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Witcher 3 Blood and Wine

Update June second @ 3:52pm: Now that The Witcher 3's 2d expansion has been out in the wild for a few days, nosotros finally accept a feel for how it performs on consoles. While information technology should become without saying that neither the Xbox One nor the PS4 concur up against the PC, Claret and Wine nevertheless manages to outperform the original release.

Digital Foundry analyzed a few hours of gameplay, and institute that the resolution situation on the consoles remains unchanged. The PS4 renders the game at a full 1080p, simply the Xbox I is typically stuck at a slightly blurrier 900p. The visual effects and textures appear largely indistinguishable between the two versions, but the difference in frame rate is noticeable.

Both consoles experience a brief 15fps drop early on in the DLC, only that seems to be an isolated issue with asset streaming. Afterwards that, the frame rate becomes much more stable. The PS4 version stays locked at 30fps the vast majority of the time, but occasionally drops a frame or ii. On the other hand, the Xbox One version spends significantly more time jumping effectually in the 28-30fps range in busier parts of the urban center, and can drop equally low as 26fps in some gainsay scenarios. These versions aren't perfect, but at to the lowest degree nosotros're not seeing the same level of prolonged operation issues witnessed in parts of Wild Chase.

I spent virtually four hours playing the PS4 version of the game earlier this week, and I was thoroughly impressed by what I saw. It'south no surreptitious that the primary game struggled on consoles at launch, just the overall feel with Blood and Wine has been a cutting above. I've noticed a few glitches here and there with the game'south collision detection, merely certainly naught game-breaking. With a gorgeous new setting, solid performance, and a drastically improved UI (thanks to the latest patch), I've very much enjoyed returning to one of the best games of 2015.

Our original post follows below:

It'southward been a adept year for Geralt of Rivia. The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt was released to critical acclaim and massive financial success in May of 2015, and the Hearts of Stone expansion received similar praise just five months later. Blood and Wine, The Witcher three's concluding expansion, is finally available, and it's impressive in every way. Not only does it offer dozens of hours of high quality monster slaying adventures, but early on reports say it looks and performs meliorate than the base game itself.

Based on 29 aggregated reviews, the PC version of Blood and Wine currently has a metascore of 92/100 on Metacritic. At our sis site IGN, the PC version received a 9/10 for its rich storytelling, vibrant new scenery, and clever improvements to the combat upgrade system. Unfortunately, it seems that the panel versions of the game weren't widely available for review alee of the official release.

Hearts of Stone delivered around x hours worth of content set in the same locations as the primary campaign. The lite-hearted story and new Runeword system combined to make the first expansion stand out as some of the all-time content in the entire series. Because that Claret and Vino has armor customization, an all-new setting, and roughly 25 hours of content, this new $20 expansion gives Witcher fans exactly what they crave — ane last exciting adventure with Geralt.

There's no denying that Toussaint, a new in-game location inspired by the south of French republic, showcases CD Projekt RED'south incredible fine art direction. Only there's more going on here than appealing architecture and high saturation greenery. In an interview with Eurogamer, a member of the evolution team explains that the expansion will do good from new optimizations that improve the visuals while reducing the overall number of draw-calls.

The PC version of the game seems to be running well, just the console versions haven't been given a thorough workout merely yet. The day-1 release of The Witcher three didn't run peculiarly well on either console, but a series of patches take improved the operation significantly over time. The developers seem confident that the optimizations will help the console versions of Blood and Wine hold up nether CPU strain, so let's go along our fingers crossed for a rock-solid 30fps.

Keep in heed, these optimizations merely utilize to the new environments. Since the developers "literally started from scratch" for this DLC, there are underlying improvements in play here that would require substantial work to backport them to the original game. CD Projekt RED hasn't ruled out a remastered version of the game, just information technology's far from guaranteed.

The beginning two Witcher games received enhanced edition patches, so a major update isn't out of the question. With all of these rumblings of a mid-bicycle refresh, a remastered version of the game with a 60fps target would be ideal for console gamers. And if the PC version of the game gets closer to the "pre-downgrade" demo, all the meliorate.