After promising that a patch for The Witcher 3 would be coming “soon” to Nintendo Switch just before Christmas, Saber Interactive has now increased expectations beyond a simple minor update by saying that the forthcoming patch will be “definitely worth the wait.”
The tease was posted on Saber Interactive’s social page, in comments made under an article praising World War Z.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition was released on the Switch last October, and the challenging port was created deftly over at Saber, according to CEO Matthew Karch.
“One of the things we knew we had to change for Switch was how the engine calculates shadows from the sun. Shadows are obviously essential for creating a realistic look for huge outdoor levels, but the off-the-shelf solution was prohibitively expensive on Switch. We had to combine a blend of static shadowmap, terrain lightmap, and dynamic shadowmap to achieve a similar look to the original.
“In outdoor environments, foliage can make up about 50% of all the visuals. We had to rewrite the algorithm for how grass is generated and rendered. We also had to change (levels-of-detail for) trees, lighting, and shadows to keep the overall look and performance as close to the original as possible.”
It’s not clear what the patch will cover at this time, but some have speculated that new graphics options and a language pack might be key additonal features.
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