The Witcher 3 - V4.0 - Checking out the next-gen visual update.

Season's Greetings Gamers

Back on December 12th, I happened to log into to the Steam store for the first time in months and was lucky to find a sale on The Witcher 3 - Game Of The Year Edition.

The sale timer only had around 3 hours left when I found it around lunchtime. I didn't waste any time and quickly snapped up this bargain paying only £6.99 instead of the full price of £34.99.

This is the first time I have tried playing The Witcher 3 on my PC. The last time I played the game was on a PS4 back in 2016.

I'm not much of a PC specifications geek but I had a look at the system info of this machine and it tells me I'm running an AMD Radeon HD 7800 series graphics card and Intel Core i5-4690s 3.20Ghx CPU .I also have 8 gigs on ram.

Before the latest patch, this system had no problem running the game on ultra-high graphics and still got decent frame rates using Fraps to record.

With the next-gen patch, the machine feels most comfortable on High graphics settings, Ultra, and the new Ultra+ drop the frame rates down below 10fps with fraps.

I guess PC users with high-end machines are really gonna see this game sparkle :).

So with the game booted up and running and recording smoothly, I went off to explore and gathered some footage and screenshots for this post.

I had initially planned to jump right into The Hearts Of Stone expansion as I have never seen any of that content before. Doing this starts Geralt out at lv 32 with a collection of gear and items that are appropriate for that level. We also start with 32 skill points to spend on abilities.

I found I couldn't kill the Toad Prince at the start of Hearts OF Stone with the current gear I have.I probably tried 50 times or so and even on the lowest difficulty setting, it still felt impossible with the gear you start with.

I decided before I head back into the Oxenfurt sewers to try and take out that big mean toad bastard I need better gear.A few extra levels and some better potions would hurt either.

My first thought was to do the quest line "Of Swords and Dumplings" in Oxenfurt which opens up the Elven swordsmith Hattori as a merchant.

The footage above and these screenshots come from part of that questline. The idea of capturing this footage was to show the hustle and bustle of the city streets with this shiny next-gen lick of paint.

Here we are outside of Hattori's workshop.I have always thought the visuals of the Witcher look like a moving oil painting. This has never been more true.Take a look at the buildings in the background, they are nothing short of awe-inspiring.

I prefer to walk slowly through the city streets taking in everything that is happening around me.It's been so long since I played this game I forgot just how immersive the environments are.

At this stage of the quest, we are recruiting a Skelliger named Farkus to act as Hattori's bodyguard and to help us steal supplies from a warehouse.Here we see Farkus brawling in the streets with his brother-in-law. You may also notice and be reminded that the Witcher series is not short of its hardcore curse words.... :).

Back in the tavern, we make a deal with Farkus, he wants us to smash his brother and laws supply of mead then he will help us.

This tavern experience is hands down the most immersive I have had in any RPG. There is so much conversation, and so many people going about their AI lives that its impossible not to become immersed and enchanted by the wonder of it all.

The tavern has a full band with music I could listen to for a good while.I was tempted to explore every nook and cranny of this place but while capturing footage I felt I should press on with the quest.I will however return here soon.

After completing the quest for Hattori I was pleased to find out we get a level-appropriate reward. The Steel sword's damage will increase with the player's level.It has 3 rune slots which makes it a huge improvement from the sword I started with.I also picked up a nice 2 slotted Silver sword ,a new crossbow and some exploding blots from Hattori making this quest well worthwhile at the start of this adventure.

Curious to find out if all the quests give level-appropriate gear I headed out to take on a Witcher Contract titled " Lord Of The Wood".This quest sees you track down a leshen that has killed some dwarven lumberjacks near a logging camp.

The quest had a recommended min level of 25. The monster itself was level 32 the same as Geralt and the reward was a lv 27 Relic sword that is still useful at this stage of the game. So I guess everything in this game scales to the player's level which is really cool and does a hell of a lot for replayability...I'm very impressed by this, it makes me want to do all of the older quests for gear,exp, and alchemy resources.

While heading back to the halfling who took out the contract to kill the leshen I was lucky enough to capture an epic thunderstorm.What better weather could I have hoped for to show of the new visuals?

Some of these shots inspire me to take a shot at recreating them with my paintbrush...

In this lakeside tavern we find the halfling who owns the logging camp and another highly immersive tavern environment.The perfect place to end this adventure and take shelter from the storm.

This taverns entertainment is better than the one in Oxenfurt :)

Geralt collects his reward from the halfling.

I spend some of the well-earned coin on ale and Geralt spends the rest of his evening enjoying the tavern's entertainment...

Hopefully, you guys enjoyed this first look at the next-gen patch.I will be covering more Witcher 3 content over the holiday season now that I finally have time to do some gaming.