Witcher 3 remaster review: great visuals, but saves need work

The Witcher 3 remastered has been one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. It looks incredible at times, and CDPR has been patching it quickly. As much as I'm enjoying it, I still think it has plenty of room to get even better, and my biggest request is a save system like the one Cyberpunk 2077 just got.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), developed by CD Projekt Red, is the world I fell in love with back in 2015. I knew the upgrade was coming once it was announced alongside the Songs of the Past expansion. I didn't expect to be this excited about returning to a world I've already spent hundreds of hours exploring, especially on my PS5 Pro. This is my first PlayStation playthrough. I've mainly played on GOG and on the original Switch, where I played all of Blood and Wine, and it was cinema.

CDPR's Witcher 3 remaster patches have moved fast

What makes me optimistic isn't only the launch. It's the way CDPR has responded so far. We've already seen updates addressing visual problems, performance and some gameplay issues. The bloom issue has been fixed for the most part. I think it's been fixed generally, but at least it's fixed for me.

The 5.0.1 patch made adjustments to ray tracing, tone mapping and character lighting. The same patch tackled delayed dodging, some buggy ladder interactions, and other problems that were affecting player saves. The Switch 2 version received its own improvements to sharpness, image quality and performance. On PlayStation, CDPR followed up with a stability hotfix aimed at crashes.

If you were on PS5 Pro in the ray tracing mode, the 60 fps looked very stuttery. A hotfix sorted it quickly. I held off on my PS5 Pro because I knew there was an issue and I knew CDPR would fix it soon, so I decided to wait and let them cook.

Not every issue is going to disappear immediately. If that were the case, it would be pretty insane. But I think CDPR's response has been great. They've been trying to knock down as many issues as possible and get the game into the shape it needs to be in before Songs of the Past releases. CDPR polish is top notch, the industry's best, and I wouldn't be surprised if they could get Wild Hunt running on a toaster. That support matters, especially with more content on the way.

My PS5 Pro crashes and pitch black interiors in ray tracing mode

I don't want this to sound like everything is flawless. I've been playing on PS5 Pro, and while I'm impressed by how it looks, I've had the occasional crash. It isn't happening every five minutes. It happens at random times, typically when I'm in a blacksmith's menu, and then the game completely crashes. Even one random crash can pull you out of the experience, and that's unfortunate.

One of the stranger issues I've hit is with lighting in the ray tracing mode. I don't know if it's exclusive to that mode, but whenever I walk into a room or building, the scene suddenly gets so dark it's pitch black. I pull out my torch, move a bit further to where Geralt is standing, and the lighting shifts back. Once you see it, you think, "Okay, well, this doesn't look right." For a moment I wondered whether I was playing on a PS2.

CDPR has already made lighting adjustments, and some players have said the fixes help a lot, but I'm personally still having interior lighting problems. Outside, it's mostly very solid. It could also be an issue with my own PS5 Pro, which has been working hard lately, so I won't pretend every PS5 Pro or base PS5 is dealing with the same thing. This is only what I've experienced myself.

When it's working, it looks gorgeous. Every aspect of the game I fell in love with somehow looks better and better. But there are still times I'm walking down a hallway and it turns into a black hole. It's going to get fixed, but it's still unfortunate.

Other players report autosave stutters and a Switch 2 blacksmith crash

It isn't only the visuals. I've seen people discussing stutters around autosaves, and occasional crashes and freezes that seem to happen in very specific situations. On Switch 2, someone said they had repeated crashes while trying to craft at a particular blacksmith, even after reloading an earlier save and restarting the game.

I've had crashes at certain blacksmiths too, but mine didn't repeat when I reloaded the save. It was the menu. I think I was scrolling through the interface looking at different items, and then it crashed. The Switch 2 case is one person's report. Still, if it's something that can be reproduced multiple times, I'm hoping the developers look into it, which I know they will.

The developers are on social media, Reddit and various forums. So keep reporting bugs, because they're going to get looked into and fixed. One of the beauties of CDPR is that they play their own games, and when they see or hit issues, they fix them quickly. That's why they're the GOAT.

Witcher 3 cross save is great, but mods and version mismatches get in the way

Another area I want to see improved is cross progression and cross save. One of my favorite things about The Witcher 3 is playing on different platforms. When I'm working, I'm at my desk on PC, testing things. When I'm chilling, I want to play on my projector from the couch on my Switch 2 or my PS5 Pro, picking up that same save. I have to give CDPR credit. It's such a good experience, and I think other games need to see what CDPR is doing and do the same.

Before the Switch 2 patch, I did have a couple of issues. With cross save, versions don't always line up, because Switch 2 has to pass its own certification before an update is released. So when I wanted to go from PC to my Switch 2 to continue my save, it was impossible because the version was out of sync with the save.

There are also issues with console mods. I think I downloaded the cloak mod on my PS5 Pro, took that save to my Switch 2, and couldn't find the cloak mod there, so I wasn't able to start the save, at least if I remember correctly. It could be something different, but I do think cross save needs a couple of quality of life improvements, especially now that there are mods.

Cross save is one of those features you only notice when something goes wrong. When you jump between platforms, you want to know which save is the latest, which version of the game it was created on, and whether your progress is safe before you hit continue. The game does tell you which version a save was created on. For mods, I'd like a setting or a visual indicator showing which platforms a mod is available on. Maybe a PS5 logo, an Xbox logo and a PC logo, with the Switch 2 logo missing. That would tell me which mods to use to keep cross play as seamless as possible.

This is probably a first world problem for many people, who'd ask why not just play on one platform. But there's nothing better than playing The Witcher 3 on the couch and then jumping on your PC to continue that save.

My biggest request: Cyberpunk 2077 style save groups for The Witcher 3

My biggest request for a future update is better save management. Specifically, I want The Witcher 3 to borrow what CDPR just did with the Cyberpunk 2077 2.5 update, which added a quality of life feature that groups saves by individual playthrough. My immediate reaction was to ask for the same thing in The Witcher 3. "That would be so helpful. Please make it happen."

Think about how people play this game. You might have one save where you're making every decision a certain way, another where you're testing a different build, and maybe your original save that you absolutely don't want to lose. When all of those files are mixed together, it gets way too easy to click the wrong one. I've come close to overwriting my main Witcher 3 save more than once.

I have it backed up on my PC, but that backup isn't the most up to date one because I've played across platforms quite a bit. If I had wiped that playthrough, I would have been devastated, because there are so many memories on that save. So maybe there needs to be a recovery option in the save system too.

Here's what I'd love: group saves by playthrough like Cyberpunk, maybe let us name the groups, and make important manual saves easy to protect from being overwritten. I don't think CDPR can copy and paste Cyberpunk's code into The Witcher 3. That would be naive, since they're different games with different systems. But CDPR has already shown it understands why organized saves matter, and I'd love to see that same thinking brought to The Witcher 3.

Why the remaster matters ahead of Songs of the Past in 2027

When I say The Witcher 3 could get even better, I don't necessarily mean another graphics overhaul. I mean the kind of update that polishes the experience from top to bottom. Would I love a bug free, smooth experience on day one? Sure. But it's impossible to test at mass scale like this, so you launch and then fix whatever crashes and breaks. I want CDPR to keep improving stability on PS5 and PS5 Pro and fix the main crashing issues people have reported. And if your PS5 crashes and asks whether to send the report, always send it.

To be clear, CDPR hasn't announced the next patch or promised any features. This is what I'd like to see based on my own experience and issues other players have raised. After the support we've already seen, I think it's reasonable to be hopeful. It's CDPR, and they're constantly surprising us.

This matters beyond fixing bugs. The Witcher 3 isn't getting an upgrade and then being left alone. CDPR has already announced Songs of the Past, a new expansion coming in 2027 that brings us back for another ride with Geralt. Looking at it glass half full, releasing the remaster now lets them make the game as stable as possible for the people who will return when the expansion drops next year.

At the end of the day, I'm having a great time with The Witcher 3 remastered. The free upgrade was a massive win, the improvements are awesome, and I appreciate that CDPR already has fixes rolling out. My crashes and lighting issues haven't changed the fact that I love coming back to this game. I could say I hope it keeps improving, but I know it's going to keep getting better.