Witcher 3 Remastered on PC: Free Upgrade, Specs, Saves and Mods

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered launches on September 29, 2026 as a free upgrade for existing owners on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a native Nintendo Switch 2 version and a first release on Battle.net the same day. What is still open as of September 26, 2026: what new buyers will pay, how the PC-specific graphics options perform, and how existing mods will cope.

Who gets it free on PC

CD PROJEKT RED describes Remastered in its August 25 announcement as “a free upgrade for existing The Witcher 3 owners on qualifying platforms.” The official Witcher site’s FAQ says the upgrade is coming to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, and its homepage describes it as a free upgrade for owners of the game on PC and current-generation platforms (thewitcher.com).

For PC, the store-by-store picture is this:

• Steam: the store description for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Complete Edition says the game will be upgraded for free to Remastered on September 29 (Steam store page, read via Steam’s public store data).
• GOG and Epic Games Store: CDPR’s announcement on the official Witcher site lists GOG, Steam, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S as the platforms where owners get Remastered as a free upgrade. We could not open the GOG or Epic store listings themselves, so that wording is confirmed on CDPR’s site, not on those storefront pages.
• Battle.net: Remastered and the Songs of the Past expansion are coming to Blizzard’s launcher through a new CDPR–Blizzard partnership. CDPR’s site lists Battle.net and Nintendo Switch 2 as “available for pre-purchase”, not among the free-upgrade platforms, and states no price. Nothing on the CDPR pages we could open says an existing PC owner can claim Remastered free through Battle.net.

PC Gamer reports that Remastered replaces the current Complete Edition on storefronts at launch. CDPR’s support FAQ adds that the Complete Edition has already replaced the standalone base game, so new buyers on Steam or GOG are already looking at the Complete Edition listing (CDPR support FAQ).

What changes for existing owners

The expansions are already yours. CDPR made Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine free to every base-game owner on August 25, 2026, and says Remastered includes them. Per its FAQ, you update the game to get them; if you already owned them, they stay in your library but their content is now part of the base game, and you can still start either one separately from the main menu.

Saves and achievements carry over; skills and settings do not. CDPR support says existing saves should work with no issues, but skills and settings are reset because of changes in the upgrade, and you can reallocate skills straight away. Achievements are shared with the current version, so unlocked ones stay unlocked (CDPR support).

Size and timing. No CDPR page or official storefront page we could open states a launch time or a download size. Pure Xbox attributes a roughly 45 GB Steam upgrade size to CDPR’s social media director Marcin Momot, and GamesRadar lists a 10:00 UTC launch. Both are secondhand and not confirmed by CDPR’s own pages, so check CDPR’s channels and your storefront on the day. Whether you can pre-load on PC is not something we found confirmed.

Going back. CDPR’s support page for reverting versions describes a “Classic” beta branch on Steam and GOG Galaxy, and says Epic Games Store only serves the latest version (CDPR support). That page was written before Remastered, so it does not confirm what the branch will contain after September 29. VGTimes reports that CDPR has said PC players will be able to roll back on Steam and GOG after launch; the mechanism has not been spelled out in anything we could verify.

What CDPR says is new

The announcement lists upgraded visuals, enhanced combat, improved traversal and movement, new Witcher sign effects, revamped mount handling, enhanced monster behavior, a skill tree revamp, transmogrification, an expanded photo mode and new finishers. The announcement trailer ended with a longer, unexplained list that PC Gamer and GamesRadar both transcribed. It includes immersive meditation, new quest tracking, a looting rework, UI and menu navigation improvements, new accessibility features, a tutorial refresh, and PS5 Pro and Xbox Play Anywhere support. GamesRadar’s point is worth keeping in mind: how far each of these goes is not yet known.

CDPR’s Jakub Kutrzuba told PC Gamer the team focused on animation, camera, quality-of-life changes, accessibility, enemy behavior in combat and pathfinding on roads, aiming to smooth these out without rebuilding the game from the ground up (PC Gamer).

The remaster is co-developed with Yigsoft, which CDPR says has worked on The Witcher 3 before (CDPR press release).

PC requirements as published

CDPR’s own support page, Upcoming changes to minimum requirements, lists a new minimum of 64-bit Windows 11, an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB, 12 GB of RAM, 6 GB of VRAM and 70 GB on an SSD. That page does not name Remastered or September 29, and it gives no recommended specification.

The recommended figures come only from outlets. TechPowerUp and Notebookcheck say the specs first appeared on the Battle.net store page, which we could not open, and list the same numbers:

• Recommended (per outlets, not a CDPR page we could open): Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600X; Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super, AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT or Intel Arc B580; 16 GB RAM; 70 GB of SSD storage.

CDPR’s support page on the change also says the minimum will be 64-bit Windows 11, DirectX 12 only, and SSD only, with hard drives no longer supported and only Windows 11-supported CPUs and actively driver-supported GPUs covered. It also says CDPR will no longer test on Windows 10 (CDPR support). That page says the change applies from the next update, without naming Remastered. The Steam page’s requirements box, as of our check, still shows the old specs, with a note that requirements change on September 29, 2026 (Steam).

No resolution, frame-rate or graphics-preset targets came with these numbers, so the minimum and recommended lines do not tell you what to expect at 1080p, 1440p or 4K, or with path tracing on.

Ray tracing, upscalers, mods and Steam Deck

• PC graphics tech: the trailer feature list, as transcribed by GamesRadar and Game Informer, names path tracing on PC, ray reconstruction, ray-traced hair, ray tracing improvements, a global lighting rework, native DirectX 12, and support for Nvidia DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4 and Intel XeSS 2.0. This is a feature list, not a spec sheet: we found no published hardware requirements for the path tracing mode.
• Mods: cross-platform mod support is on that same list. We found no CDPR documentation of how it works at launch, and nothing on whether existing PC mods will keep working. CDPR’s FAQ says the expansion merge should not affect mods, but that answer is about the expansions, not the Remastered upgrade.
• Steam Deck: CDPR’s Jakub Kutrzuba told PC Gamer that, based on what the team sees, the game should run the same way on Steam Deck but look much better, because newer rendering makes many systems cheaper (PC Gamer). That is a developer expectation, not a Deck Verified rating or a performance number.
• Xbox Play Anywhere: CDPR says the Xbox version will support it, so Xbox Series X|S owners can play the PC version at no extra cost (GamesRadar).

Treat any visual comparison you have seen with care. CDPR’s recent original-versus-remaster clips are labelled work in progress, and GamesRadar noted it did not know the settings or hardware behind them (GamesRadar).

Songs of the Past and The Witcher 4

Songs of the Past is a paid expansion due in 2027 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2. It is set in a new region called Letten, gives Geralt a new weapon, the chain, and is co-developed with Fool’s Theory, a studio led by Witcher 3 veterans. It can be wishlisted now on select platforms (CDPR press release). We found no price and no date beyond 2027. CDPR’s blog post on the Blizzard partnership says a Geralt-themed skin is coming to Diablo IV, available when the Songs of the Past pre-purchase opens on Battle.net and purchasable when the expansion launches in 2027, and that more will be shown at BlizzCon 2026. It gives no BlizzCon date and no prices.

On The Witcher 4, CDPR’s first-half 2026 report says the planned release window is 2028 (CD PROJEKT RED report, September 2, 2026).

What to check before September 29

• Your Windows version and drive. The published minimum is Windows 11 on an SSD. If you are on Windows 10 or a hard drive, CDPR’s support page says those are no longer supported.
• Where you bought the game. Steam, GOG and the Epic Games Store are listed by CDPR as free-upgrade platforms. Battle.net is listed as a pre-purchase storefront, not a free-upgrade one.
• Free space. The requirements list 70 GB on an SSD, and the upgrade download is reported, not confirmed by CDPR pages, at about 45 GB.
• Your saves and mods. Saves should carry over, but skills reset. Nothing we found from CDPR says existing PC mods will work unchanged, so our read is to expect some to need updates and to keep a backup of your save folder and mod files.
• Your rollback route. On Steam and GOG the Classic beta branch has been the documented way back. Epic has no rollback.

What we don’t know yet

• The price of Remastered for new buyers on each PC storefront, including Battle.net.
• Resolution, frame-rate and preset targets for the listed requirements, and the hardware needed for path tracing.
• How cross-platform mod support works, and whether current PC mods will keep working.
• Whether pre-loading is available on PC before launch.
• Exactly how rollback will work after launch, and how the game performs on Steam Deck and other handhelds.
• The price and exact date for Songs of the Past.

Everything above is as of September 26, 2026. Launch-day requirements, patch notes and player performance reports may change parts of it, and we will note updates here.