The Witcher 3 just got a massive new update

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has just received a massive new update across all available platforms.

Deployed by developers, CD Projekt Red, Update 4.02 looks to be mainly focused on enhancing ‘The Witcher 3 next-gen update’ for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S to improve stability and performance.

The Witcher 3 update also has specific PC and console improvements, including last-gen as well as Nintendo Switch. Let’s begin with the improvements that all versions of the game will receive.

Quests and Gameplay (available on all platforms)

• Battle Preparations - Fixed the lack of a dialogue option that would progress the quest during the objective "Let Avallac'h know everything's ready."
• Reason of State - Fixed an issue where the door to the warehouse could become permanently locked if the player knocked, entered and then immediately left the building.
• Scavenger Hunt: Cat School Gear Upgrade Diagrams Part 1 - Fixed an issue where the quest could stay active even after the diagrams were looted.
• Fixed an issue where trying to start a New Game+ on an incompatible save would block the player from starting the expansions in standalone mode until the game was restarted.

Localisation (available on all platforms)

• Fixed an issue with the Korean localization of Ciri's and Geralt's Gwent card descriptions.
• Fixed punctuation issues in Arabic localization.
• Updated Traditional Chinese font.

The following updates are made specifically for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. CDPR also notes that other changes and improvements have been made that were not mentioned in the patch notes.

PC-specific

• Improved CPU core utilisation in the DX 12 version.
• Restored horizon-based ambient occlusion. Players who had previously turned Ambient Occlusion off will need to do so again. You can find it in Options > Video > Graphics.
• Fixed an issue where the "My Rewards" section was not localised in REDlauncher.
• Fixed an issue with a flickering landscape in Toussaint that occurred when NVIDIA HairWorks was disabled.
• Fixed an issue related to particle optimization which could result in temporary stuttering.

Console-specific

• Improved Performance Mode on next-gen consoles.
• Fixed an issue where characters could become slightly blurry during dialogues and cutscenes on PlayStation 5.
• Fixed an issue related to memory usage in Ray Tracing Mode which could result in crashes on Xbox Series X.
• Whatsoever a Man Soweth... - The game will no longer crash if Geralt runs away from Shani after starting the conversation on next-gen consoles.
• Fixed an issue where quicksaves couldn't be loaded when using cross-progression on Xbox One.
• Added two missing "Top notch swords!" on previous-gen consoles.
• Fixed an issue with overwriting manual saves where in some circumstances the oldest game save was deleted on PlayStation 5.
• Addressed performance issues in Beauclair and Novigrad that occurred after loading a game save.

Visual- PC and new-gen exclusive

• Improved immersion of water appearance by adding refraction to SSR and ray-traced reflections.
• Fixed a visual issue with brick textures where black artefacts covered stone arches.
• Added a Motion Blur slider. It can be found in Options > Video > Graphics.

In related news, CD Projekt Red had to quickly deploy a fix to a previous update that apparently made genitalia too realistic. Elsewhere in The Witcher universe, following the upcoming departure of Henry Cavill from the Netflix adaptation, Chris Hemsworth has been cast as Geralt of Rivia.

Naturally, fans are curious if Chris Hemsworth will look the part. So taking matters into their own hands, and have deepfaked Hemsworth as Geralt. And the results are, well, interesting.