With Blood and Wine, the final major expansion for The Witcher 3, set for imminent release on PS4, Xbox One and PC, a major update is releasing today in preparation of the expansion. There are some significant gameplay and interface changes to give the game a final bit of polish in what is CD Projekt Red’s sendoff to the genre defining game that took home numerous game of the year awards. The patch notes are as follows.

The Witcher 3 Update 1.20 Notes

Improvements

• Adds book titled ‘A Miraculous Guide to Gwent’ which displays number of gwent cards missing from player’s base-game collection and information on where to find them, thus facilitating completion of achievement titled Collect ‘Em All. Tome in question can be obtained either from gwent playing scholar in Prologue or from merchant near St. Gregory’s Bridge in Gildorf district of Novigrad.
• Adds option to display herb names above available interactions.
• Adds option in Options/Gameplay to enable enemy level upscaling. If foes are too easy to defeat due to level difference, upscaling will render them a challenge. Change will not affect experience point gain, loot, or quest rewards. Option can be enabled or disabled at any time, even during combat (however, Vitality/Essence of foes is then fully restored).
• Adds option in Options/Gameplay to disable automatic drawing and sheathing of sword.
• Increases incidence of, and thus chances of finding, several monster-based ingredients required for crafting high level alchemy formulae.
• Improves Player Statistics panel, adding maneuverable Geralt model. Improves visuals in panel for better readability.
• Adds new functionality to books and scrolls. When first collected, they can be read immediately using single button without need of navigating to Inventory panel. All found but not yet read books and scrolls are stored in Quest Items and Other categories. Once read, books and scrolls can be sold as their content is saved in Books section of Glossary.
• Improves overall visuals in Character Development panel.
• Improves Inventory whereby items are divided into additional subcategories within their grids: weapons and armor; oils, potions and bombs; quest items and others; food and equestrian gear; crafting and alchemy. Additionally, introduces redesign of tooltips enabling their resizing with single button. Also, item comparison is easier than ever given addition of summary of changes in stats.
• Improves Inventory navigation when using gamepad. Slots are divided into sections and right stick can be used to jump between them.
• Improves Crafting panel in merchant shops. Adds option to purchase missing diagram components directly from Crafting panel when talking to merchant, as well as clearer descriptions and option to resize item descriptions.
• Introduces redesign of Repair panel in merchant shops. Adds single button enabling players to repair all equipped items.
• Improves Remove Upgrade panel in merchant shops.
• Improves Quick Access Menu whereby it can be accessed in one of two modes, with action either paused or slowed depending on button used.
• Adds functionality whereby crossbow bolts can be switched via Quick Access Menu rather than being equipped from Inventory.
• Adds counter for bombs and crossbow bolts to Quick Access Menu.
• Improves region maps by adding pin filtering, more intuitive quest tracking, and a region overview for faster navigation.
• Adds three new custom pins allowing players to mark areas for future reference.
• Improves Adrenaline Bar which better displays number of stored Adrenaline Points and their status.
• Improves display and behavior of Buffs, displayed in more intuitive manner showing time left, strength percentage, stacks, charges, or permanence where applicable. Buff icons now blink for approx. 10 seconds before expiration. For improved visibility, names and exact expiration times for all effects are only visible when Quick Access menu is active.
• Changes icons for decoctions, rendering them recognizable at first glance.
• Changes icons for oils, rendering them recognizable at first glance.
• Changes gwent card icons in shops, rendering factions recognizable at first glance.
• Changes icons for mutagens.
• Adds feature whereby equipment exceeding player character level can be previewed on character.
• Improves sorting in Journal whereby active quest tab is always open and tracked quest is at top of quest list.
• Improves quest item visuals so that Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine quest items are now tagged with blue and red exclamation points, respectively.

Gwent

• Quest titled Collect ‘Em All is now marked as failed if player does not succeed in collecting Milva, Vampire Bruxa and Dandelion gwent cards during gwent tournament in quest titled A Matter of Life and Death.

Visual

• Fixes PC-specific issue whereby there was no change in appearance between Nvidia Hairworks 3-day beard (stage 2) and full beard (stage 4).
• Fixes issue whereby Geralt’s clothing was not properly restored after sex scenes.
• Fixes visual issue whereby guards holding torches would have inverse kinematics when animated.
• Fixes PS4-specific visual issue whereby texture of water puddles would not fade properly.

Gameplay

• Updates description of Superior Blizzard potion. Potion now slows time for a short period whenever an enemy is slain. Additionally, during this period actions do not deplete Stamina if 3 Adrenaline Points are available.
• Fixes issue whereby indicator for Oil charges would appear incorrectly in New Game Plus mode.
• Fixes issue whereby Flood of Anger skill could endlessly increase Sign intensity.
• Fixes issue whereby Ciri could be missing her scabbard in certain situations.
• Fixes issues whereby damage from Northern Wind bombs could be calculated incorrectly.
• Fixes issue whereby pool of experience points would invert to negative value when player reached level 70 cap or used Potion of Clearance.
• Fixes PC platform-specific issue whereby only the ‘E’ key would open Stash chest despite user manually changing relevant key binding

Additional fixes to the Hearts of Stone expansion are also included, as well as some other miscellaneous fixes to bugs and glitches that had popped up. The full minutiae for those changes can be found here.

Blood and Wine

The Blood and Wine expansion features 30 hours of new content and transports players to a brand new region which draws heavy influence from Europe’s idyllic wine country.

Welcome to the land of summer, a remote valley untouched by war. The land of wandering knights, noble ladies and magnificent wineries. What better time to visit than now, when this kingdom of virtue is torn apart by a series of savage massacres! Geralt of Rivia, a legendary monster slayer, takes on his last great contract. Blood and Wine offers over 30 hours of adventure, where beauty clashes with horror, and love dances with deceit.

The expansion features new quests, weapons, armor as well as new beasts for Geralt to slay. Checking in at 30 hours plus, the content is designed for players around level 34. As far as swan songs go, going out with your biggest expansion is a sure bet to leave a lasting imprint on players.

Summer is right around the corner, and wine country seems the perfect place to get away to. Saddling up with Geralt for the game’s final adventure? Let us know what you think in the comments!

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