Witcher 3 Remastered Keeps Saves, Resets Skills

Your old Witcher 3 save should survive the Remastered upgrade. Your skill layout will not. That's the practical detail I'd want to know before firing up a late-game Geralt on September 29: CD Projekt RED says the upgrade resets skill points and settings, then lets you allocate the points again.

The free upgrade is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. PC Gamer's September 28 launch guide puts the worldwide unlock at 10:00 UTC on September 29 (4:00 a.m. Mountain daylight time). It estimates a download of about 45GB and says there is generally no preload for existing installations, with Battle.net as an exception. I'd treat the download size as an estimate, since storefront and platform packages can differ.

Why the reset matters

CD Projekt RED's September 28 change list says skills now sit in a reorganized tree, have three ranks each, and require prerequisite skills to unlock. That is more than a new menu skin. If your current build depends on a particular Sign, alchemy, or combat combination, take a screenshot of it before the patch so you can reconstruct the idea under the new rules. Do not expect every point to land in exactly the old place.

The developer's save and achievement FAQ says existing saves should work, while settings reset too. Achievements and trophies carry over. I would still make a local backup of a long-running PC save before a large update, especially if I have used mods. A compatibility promise for the base game is not a promise that every third-party script will work after engine and UI changes.

What changes besides the lighting

There's plenty of visual work: reworked lighting, updated textures and foliage, native DirectX 12 rendering with multithreading, and ray-traced local shadows. PC players also get path tracing and support for Nvidia DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS 2.0. CD Projekt RED specifies FSR 4 for Radeon RX 7000-series and newer cards; unsupported GPUs fall back to FSR 2. Those options are useful, but a ray-tracing toggle is not a frame-rate guarantee for an older graphics card.

The gameplay changes are what I'd test first. Combat animations and some monster behavior have been revised, there are new camera options, and equipment can be Reforged to change its appearance without changing stats. That last feature is effectively transmog, but it requires master craftsmen Yoana or Hattori. You can unlock looks by collecting equipment and crafting diagrams. It is a reason to revisit a favorite set of armor without giving up a better stat roll.

Smaller additions may save more time over a long playthrough: you can pick up loot while mounted, group nearby loot into one window, filter some minimap clutter, and use a new control to disengage from combat. Photo Mode adds character placement, camera presets, weather and time controls. There is also a customizable accessibility preset called Bard's Ballad that can reduce mechanical friction for players who want to focus on the story.

Check your install before the update

CD Projekt RED warns that the PC system requirements have changed and recommends current graphics drivers. Steam's older 50GB storage listing explicitly says its requirements will change on September 29, so I would not use that old number as a final Remastered specification. Leave extra free space for downloading and patching rather than planning around the approximate 45GB transfer alone.

There's a new in-game cross-platform mod browser powered by mod.io, linked through a CD Projekt RED account. That gives mod authors another way to distribute work, but it does not certify the mods already in your load order. If you run a heavily modded PC installation, back up saves and the mod list, then check each mod author's update notes before loading the main save.

Owners of the base game also get Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine without an additional charge, according to the official FAQ. The Remastered upgrade applies within the same platform ecosystem; buying it on one store is not a universal license for every console and PC storefront. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One keep their previous-generation versions, although CD Projekt RED says those owners can download the two expansions for free.

My first session after the patch would be simple: launch a backed-up save, spend the returned skill points, check controls and graphics settings, then test a familiar fight before pushing on with a quest. The old story should be waiting. The way you built and tuned Geralt may need another pass.

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