GERALT RELOADED

The big new update for THE WITCHER 3 adds to an RPG that's aged beautifully

- Wes Fenlon 

A year after CD Projekt Red released The Witcher 2, the studio followed with the Enhanced Edition, an enormous update with the patch notes to prove it. A 102 item changelog detailed everything from corrected item descriptions to "fixed reverb in sewers in Chapter 3", on top of a lengthy list of more substantial additions: new quests, cinematics and ending sequences. A fledgling CD Projekt had done the same thing with the first Witcher in 2008, and though I can't find it online, I swear I once pored over a multi-page PDF describing every change made to that first adventure. I don't know if any developer is more committed to documenting the minutia of changes to a massive game (other than Bay12 Games with Dwarf Fortress, which is in a league of its own).

"Even for Cyberpunk, this is something that hasn't really changed," says communications director Robert Malinowski. "We don't abandon games. The Enhanced Edition of The Witcher was made for a reason, as well. It was a game that was good, but it could've been better." The Witcher 3, which I was playing as I talked to Malinowski about CD Projekt's first RPG, was more than good. It was a masterpiece in 2015, and made better by a year of updates and expansions. It never officially got its Enhanced Edition, though, and I wish CD Projekt had used the name here, for old time's sake. Because The Witcher 3's next-gen update is much more than a sparkly coat of ray tracing.

LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT