release The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered Edition It turned out not to be without technical issues. Days after the update was released, CD Projekt RED discovered a critical glitch related to NVIDIA HairWorks technology that may cause significant performance degradation for some users. The developers temporarily recommended disabling this feature and released patch 5.00c for PC on October 1, which fixed this issue and many other bugs.
The updated version itself appeared on September 29th, and represents an update that’s bigger than the usual graphical improvements. CD Project RED Visual effects, lighting, and rendering have been redesigned, path tracing has been added, animations and combat have been updated, character progression has been changed, and a host of features have been introduced that will make this decade-old role-playing game even more modern. Meanwhile, owners of The Witcher 3 on supported platforms can get the remastered version completely free. The bundle also includes Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, with these new additions now available to all owners of the base games.
One of the most notable innovations is the redesigned skill system. The old progression tree has been replaced by a more structured system where abilities are unlocked in sequence. At the same time, players can still change active skills and try different options for Geralt’s development, and mutations can allow him to further enhance selected abilities.
However, the technical side of this update is now attracting the same attention. PC users are finding serious issues booting up shortly after launch NVIDIA HairWorks. This technology, which will be familiar to owners of the original The Witcher 3, is responsible for displaying fur and hair in greater detail: in particular, it makes Geralt’s hairstyle and the fur of certain creatures more realistic.
According to CD Projekt RED, there is a bug in Remastered that may cause significant performance degradation when HairWorks is enabled. The developer separately noted the issue in the technical support section and recommended temporarily abandoning the corresponding settings until a fix is available.
Users don’t have to wait long to find a solution. Back on October 1, CD Projekt RED released patch 5.00c for the PC version on Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, Battle.net, and Xbox Play Anywhere. The list of fixes isn’t over yet. This patch fixes an issue that prevented the game from being saved or loaded if the Documents folder path contained special characters. A sound issue has also been fixed: after switching between pause menu tabs, the volume of the voiceover could be significantly reduced relative to other sounds.
In addition, the developers have also made a series of visual adjustments to Velen. Adjusted halo effects, vegetation lighting, image saturation and usage lighting path tracing. A bug with saving marketing telemetry settings has been separately fixed, and GOG owners should now correctly see achieved achievements in the list of unlocked achievements. Finally, the patch restores the ability to run the 1.32 classic version of the game.
This isn’t the first fix since launch. Previously, CD Projekt RED released patch 5.00b for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Play Anywhere on PC. He fixed the missing DLSS issue in the Xbox PC version and made lighting adjustments, including fixing overly dark interiors. The studio also said it is continuing to investigate other player complaints, including performance issues with the console.
At the same time, technical difficulties still failed to undermine critics’ overall response to the updated RPG. “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered” received a score of 94 on Metacritic when it was released, making it one of the highest-rated games of 2026. The positive ratings are mainly related to updated graphics, visual effects and the opportunity to re-experience one of the most famous role-playing games of the past decade in the form of modern technology.
Meanwhile, CD Projekt RED itself apparently prefers not to dwell on fixes that have already been released. HairWorks is still listed as a separate performance issue on the official support page, and the developers continue to gather information about other possible Remastered issues.
