The Witcher 3: PS5 vs Xbox Series X Hands-on - Ray Tracing + 60FPS Modes Tested 

Same time last year, I replayed W3 and it was even better than the first time. To everybody who waited for this version to begin a second play (or a third play!), don't rush through the game. Take your time so you can appreciate every bit of the stories, the amazing sceneries, the music... It's art.

Honestly, seeing all this footage from the original compared to the update just makes me remember how much of a masterpiece the original is. Especially for a 7 year old game the original still looked gorgeous.

Already have this moved to my internal storage. The fact that I'm this excited to play a 7 year old game that I've completed multiple times is a testament to how good this game is.

Cross save is what has me really excited. Going between Steam Deck and Series X on the fly is very enticing.

The fact that you guys dropped this early is great - This'll be my very first playthrough

Nice and sensible selection of upgrades. I really like that they went for RTGI and RTAO. In my opinion, raytraced global illumination is the most important technology out of all RT effects. It can change scenes to great degree and make them appear more life like. RT reflections are a good pick only for games that really benefit from them. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of such examples, but it is missing RT reflections on consoles - sensibly, given how many reflective surfaces there are in game world (especially after rainfall) it would be too taxing. In reality, I think we won't see any significant RT reflections usage through this gen - they will be a nice addition for (powerful enough) PC owners to enrich the presentation, but the "core" art style and visuals will still be made taking older, less accurate reflections effects. They may be thrown in sometimes when there will be GPU grunt to spare in quality modes, but I think no one would mind lack of them in favour of decent level of SSR. Same story for RT shadows. In action oriented titles they are not that transformative. By all means, developers should go ahead and use them for games that justify it. Thief reboot, but decent this time, anyone? Or RT upgrade for Alien: Isolation? Chronicles of Riddick? Maybe even a proper RT mod for Doom 3? But for the rest - meh, it is thus far a waste of processing power. Raytraced ambient occlusion on top of regular rasterisation shading techniques is more meaningful addition an I am glad we see it here. Especially given that AO quality was very poor in last gen versions of Witcher 3.

This seems like the perfect game for an automatic switcher between RT and Performance mode, when going in and out of cutscenes. Would love to see something like that, since performance is not needed in cutscenes, and they ray-tracing looks amazing there, so it would switch to RT for cutscenes and then back to 60FPS for gameplay. Would something like this be possible to do?

Holy crap, I’m so excited about this. I’ve been looking for a good reason to play this again.

The hay roofs of buildings look dramatically better, wish that was the case in more areas.

I really wish they would have a 40fps mode with ray tracing. Every 40fps mode I've used on a console game has been excellent and my preferred visually.

To be honest, this was a reeeally good looking game even then. Impressive for the time, what a masterpiece

The ray traced ambient occlusion looks amazing. It makes a such a big difference to keep stuff from looking flat in the open world.

I'd love for it to get an unlocked framerate option as well, if you have VRR.

Amazing job on this. Already bought it again for the Series X in preparation. ray Tracing is very pretty, but unless I freeze frame and really study, I don't think I would appreciate it as much as a smoother 60FPS experience. Roll on the 12th!

What a game, what an experience.

It's been almost 8 years since the release and this is still the best game I've ever played. I mean, the way I felt after finishing it for the first time. Few games came close to this, especially RDR2 but The Witcher 3 is gonna be in my heart for a long, long time.

For the past few years, the foliage has been the thing that made this game look a little aged. It looks so nice now, love this

At 6:25, for example... does anyone else think the non RT water looks better? Not from an accuracy perspective, but from an aesthetic perspective... I'd rather have more pleasing water than 'accurate' reflections. But maybe that's just me!

Finally the excuse I needed to replay this absolute masterpiece

Thank you, DF, for the coverage. Thank you, Halk, for all your hard work over the years!

0:35 "Wildly successful Netflix TV show..." lol. You forgot to finish it up by stating "...up to Season 1."

I waited so long for this! Thank you DF! :D

Super exited for this update. Cyberpunk with FSR 2.1 on PS5 looks incredible on my C1 65" oled. Can wait to see how this looks.

RT mode on PS5 seems really choppy to me. Not a consistent 30fps at all. I'm going to wait and see if they patch.

Finally after 8 years we got the witcher 3 e3 demo.

Man I’ve been waiting for this for a long time!!!

REALLY nice preview. Thanks, DF!

Very informative. Looking forward to Dec 14th.

I'm glad we are getting this as a free upgrade, but I would hope developers would also look into the possibility of having a mode operating with lower resolutions (1080p-1440p) w/ 60 fps and the benefits of RT GI, RT SSAO and SSR. I know lowering resolutions won't necessarily give it enough headroom for this to be possible without further optimizations, but It's something that I think a lot of players would appreciate, especially as advancements with these reconstruction techniques like FSR allow for a higher final image quality even while rendering in a lower internal resolution. Anyway, great job covering this upgrade early!

The ray tracing is nice, but being able to finally play this at 60fps is the real treat to me!

You guys would be the ones to ask.. so just downloaded the upgrade.. started it, and game seemed off.. I checked settings and the Ray tracing mode was on.. I have a 1080ti… Does this game allow you to emulate RT? I know they claim DX12 has some sort of RT for the GTX cards.

Tom is best reviewer! Love his style and details!

So glad to hear that the PC version is getting ray traced reflections and shadows as this was not mentioned in the announcement. The console versions look like a fantastic service to this masterpiece as well. Appreciate the coverage!

I remember how this game touched my soul in 2015. Can’t wait to finally finish the DLC.

The PC version is a stuttering mess. Kindly release a best settings video.

I didn't expect this video to come out so early, really nice

This is going to be amazing to see in person, cant wait to finally play in 60fps on ps5

I really hope we get a 40 fps option for the ray tracing mode.

The music alone makes you wander for hours... Absolute Masterpiece

Am I the only one having pretty annoying performance issues in RT mode on ps5… there are so many frame hitches or just flat out bad frame pacing and it’s very very noticeable. I’m shocked I haven’t seen anyone talking about it

Really hope they manage to add a performance RT mode one day

Man I wish we could play ray tracing at 60fps

The only missing game missing the touch-up treatment is Witcher 2 now. It still holds up remarkably well graphically. It's my favourite in the series for many reasons, but there are so many issues technical issues with it to this day that I hope CDPR revisits in the (hopefully) near future.

3:35 is the best comparison. A dramatic difference around that hut.

I just replayed this game in its entirety over this last summer, so I won't be picking it up again for some time. I've got nearly 300 hours logged across two playthroughs. Witcher 3 Wild Hunt was in 2015 and is still now my absolute favorite game of all time. What a masterpiece. The new trilogy will have some monumental shoes to fill.

Great video guys! Hopefully they will update the FSR version to 2.2 in a later update

Where's the final tech review guys

Tenho 79 horas no jogo e não tinha terminado ainda, bora retomar essa história!

I was worried it wouldn't be much of an upgrade, but wow this looks nice! Finally time to replay this gem. Would've liked to see PC footage with all the RT settings on, that's the way I'm gonna try playing it. Hope the performance is up to snuff.

The raytraced mode’s reflections on water are neat, but I’m not crazy about the sort of lighter color edges on bodies of water that harshly end at the shoreline. Looks like we’ll also lose the sense of transparency when Garalt is swimming. It was neat to be able to see what was below him. Also, am I crazy, or does the medallion on his chest look softer (though less aliased) in the new version at 8:30?

Eagerly waiting for the pc version analysis

Looking forward to the PC comparison with current-gen high-end hardware.

Nice 🙂 I have this on PlayStation and haven't played it yet so looking forward to a play through now Cheers CDProjekt 👍

The game is currently $10 for the complete edition on Steam, seems like a good time to grab it!

No info on what resolution it's actually running at for each console?!

I can't be the only one noticing the foliage not swaying nearly as much in the wind in the new version? Hope they didn't scale this back, I loved it.

The new camera angle significantly reduces the field of view, so if we stick to the original camera view then will that affect performance?

Can you still play the OG version of the game on PC after this update releases or will it just force you onto the new version?

Just tried it on PC. The update have bugs and my controls stop working. After that in random death the game froze and I couldn't press anything. The support is useless, they just told me to start an new game, the old save should work too, nonsense.

While it took a long time I’m super happy with how this looks and the fact that it’s free is even better. Glad to see CDPR doing something nice for the fans of the witcher series

It looks like they’ve removed the exaggerated swaying trees in the wind? Is that true? They seem very static on the new version. It would be a huge shame cause those weird wiggly trees were interesting

Question, will they add VRR support for this game?

I’ve only ever played maybe 5-10 hours MAYBE of this game since release .. it’s really worth buying and playing through?

The fact they aren't letting people see the Series S version is concerning.

It's been over 7 years... and I still remember the Witcher 3 like I played it yesterday for the first time :)) I am really amazed this upgrade/patch will be free if you own the Witcher 3 already... They could have easily said 10£ DLC upgrade or something like that. Reaaaaly looking forward to this! Can't wait to play it again on the PC with all RT goodies!

Does vrr work for the series x in ray tracing mode with low framerate compensation?

excited to play this for the first time! Been holding out since I knew it was coming.

Great video as always! Hoping another for the PC version? :D

Did they fix the fall damage though so Gerald doesnt lose half his health from 1m height? Asking the important questions.

Is it me but the foliage and trees in the new version is super static compared to the movement in the old version.

At 8:24, are the 2 videos mislabeled? The left one looks nicer, but it's labeled One X, while the right video is supposedly the Series X version. I mean, look at the hair difference! Maybe it's video compression...I'm really not sure. Shots right after it look better, i.e. 8:45 or 8:53.

Glad to see that FSR is being adopted by an increasing number of titles on console. With DLSS off the table, it looks like one of the best alternatives to TAA/TAAU for most games. I assume they're using FSR Quality mode as with Cyberpunk, so the benefits are mostly towards visuals rather than performance.

Four ray traced effects on PC is really impressive. I think only Control and Dying Light 2 achieve that and the latter looks absolutely stunning in motion. Glad they added FSR, though DLSS would also be nice.

any guess on PC recommended settings? I hope that my 3060 ti will run well with rt on.

Can you invert the camera controls without it inverting target selection while fighting a group of enemies and using Target Lock On?

Absolutely love it. Now remaster Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight next 🙏🏼

Looking forward to this, when I was younger I rushed through the game bc I had a bad habit of trying to cram in as many hours of gaming as I could and get as much progress as I could done before school and after every school day. Now that I’m in a relationship and got adult responsibilities/more patience I can play the game at a healthy pace

Does it still have the old camera mode? I prefer the centre position of the old camera.

DigitalFoundry I have a question! How should I understand the creators' approach to the nextgen version? I play Jedi Fallen Order and 60fps mode where the image is blurry, Witcher 3 in 60fps looks sensational. Jedi is a linear game and Witcher is a huge open world. EA vs CDP. EA makes a game for money and CDP makes a game for fans? It looks. DF how to understand such graphics optimization? Is EA that lazy?

I bought the game in 2016. I will finally be able to play it on my PS5. This game deserves to be played at 60FPS.

Thank you CDPR for giving out the next gen versions early for review and thank you for making the upgrade free!

I've never played it b4 but own it. It is in my backlog. So should I play 30FPS Ray Tracing or 60FPS Performance mode? Also do they have an unlocked 60FPS that tries to hit 120FPS with VRR/ALLM like God of War Ragnarok?

Are the Ultra+ settings only on PC or are they implemented in the performance or quality mode in ps5, does anybody know?

To be honest, it is hard to spot any meaningful difference between the two modes. Imo, ray tracing is not worth the performance hit. Instead, I'm really looking forward to a global lighting system like in UE5. That will likely make a way bigger impact on general image quality than just ray tracing.

Can't wait to see how it performs in my new rtx 3060! I know it ain't much but I hope that with some optimization in the settings I can get it to run at 60fps/1080p with some ray tracing options enabled

Is there a way to change it back? I wanna switch between the two and see which I like more through my own gameplay

What i want to see is how they deal with interior lighting. Will they go the Metro path by removing GI probes ?

Still in the hope for a 1080p Ray Tracing mode at 60 fps :(

Water in old version looks so much better as I can see so far. It has that beautiful greeny-glass look near the shore with nice transparency. The 'next-gen" looks... blurry, with no waves and transparency variety and strange glowing along the edge. Though the new one looks better from the long distance.

In what mode do you recommend playing it? If performance or in Ray tracing mode?

Seems to be that the reworked foliage has no wind affecting it? In most of the comparisons the shrubs and trees are not moving in the new version while the original release is all moving in unison to the wind effects. Wheat is the only one that I can see that is still moving in the new version. It could be because it was not windy at the time of recording in-game but I also don't remember it ever stopping being windy in the original so I'm not to sure.

They still haven’t fixed hair physics on Geralt at 60 fps. If you compare them with raytracing mode (30 fps) they move and bounce much more believably. There’s a mod on Nexus which actually fixes that. I was hoping that this issue will be fixed with the Next gen patch.

I'm stunned to find they still haven't fixed the horse hair glitch haha. Honestly, all this amazing work and one of _the_ most obvious glitches is left in?! So bizarre. Hopefully someone from CDPR sees this and flags it. Honestly, it just shows developers probably don't even play their own games - they'd know this was massively prevalent if so. I'm permanently stuck with the Skellige armor 🤣

Is there are VRR (disable frame limit or 40fps) on RT mode exist?

Digital foundry what is this at 10:40 Did you accidentally show the Xbox one version in that side by side

I preordered the game when it first came out and it instantly became my favorite game of all time. I have never been captivated and immersed into a game in the way the Witcher 3 did for me. I never played the DLC so im going to do a full play through again and im so excited.

The raytracing looks so good. I can't wait to see more PC footage though

I hate having to choose between RT and 60 fps in all these damn games. I can't go back to looking at 30 fps after seeing a game at 60, it makes my eyes hurt, but I want my games to look their best

How about comparing the unupdated series x to the original version maxed out on PC? I am guessing the differences will be minimal

a Ray Tracing mode comparison between fan made mod & CDPR's version would be interesting.