The Witcher 3 PC patch released – maybe now my laptop will stop screaming at me

Following the rocky launch of the next-gen update, The Witcher 3’s devs have patched the game for PC users to address some of the game’s performance issues.

If you’re one of the bummed-out Witcher fans whose PCs totally buckled under the pressure of its next-gen update, you’re not alone. I booted up the seven-year-old game in the hopes of some buttery-smooth reworked graphics, and all I got was the computerized version of an aggressive middle finger. Yes, by that, I mean my laptop absolutely decked it.

Developer CD Projekt RED (CDPR) saw our pain and has released a patch for Steam and EA Play copies of the beloved fantasy RPG. Announced via the game’s official Twitter (opens in new tab), CDPR’s PC hotfix “should improve the overall stability and performance, and fix GOG & Steam overlays.”

This is a huge relief, since the game has been virtually unplayable for me since the update launched. All I wanted was some juicy fixed fall damage – yes, even as a trade-off for the broken mods – and that dream might become a reality with this patch.

Toss a coin to this fixer

Whether you’re the proud owner of one of the best gaming laptops on the market or are an ardent believer that your 2018-era graphics card works perfectly fine, thanks very much, The Witcher 3’s next-gen update saw the rise of many issues across all platforms.

It seems that PC players have shouldered the brunt of the performance issues, with gamers finding the frames-per-second to be subpar, even for those high-end laptop owners, and with lags aplenty despite the lowered graphics resolution and ray-tracing turned off, the gameplay still felt sluggish at best. 

Anyone facing problems was originally advised (opens in new tab) to update their drivers and, failing that, revert to an earlier version of the game. This would patch the game back to its last updated version from 2016, which has none of the next-gen update changes implemented and exists as an unsupported version of The Witcher 3.

Thankfully, we PC users might not have to make that sacrifice after all. The graphics overhaul and ray-tracing offered by the next-gen update is really just the tip of the iceberg; TRG’s Hardware Editor Aleksha McLoughlin even comments on how is even a bit of a nuisance on her PS5. I’ve never really cared much for ray-tracing in games anyway; just please let me pet Roach and tell him what a good boy he is before I fling my HP Pavillion out the window.