I feel such updates are nice, but not sure how meaningful it will be. The reason is because I would think that most people may not replay the game since its released so many years ago. People who own it may go back to try out the new eye candies, but it will not keep them in the game for long. Also, the enhancements may require beefier PC requirements, which not everyone's PC may meet.
I sunk about 400 hours into Witcher 3 and I'll do the same with this version.
Between the updates by CDPR and more updates on top of it by modders there is just so much to do and see...
This is why CDPR had/has a very loyal fanbase. Witcher 2 was completely overhauled for the 360 because of that it was also crazily optimized which allowed them to fold all that back into PC. They also changed content to make it better and they changed the combat system too.
Then Witcher 3 comes along and it's simply amazing. They charged a more then fair price for the expansions and unlike other games these days each of those expansions had enough content for an entire game.
They also put out smaller content updates all the time. They added quests, complete storylines, replaced some dialog with better VO. Performance enhancements, ai enhancements, combat tweaks... The list goes on and on.
Then cyberpunk... Yes a stain on a perfect reputation going back more years than people think. I thought it was ridiculous that people "lost faith" in CDPR for 1 game, especially when some of the issues were creations of their own hype and made up in their heads... They never claimed it was cyberpunk GTA 5 with rpg elements but that's clearly what people expected.
Now the game launched badly unless you had an ultra high end PC and even then it was buggy but not nearly as bad as 99% of people experienced.
The thing is they had no choice. They were being forced by investors to not only launch before years end but also launch on the last gen machines and trying to stuff that game onto consoles that were essentially low end 9 year old laptops was a joke. Surely they wasted a vast majority of time on that instead of important things. So every version suffered.
I knew they would fix it. I didn't lose faith. I also knew that in order to play at 4k with settings I wanted my 3080ti FTW3 Ultra wasn't going to cut it but the 4090 I'm about to install in like 15 min will. I'll likely sell it when the 7950xtx launches around July and if not then definitely when the RDNA4 based 8000 series launches since that's the uarch that will surpass nVidia for less money.
Anyway my tangent aside...
We give companies who release much lesser games chance after chance (hello Ubi, ea, Activision) we saw people explode at CDPR for their first game that wasn't good... But here we are now and it's fantastic and they said no more updates until the expansion but they have updated it like 5 times since then and that was like a month and a half ago.
So they deserve gamers faith. Gog is still great, cyberpunk continues to improve and now has with cross platform saves and so will the FREE upgrade to arguably one of the best RPG's in history.
They didn't need to revamp Witcher 3 but they are because that's who THEY are. They are us. They are also remaking the original because it's so clunky from age. Pretty sure they are gonna do 2 as well and both will be UE5. SO let's pray epic fixed the shader compilation issue from ue4 that caused so much stutter. In so many games.
The Witcher series is the best franchise of all times (or it was before Netflix ruined it). The games are classics that I always return to. This time, I'm gonna wait for the official UE5 remake of the first game before my next return.
The Witcher 2 was a bit of a flop for the same reason as the Netflix series is: it tried to cater to a wider audience with a more general attitude to the story and the world. Luckily, it still was witchery enough to be a good game, albeit the weakest of the series in my opinion. I still love it like I love the rest of the series. The Netflix show on the other hand... let's not even go there.
The Witcher 2 was not a flop lol. It sold well on PC. Then it was completely revamped for xbox360 and then for PC and both those sold extremely well too...
Witcher 3 was entirely funded by sales of 2
)
It's a great game, and I love it like I love the rest, but I consider it the weakest of the series because of its not-so witchery main plot, and more generic attitude towards everything.