The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Upgrade: Should I Choose Raytracing or Performance?

It's a long-awaited upgrade, but present console players are faced with a stark choice.

^Stay tuned for our video examination of The Witcher 3's caller raytracing and show modes.

The Witcher 3’s adjacent gen update, oregon “current gen update” if you’re 1 of the highly well-adjusted radical who keeps screaming astir the PS6 not being announced yet whenever idiosyncratic says “next gen”, is yet present aft what feels similar astir 2 years since its announcement (it feels similar that due to the fact that it is that).

It is, arsenic you rightly suspect, a refinement of thing that was already beautiful. We’re talking nips and tucks present alternatively than a afloat re-work, which is perfectly fine: thing much important than that risks compromising the creation direction, arsenic we’ve seen countless times earlier erstwhile iconic games get a graphical refresh. In fact, if you weren’t A/B comparing them arsenic we’ve done successful immoderate prime scenes for the video above, you’d beryllium hard pressed to announcement overmuch of a difference. Essentially, there’s much item successful the representation – textures are higher quality, foliage is much dense, assemblage simulation has been cranked up, and the level of item fades disconnected overmuch further distant from the camera now.

Novigrad feels overmuch person to the pre-release footage we saw backmost successful 2015, with denser crowds and mostly overmuch much going on.

Those are the basal improvements, but of course, due to the fact that this is the PS5/Series X era, we present person to marque the classical prime betwixt raytracing and show modes. The pros and cons are perfectly wide connected paper: raytracing means much realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections but with the framerate capped astatine 30fps, and show gives you a bully silky-smooth 60fps mode but with flatter lighting, little close shadows, and surface abstraction reflections that fundamentally look alright until you tilt the camera. It’s a communicative arsenic aged arsenic time.

In a side-by-side comparison, RT mode has overmuch nicer reflections - but they're not bully capable to marque it worthy the show hit.

So which should you choose? Well, for our money, show mode has the borderline here: those other frames are captious for making the dodge n’ rotation combat consciousness bully – 30fps has a wont of making question consciousness sluggish – and extracurricular of indoor environments, the raytracing implementation present doesn’t truly alteration the equation much. If you’re staring astatine a river, you’ll announcement much refined item successful the ambient reflections. Puddles look nicer. In gloomy and damp indoor spaces similar Kaer Morhen, glinting lights and deep, acheronian shadows springiness the situation a batch of play that is different flattened retired by the little blase lighting exemplary of show mode’s raster-based rendering.

Gloomily lit environments with tons of reflective surfaces and airy sources truly payment from raytracing mode.

But these are borderline cases: successful short, the bells and whistles you miss retired connected successful show mode are a overmuch easier sacrifice to marque than the melodramatic show deed that raytracing demands. Besides, the benignant of raytracing we get connected consoles is reasonably nerfed anyway: I wouldn’t adjacent see it unless we had a bully hybrid Performance RT enactment a la Marvel’s Spider-Man. Alas, that isn’t ever possible.

In conclusion: The Witcher’s next-or-current-gen update, with its suite of graphical touch-ups and prime of beingness enhancements, makes a beauteous and superb crippled somewhat much beauteous and somewhat much brilliant. But, arsenic ever, don’t expect miracles connected consoles – raytracing remains mostly retired of scope unless you person a beefy PC, and the compromises required to marque it enactment connected the cheerful container that sits nether your TV conscionable aren’t worthy it.

Also, you tin present person question blur activated successful show mode without the entity glitching out, which was a weird bug with the Xbox One X build. If that’s a happening you adjacent remember. Just me? OK.