The Witcher 3 Will Not Have PS4 Pro Update

While The Witcher III: Wild Hunt received a Complete Edition recently, the game will not be patched to support additional graphical tweaks on the PlayStation 4 Pro. Sony's updated console comes out on November 10, 2016 and a number of publishers and developers are updating their games to support 4K and high dynamic range (HDR) color on the system. According to CD Projekt Red, the studio is focused on Cyberpunk 2077 and Gwent instead.

"Since we want to fully focus on Cyberpunk 2077 and Gwent [standalone game], and converting The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from a full HD game into a 4K one [on console] would be too much of a time and resource-consuming process, we decided not to release an edition of Wild Hunt supporting the new features of PlayStation Pro," CDPR told Eurogamer.

Many multiplatform games already have assets that can work at 4K resolution, but on consoles the Witcher III uses medium-to-high textures. On PC, those textures scale all the way up to Ultra settings. CD Projekt Red would have to move those assets over to the PlayStation 4 version and then test that build extensively prior to release. In essence, it really isn't worth the time for a game that the studio has put to bed.

Whether other developers follow suit is up in the air. Vice Gaming has found that many publishers aren't interested in doing Pro mode patches for their older games. Vice spoke to Blizzard, Konami, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Bandai Namco, all of whom declined to comment or actively said their older titles wouldn't have Pro support. Expect Pro to be more useful for developers and publisher moving forward, not backward.