The Witcher 3 Remastered adds several quality-of-life updates, including a new carriage system, area looting, mounted looting, improved tutorials, a modernized loot feed, and more changes designed to make Geralt's journey smoother.
The Witcher 3 Remastered's New Carriage, Combat Overhaul, and More Details Across Five Days of Gamescom Streams
A Carriage System Became One Developer's Personal Project
CD Projekt Red closed out gamescom 2026 with five straight days of REDstreams broadcasts, hours of live developer commentary covering The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered and its new expansion, Songs of the Past.
Per Day 1 of the stream, lead developer Moritz walked through his work on a new carriage and wagon mechanic, giving players an alternative way to travel besides riding Geralt's horse, Roach. It's a small addition next to the remaster's headline features, but the level of detail Moritz described treating it stood out as one of the stream's more personal moments, the kind of feature that doesn't make a trailer but clearly mattered to the person building it. That same day also touched on the game's monster sound design, with developers explaining how they blended human voice recordings into a new creature's audio to create a "half-monster, half-human" quality, and featured a reunion with Markus Pfeiffer and Oliver Schnelker, the German voice actors behind Geralt and Dandelion for over a decade.
New Songs of the Past Monsters Lean on Camouflage and Swarm Tactics
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Day 2 shifted focus to Songs of the Past's new region and its inhabitants, both human and otherwise. Developers detailed two new monster types: the Pirscher, an ambush hunter whose tail mimics its surroundings for camouflage and can be shed and regrown if attacked, and the Schwärmer, a fast, claw-wielding creature that rarely appears alone and can be summoned in groups by a commanding Swarmer Mother.
The same stream also dug into series regular Dandelion's backstory, revealing previously unexplored details about his noble family, including his grandmother, brother, and cousin, offering context for his wandering habits that longtime fans haven't seen covered before. Concept art shown during the stream also pointed to a notably darker, more gothic tone for the expansion's new region compared to the more idyllic areas typical of the base game.
Combat Gets a Smarter Camera, Better Targeting, and a New Chain Weapon
Combat changes were the throughline across multiple days, and Day 3's marathon Q&A session went deeply into its specifics. A new dynamic camera system automatically adjusts its zoom level during fights, aimed at fixing a longstanding frustration where players would get hit by enemies approaching from off-screen, particularly in group encounters. Alongside that, a higher-resolution gap-closing system determines how Geralt approaches enemies mid-attack, so he lands in the right position instead of overshooting or falling short, and target-switching in free-targeting mode has been made noticeably more responsive. The skill tree has also been rebalanced, with some previously overpowered builds toned down and new synergies added to reward deeper experimentation, while three new finisher animations round out the changes.
Day 1's stream also detailed an entirely new weapon for Songs of the Past: a chain that occupies the same equipment slot as the crossbow, built around crowd control rather than raw damage. It can swipe enemies away to create space, and aiming it slows down time to target visible weak points on enemy joints and limbs, similar to the crossbow's aiming system, though using it effectively costs adrenaline to keep it from feeling free. Landing a chain pull within the right timing window opens up a unique finisher on the pulled enemy.
The Switch 2 Version Isn't a Scaled-Down Port
Day 3 also brought developers from co-development studio Yigsoft on stream specifically to address the Nintendo Switch 2 release, and they were direct about one point: the Switch 2 version runs on the same textures and assets as every other platform rather than a reduced build made for weaker hardware. The platform does get its own exclusive additions, though, including motion-based horse riding patterns and gyroscopic aiming using the Joy-Cons, alongside path tracing, DLSS 4.5, and updated Nvidia HairWorks support. The same stream also confirmed cross-platform mod support built on Mod.io, letting players browse and install community-made mods directly in-game, a first for the series on console and handheld.
Horse handling also got attention across the streams: Day 4 detailed improved navigation that lets Roach automatically maneuver around obstacles like trees while galloping, backed by more advanced animation layering to make movement feel less stiff than in the original release.
Visual Effects, Photo Mode, and a Deliberate Sense of Restraint
Day 4's developers spent time explaining their overall philosophy for updating an 11-year-old game's look without losing what made it recognizable, describing the process at points as "revisiting a hometown" rather than a simple visual refresh. That restraint showed up directly in how Witcher Signs were redesigned: Igni, the fire-based Sign, was reworked to look and feel more grand and lore-accurate, while the team was careful not to let new particle effects or lighting technology push the game's tone away from what they described as its "dark folk, grounded" identity.
The same stream detailed a new Photo Mode capable of spawning props like torches and fireplaces and posing characters directly, alongside path tracing improvements and an updated Image-Based Lighting technique for players without ray-tracing hardware.
Loot, Tutorials, and Even Screenshots Got a Full Rework
Day 5 turned toward smaller quality-of-life systems that add up across a full playthrough. The remaster introduces area looting, letting players hold a single button to collect everything nearby at once instead of interacting with each item individually, alongside an option to disable item weight entirely. Players can also gather herbs and items without dismounting Roach, while a modernized loot feed features larger text and clearer icons. The loot window also lets players compare gear stats before deciding what to keep. The same stream revealed that the team rebuilt the game's tutorial sequences from scratch using a detailed spreadsheet tracking every tutorial moment, specifically to avoid overwhelming new players and account for Switch 2-specific inputs like motion controls and gesture-based prompts.
They also gave a rare look at two less-visible parts of development that same day. Localization director Mik Schwed discussed the ongoing balancing act of deciding which terms, like Gwent, should stay consistent across every language and which should be localized to feel more natural in each one. Meanwhile, developer Kira, described on stream as a Senior Engine Asset Specialist, revealed that creating a single official promotional screenshot, such as one of Geralt riding Roach, can take two to three weeks of work between setting up the environment, posing characters, and cleaning up asset clipping.
Throughout the week, CD Projekt Red also built fan interaction directly into the show floor, including a physical and digital notice board where visitors could leave messages for developers, and a QR code system that routed fan questions and feedback straight to the studio's Warsaw headquarters in real time.
Across five days of REDstreams, CD Projekt Red showed that The Witcher 3 Remastered goes beyond visual and combat upgrades, with changes ranging from travel and looting to tutorials, mod support, and the small details that shape how the game feels to play.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered releases September 29, 2026, as a free upgrade for existing owners on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
Sources:
REDstreams: On the Go! gamescom 2026 | Day 1 (YouTube)
REDstreams: On the Go! gamescom 2026 | Day 2 (YouTube)
REDstreams: On the Go! gamescom 2026 | Day 3 (YouTube)
REDstreams: On the Go! gamescom 2026 | Day 4 (YouTube)
REDstreams: On the Go! gamescom 2026 | Day 5 (YouTube)
