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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