersampling=false under [Visuals] section.
|
Disable radial blur when using Witcher Senses
|
Modify user.settings file[12]
|
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\user.settings with a text editor.
- Add
MotionSicknessFocusMode=true under [Gameplay] section.
|
Input
In-game control settings.
Audio
| Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
| Separate volume controls |
|
Master, music, effects and voice. |
| Surround sound |
|
Up to 7.1 (no in-game option). |
| Subtitles |
|
|
| Closed captions |
|
|
| Mute on focus lost |
|
Loading screens and cinematics (FMVs) do not mute on focus lost. |
- HRTF mod for headphones can be found here (x3daudio1_7_hrtf seeming to work on top of Wwise).
Localizations
| Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
| English |
|
|
|
|
| Arabic |
|
|
|
|
| Traditional Chinese |
|
|
|
|
| Czech |
|
|
|
|
| French |
|
|
|
|
| German |
|
|
|
|
| Hungarian |
|
|
|
|
| Italian |
|
|
|
|
| Japanese |
|
|
|
|
| Korean |
|
|
|
|
| Polish |
|
|
|
|
| Brazilian Portuguese |
|
|
|
|
| Russian |
|
|
|
Russian Localization Fixes by DJ_Kovrik |
| Spanish |
|
|
|
|
| Turkish |
|
|
|
|
| Simplified Chinese |
|
|
|
Added in November 7, 2018 with patch 1.32 (announced in their official Sina Weibo). You can enable it from the game settings. |
VR support
Issues fixed
Hair physics only works correctly when playing at 30 FPS
Mouse delay/lag
|
Turn off in-game GOG overlay Galaxy feature[citation needed]
|
|
In the settings, enable Hardware Cursor[citation needed]
|
Microstutter
|
Disable GOG Galaxy In-game overlay[citation needed]
|
Poor performance on Nvidia Kepler GPUs
- This occurs on Kepler GPUs due to issues with certain Nvidia driver versions.
|
Update to at least the 353.06 WHQL drivers[citation needed]
|
Axii's alternative mode not working
- This bug occurs when points are spent both in Delusion and Puppet
|
Disable the Delusion upgrade[citation needed]
|
|
Alter the delay to use a sign's alternative mode for keyboard[17]
|
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\input.settings with a text editor.
- Find every instance of
IK_Q=(Action=CastSignHold,State=Duration,IdleTime=0.2) and set 0.2 to 0.05
- Save changes.
Notes
- This alters the delay to trigger alternative casting mode from 20ms to 5ms.
|
|
Alter the delay to use a sign's alternative mode for gamepad[18]
|
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\input.settings with a text editor.
- Find every instance of
IK_Pad_RightTrigger=(Action=CastSignHold,State=Duration,IdleTime=0.2) and set 0.2 to 0.05
- Save changes.
Notes
- This alters the delay to trigger alternative casting mode from 20ms to 5ms.
|
Proper HUD positioning for different aspect ratios
- For 16:10 change the value of
uiVerticalFrameScale to 1.1253.
- For 21:9 change the value of
uiHorizontalFrameScale to 1.3125.
|
Edit user.settings config file[citation needed]
|
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\user.settings with a text editor.
- If your aspect ratio is vertically greater than 16:9 increase the value of
uiVerticalFrameScale above 1.
- If your aspect ratio is horizontally greater than 16:9 increase the value of
uiHorizontalFrameScale above 1.
|
Stutter while using a controller
|
Edit the config file hidden.ini[citation needed]
|
- Open
<path-to-game>\bin\config\base\hidden.ini.
- Change
LockControlScheme=0 to LockControlScheme=2.
- Save the file.
Notes
- Stutter occurs because the game rapidly changes between controller and keyboard prompts.
- This forces the game to use controller prompts.
- There won't be any keyboard prompts even while using keyboard controls.
|
Mouse input problem/actions mapped to mouse buttons unresponsive
|
This can be caused by mouse software such as Logitech's SetPoint. Exiting the program before launching the game should fix the problem[citation needed]
|
Unable to adjust Gamma in-game
|
Set Preserve System Gamma to Off
|
- In the main menu go to Options > Video > Graphics.
- Make sure Display mode is set to Fullscreen.
- Set Preserve System Gamma to Off.
- Restart the game.
- You should now have the Gamma option under Options > Video
|
.
- For Linux users: Add
WINEDLLOVERRIDES=dxgi=n %command% in the game's launch options.
Other information
API
| Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
| Direct3D |
11 |
|
| Shader Model support |
5 |
|
| Executable |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
| Windows |
|
|
|
Middleware
|
Middleware |
Notes |
| Physics |
PhysX |
Makes use of some Nvidia-accelerated effects that may cause slowdown on AMD GPUs. |
| Audio |
Wwise |
|
| Interface |
Scaleform |
|
Instant sign casting
- Enable instant sign casting so you don't have to use the radial menu (you don't need the mod files, just follow the instructions on the page).
Enable Debug Console
|
Modify general.ini file[12]
|
- Open
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\config\base\general.ini with a text editor.
- Add
DBGConsoleOn=true under [General] section.
- You can open the console with ` (on an US layout keyboard, might differ for other layouts).
|
Improve HairWorks performance on AMD hardware
|
Create a profile via Catalyst Control Center[19]
|
- Create a profile for
witcher3.exe in the Catalyst Control Center.
- Set Tessellation Mode to Override application settings.
- Set the Maximum Tessellation Level to either 2x, 4x, 8x or 16x.
|
Toggle DLC outfits
- Enable/Disable alternative look outfits
- Open
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Witcher 3\user.settings with a text editor
- Find these lines
- DlcEnabled_dlc_006_001=0 (Triss), DlcEnabled_dlc_008_001=0 (Yennefer), DlcEnabled_dlc_011_002=0 (Ciri)
0 to disable, 1 to enable
Installing mods
- The Witcher 3 Mod Manager by stefan3372, which takes care of DLC/Mods folders and .ini files, is recommended for the not-so-tech-savvy. However, the ideal method is manual installation.
- Aims to give players extended in-game graphics settings for beyond the bounds configurations. This mod goes beyond what the now-deprecated Witcher 3 Config Tools was able to achieve. An alternative (Tweaks) can be used instead as a more advanced in-game menu. Both mods can be extremely taxing on the GPU. While Tweaks is the more robust and up-to-date option, it also has other mod dependencies, namely either Unification Patch or Community Patch - Base. Use one or the other, not both.
- Aims to improve the graphics by reworking models and textures to better quality.
- Community mod with a massive collection of fixes that resolves a variety of bugs and visual glitches. Please note that these fixes are now included in the Brothers In Arms mod linked below.
- Definitive collection of more than 5,000 bug fixes and restored cut content from across the entire game.
- Community mod that fixes hair, fur, clothing, medallions, weapons, etc, behavior when the game runs at different than 30 fps speeds. The mod was built to run with the E3 Geralt Hair Physics 60FPS Fix and Hairworks Hair Physics 60fps Fix that fixes the same problem on Geralt's non-HairWorks and HairWorks hair.
- Aims to bring back the accurate E3 armor textures and mesh for the starting viper armour appearance presented in the pre-release 2014 gameplay demo into the final game. This includes "High definition broken chainmails with accurate leather strings, remodelled boots, pants, gloves, belt, 4k texture maps with realistic leather specular". Also as an optional "shortgloves" are added as dlc.
- Restores the E3 appearance of Roach with Improved skin, Fixed contact shadows, Improved colors & 4k texture maps. Available in multiple variants to choose from.
Performance fix for 2-4 core CPUs
- Battle Encoder Shirasé (BES) + instruction - After the patch 1.06-1.07, it's almost impossible to play with 2 core processor. It's a small tool that throttles the CPU usage of the process you “target”: for instance, you can limit the CPU usage of a process which would use CPU 100%, down to 99%, like in this case. As a result, the game becomes playable.
System requirements
| Windows |
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
| Operating system (OS) |
7 |
8, 8.1, 10 |
| Processor (CPU) |
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3 GHz
AMD Phenom II X4 940 |
Intel Core i7-3770 3.4 GHz
AMD FX-8350 4 GHz |
| System memory (RAM) |
6 GB |
8 GB |
| Hard disk drive (HDD) |
35 GB | |
| Video card (GPU) |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
AMD Radeon HD 7870
DirectX 11 compatible
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 770
AMD Radeon R9 290 |
- A 64-bit operating system is required.
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in
~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/292030/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (292030) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
References
