No PS4 Pro Patch For The Witcher 3

[Steven Bogos]

No PS4 Pro Patch For The Witcher 3

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The Witcher 3 won't look any prettier on the PS4 Pro.

The The Witcher 3 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/168347-PlayStation-4-Pro-Unveiled] will not be receiving a PS4 Pro patch.

"Since we want to fully focus on Cyberpunk 2077 and Gwent, 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 [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-09-19-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-will-not-support-playstation-4-pro-features].

But surely it wouldn't be that much work, given that the game already runs at 4K on PC? Well, the problem isn't with simply up-scaling everything to 4K, but having the world look good to. The game uses medium-to-high quality textures on console, whereas on PC, textures scale all the way up to ultra. While the PS4 Pro is more powerful than the PS4, it's not nearly as powerful as a mid-to-high end gaming PC, so it's a little harder to get a proper balance, and isn't as easy as simply flipping a switch.

Sony has stated that all new games released after October must support 4K resolution and HDR, but there is no such stipulation for games that have already been released.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-09-19-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-will-not-support-playstation-4-pro-features]

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[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Considering the base game has issues on consoles, I am not surprised that CD want to focus on their new titles instead of re-coding the wheel just for PS4 Pro users.

 

[Xorph]

Let it be forever known that you typo'd up "perttier" and "hwardware" and didn't catch either in editing.

OT: Does this mean the game will gain a stability boost as far as maintaining framerate is concerned, since it'll be running the same settings on better hardware? Or will it just not be able to take advantage of the boosted hardware at all without some sort of patch?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

They could at least try to give the PS4 Pro players more fps. At least 40.

 

[Joccaren]

Let it be forever known that you typo'd up "perttier" and "hwardware" and didn't catch either in editing.

OT: Does this mean the game will gain a stability boost as far as maintaining framerate is concerned, since it'll be running the same settings on better hardware? Or will it just not be able to take advantage of the boosted hardware at all without some sort of patch?

Likely would see some stability increase. Better hardware is better hardware, and should be able to handle framerate dips better through sheer brute force.
They might be able to scrounge out more stability from re-programming it to better fit the new hardware, and if drivers are different between new and old hardware you could potentially see some level of non-framerate related stability issues. You also might not.


OT: Eh, to be expected, and honestly a bit of me is a little happy consoles are starting to get the full same treatment as PCs; Nah, not worth the extra effort for ya. Not our biggest priority right now. Now all we need is new PS4 games being released with "Upscaled" 4K and no different from the Xbox One version and I'll be laughing.

In any case, I don't expect many games to do an update to 4K for the PS4 Pro. Its a console that, in all likelihood, will have limited ownership, the cost of properly updating to 4K is not cheap, and the majority of the given game's income will have already been acquired in most cases. I think it'd be more news that a game was updating to 4K for the Pro, rather than the other way around, but hey, Witcher 3 was a big game. I guess some people may have mistakenly believed a patch would come.

 

[Alma Mare]

Can't fault them for that. This whole segmenting of consoles is beyond idiotic. A dev can't be expected to port to every iteration of the damn things Sony and Microfosot decide to fart out.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Yeah, it makes sense not to buy into Sony's bullshit marketing decisions. Keep working on that cyberpunk game, the Witcher 3 has been more than sufficiently supported post release anyway.