{"id":117576,"date":"2020-09-04T21:25:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/369583"},"modified":"2020-09-04T21:25:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T21:25:00","slug":"the-witcher-3s-next-gen-debut-promises-free-upgrade-for-current-gen-owners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/09\/04\/the-witcher-3s-next-gen-debut-promises-free-upgrade-for-current-gen-owners\/","title":{"rendered":"The Witcher 3&#8217;s next-gen debut promises free upgrade for current-gen owners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Witcher 3<\/em> is joining the growing list of games that plan to bridge the generational gap, and notably the 5-year-old title isn\u2019t charging current-gen owners a penny to upgrade to the next-gen version.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>CD Projekt Red <a href=\"https:\/\/thewitcher.com\/en\/news\/32792\/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-is-coming-to-the-next-generation\">announced today<\/a> that it\u2019s working on an upgraded version of <em>The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt <\/em>that brings the game to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X generation with some added visual and technical improvements.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to promises of ray tracing and faster loading times for the base game and expansions alike, CDPR has also revealed that the souped-up next-generation version will be a free upgrade for anyone that already owns the game on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or even PC.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Even half a decade&nbsp;after its release, <a href=\"https:\/\/gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/369517\/With_profit_and_revenue_on_the_rise_CD_Projekt_heaps_praise_on_The_Witcher_3.php\"><em>The Witcher 3 <\/em>remains a top earner for CD Projekt<\/a>. While its possible the November launch of CDPR&#8217;s <em>Cyberpunk 2077<\/em> will finally dethrone <em>The Witcher 3<\/em> in terms of revenue, this announcement gives the saga a chance to push forward even after players start transitioning over to new Xbox and PlayStation consoles later this year.<\/p>\n<p>More and more studios are announcing next generation overhauls for their current generation (or, in the case of <em>Grand Theft Auto V,<\/em> last generation) games as we near the Holiday 2020 new console debut. In some cases, studios are moving forward with pay-to-upgrade or even free upgrade pathways for those re-releases, though some studios like <em>Control<\/em> dev Remedy Entertainment have received some criticism over the announced upgrade requirements (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/8\/12\/21364797\/control-free-ps5-xbox-series-x-smart-delivery-digital-update-ultimate-edition\">The Verge)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Witcher 3 is joining the growing list of games that plan to bridge the generational gap, and notably the 5-year-old title isn\u2019t charging current-gen owners a penny to upgrade to the next-gen version.&nbsp; CD Projekt Red announced today that it\u2019s working on an upgraded version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that brings the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}