The Witcher 3 update 4.02 has been released by CD Projekt Red. The update arrives three months after The Witcher 3’s first next-gen update, as the developer works to iron out any remaining bugs. Although many players experienced technical issues with The Witcher 3’s next-gen update on PC, it was generally well-received by the community. It gave one of the most beloved RPGs of all time a huge visual upgrade, and it, along with The Witcher TV series, drove a huge surge in interest in the franchise as a whole.
Many surprises awaited long-time Witcher 3 players, with many appreciating the extra effort that had gone into the free update when it could have simply been a port.
The new Witcher 3 update 4.02 patch was announced on The Witcher’s website, and it appears to be mostly made up of small fixes. When The Witcher 3’s next-gen update was released, it caused some performance issues with the game, and some of the PC-specific fixes appear to be aimed at resolving those issues.
The addition of ray tracing appears to be a major issue for many players. Real-time ray tracing is a relatively new technology for developers to work with, and hopefully, it will become easier to optimise as developers gain experience with it.
The Witcher 3 update 4.02 Patch Notes
PC-SPECIFIC
- Improved CPU core utilization in the DX 12 version.
- Restored horizon-based ambient occlusion. Players who had previously turned Ambient Occlusion off will need to do so again. You can find it in Options → Video → Graphics.
- Fixed an issue where the “My Rewards” section was not localized in REDlauncher.
- Fixed an issue with a flickering landscape in Toussaint that occurred when NVIDIA HairWorks was disabled.
- Fixed an issue related to particle optimization which could result in temporary stuttering.
CONSOLE-SPECIFIC
- Improved Performance Mode on next-gen consoles.
- Fixed an issue where characters could become slightly blurry during dialogues and cutscenes on PlayStation 5.
- Fixed an issue related to memory usage in Ray Tracing Mode which could result in crashes on Xbox Series X.
- Whatsoever a Man Soweth… – The game will no longer crash if Geralt runs away from Shani after starting the conversation on next-gen consoles.
- Fixed an issue where quicksaves couldn’t be loaded when using cross progression on Xbox One.
- Added two missing “Top notch swords!” on previous-gen consoles.
- Fixed an issue with overwriting manual saves where in some circumstances the oldest gamesave was deleted on PlayStation 5.
- Addressed performance issues in Beauclair and Novigrad that occurred after loading a gamesave.
VISUAL – PC and Next-Gen Exclusive
- Improved immersion of water appearance by adding refraction to SSR and ray-traced reflections.
- Fixed a visual issue with brick textures where black artifacts covered stone arches.
- Added a Motion Blur slider. It can be found in Options → Video → Graphics.
QUESTS & GAMEPLAY – Available on all platforms
- Battle Preparations – Fixed the lack of a dialogue option that would progress the quest during the objective “Let Avallac’h know everything’s ready.”
- Reason of State – Fixed an issue where the door to the warehouse could become permanently locked if the player knocked, entered and then immediately left the building.
- Scavenger Hunt: Cat School Gear Upgrade Diagrams Part 1 – Fixed an issue where the quest could stay active even after the diagrams were looted.
- Fixed an issue where trying to start a New Game+ on an incompatible save would block the player from starting the expansions in standalone mode until the game was restarted.
LOCALIZATION – Available on all platforms
- Fixed an issue with the Korean localization of Ciri’s and Geralt’s Gwent card descriptions.
- Fixed punctuation issues in Arabic localization.
- Updated Traditional Chinese font.
It’s been over a month since the last Witcher 3 update, which was first teased in late January. As with this, 4.01 was a minor update that primarily addressed performance issues, with many users still experiencing issues as a result of the next-generation update. With the Witcher 3 update 4.02 update still being rolled out across all platforms, it remains to be seen how effective these fixes are this time around.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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