The Witcher 3 Remastered on PS5 Pro is my new favorite console version of the game
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered is out this week, and while the Switch 2 native release alongside the gameplay and visual enhancements are the highlights, I specifically wanted to also check out the PS5 version since this is the first time The Witcher 3 will be PS5 Pro Enhanced. The Witcher 3 already saw benefits on PS5 Pro without any enhancements thanks to it having a dynamic resolution implementation on base PS5. Given the impressive PS5 Pro upgrade for Cyberpunk 2077, I was curious to play The Witcher 3 Remastered myself, especially after CD Projekt Red said it would target 60fps with ray tracing and support PSSR.
I've been playing The Witcher 3 Remastered on PS5, PS5 Pro, Steam Deck, and Nintendo Switch 2 over the weekend and I'm very impressed with the PS5 Pro version so far, but I have a few recommendations based on your TV setup. The first is the 120hz toggle in the PS5 system settings. I recommend using this when playing The Witcher 3 Remastered only if you have a VRR display. It doesn't feel good without VRR. Having your display at 60hz feels better on a non VRR setup.
The Witcher 3 Remastered PS5 Pro and base PS5 impressions
With that out of the way, The Witcher 3 Remastered on PS5 has two modes: performance and ray tracing. Performance mode on base PS5 targets a higher frame rate while ray tracing is capped to a lower frame rate. On PS5 Pro, The Witcher 3 Remastered in its ray tracing mode still targets 60fps. It defaulted to the performance mode on PS5 Pro for me, but I swapped to the ray tracing mode and didn't look back.
Note: The screenshots above were captured using the system capture functionality since my capture card cannot do 4K 120fps capture and the game engages 120hz when played on a supported display. I included both performance and ray tracing mode 4K images above.
The Witcher 3 Remastered in general has a lot of changes beyond gameplay. These are in lighting, foliage, color grading, UI, menus, menu fonts, and much more. I even redownloaded The Witcher 3 for PS4 and The Witcher 3 for PS5 on my PS5 Pro using another region account so I could have essentially three versions of The Witcher 3 together: PS4, PS5, and Remastered for PS5 Pro.
The Witcher 3 Remastered PS5 controller features
While not fully new to the remaster, I've always loved the DualSense features in The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Revisiting The Witcher 3 through The Witcher 3 Remastered on multiple platforms has cemented that my favorite version when it comes to controller support and features is the PS5 release, but I hope we see gyro support added in the future.
The Witcher 3 Remastered on Switch 2 has multiple new control options including motion controls. It is disappointing that the PS5 release doesn't feature any motion controls.
While The Witcher 3 Remastered may not look like a huge upgrade from the base PS5 version in still images, having ray tracing features enabled with a 60fps target itself makes this worth playing on PS5 Pro as far as I'm concerned, at least on the console side. This is definitely going to be the version of The Witcher 3 Remastered I play on my monitor while syncing over my saves to Switch 2 and Steam Deck to play on the go.
I will also do a full comparison covering the Xbox Series X version, ROG Ally, and AYN Thor at a later date once the remaster is live and any patches have launched ahead of the major The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past expansion launches next year.