Our friends over at Digital Foundry have weighed in on The Witcher 3 Remastered, putting the recently re-released RPG through its paces across PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
These tests were conducted after the remaster had received Patch 5.01 post-launch, which promised to improve overall performance, particularly in terms of frame rate.
The good news is that the update did its job. Frame rates are better across the board, with some noticeably smoother performance in busy areas and during technically intensive cutscenes.
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But there’s still work to be done. Digital Foundry note that screen tearing can still be an issue if you’re not using a VRR display, and while they’ve clearly been improved upon, slight frame rate dips remain.
Another problem is the game’s overblown use of bloom, which can wreck environmental detail because of how huge the contrast is between light and shadow.
Fortunately, the patch gave console players the option to reduce these bloom effects — and that certainly seems advisable.
So, in short, Remastered is pretty solid on base PS5 as things stand, and the hope is that CD Projekt Red will continue to improve the experience.
Oh, and while Digital Foundry do mention crashes, it’s unclear whether these tests were carried out with the newest hotfix applied. This one dropped just yesterday, and clears up a bunch of different crashing issues specifically on Sony’s systems.
Moving on, it may come as no surprise to learn that PS5 Pro is the best place to play The Witcher 3 Remastered on console — and seemingly by some distance.
Both graphical modes on the Pro are great options. Its performance mode typically hovers somewhere between 80 and 90 frames-per-second on a 120Hz display, making for super smooth gameplay.
But it’s the ray tracing mode that gets the nod from Digital Foundry, offering visual bells and whistles at 60fps.
Interestingly, though, this mode can look a little softer compared to the image quality that’s available on base PS5 when viewing a static scene.
That’s because the remaster makes use of PS5 Pro’s PSSR upscaler; the native resolution does take a hit, but there’s almost no discernible difference during gameplay, when you’re actually moving Geralt and the camera.
“The Witcher 3 Remastered establishes a visually impressive benchmark with advanced lighting, shader updates and robust console optimisation in patch 5.01,” Digital Foundry conclude, before noting that there’s still room for improvement.
