CD Projekt Red rolled out patch 5.01 for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered on October 19, Eurogamer reported, led by adjustments to image sharpening and resolution on Nintendo Switch 2 intended to "improve visual clarity and fidelity". Eurogamer said those changes followed players reporting that the game looked blurry, particularly in handheld mode.
The patch also changes the game's lighting to reduce some of the brightness the Remastered edition introduced, which Eurogamer described as one of the main areas of contention since the release in late September. Similar lighting changes shipped in earlier patches for other console versions. The Remastered update overhauls the 11-year-old role-playing game, adding new animations and reworking systems including skills and enemy behaviour, ahead of the Songs of the Past expansion due next year.
What patch 5.01 changes
- Switch 2: image sharpening and resolution adjusted for visual clarity and fidelity
- Switch 2: a rare crash when changing between in-game regions is fixed
- Switch 2: cache handling optimised for Cross-Platform Mod Support
- Switch 2: HD Rumble no longer registers only in the left Joy-Con 2 when climbing ladders
- Switch 2: map pins can no longer be placed on the black bars around the map
Across platforms, the visuals and performance section lists adjustments to bloom, tone mapping, character lighting, ray tracing and path tracing, with bloom, light shafts and depth of field added as graphics settings. CD Projekt Red also lists general optimisations and a fix for visual artifacts that Dynamic Resolution Scaling could cause in certain configurations.
The gameplay fixes cover the "Automatically Apply Blade Oils" option only working when enabled during the current session, player-controlled boats moving uncontrollably and ignoring terrain collisions, delayed dodge responses, bombs being thrown while the option was disabled, incorrect values on the Synergy skill bonus, Geralt colliding with dead enemies after the Aard finisher, Vesemir repeating a line when Quen was cast repeatedly, and stamina draining fully when sprinting and dodging at once. Ladder interaction animations were improved and the Exploding Shield skill gained damage reflection.
Interface fixes address a stuck "You've gained an ability point!" pop-up, input hints flashing on the meditation screen, the potions tutorial failing to appear after the Consumables tab was opened, and misaligned progress bars. A console fix also lands for voiceover audio becoming much quieter than other audio after navigating the pause-menu tabs.
Elsewhere, the patch fixes an issue that could affect save-file data and adds measures for saves already affected, and restores My Rewards and Twitch and Bilibili drops to the chest in Vizima for players who had already opened it — a fix CD Projekt Red says may duplicate some items, which it tells players to treat as a bonus. Foliage now reacts to collisions, Ukrainian text localisation is available in all regions, and the policy consent screen reappears because of backend issues, so preferences have to be confirmed again.
