The Witcher 3 fans split into two camps: some complain about overly drastic combat changes, while others don't notice them at all

Improving something millions of players have already beaten inside and out is one of the most thankless jobs in game development. Changes either go unnoticed entirely or get noticed too well, and then your own fingers take the blame after years of drilling the same combo. Some players swear nothing changed at all, while others are dying to drowners for the tenth time.

That's how the free The Witcher 3 remaster from CD Projekt Red landed. A meme spread on Reddit claiming the promised combat improvements are nowhere to be seen, though its creator liked the remaster overall. The difference is there, it just hides in the details. Animations got faster and smoother, signs picked up new effects, Yrden is now easy to spot on the ground, and the DualSense delivers haptic feedback on every hit and even when the surface changes under Roach hooves.

The biggest change is enemy behavior. Against ghouls and drowners, a near-foolproof rhythm of "two fast attacks, dodge" used to work, since the monsters reliably met the third strike with a sidestep and a counter. Now enemies sometimes let a hit through, sometimes dodge, use unfamiliar moves, and drowners even back away from Geralt to regroup.

It hits hardest on the top difficulty. Newcomers who pick it from their first launch get stuck on the opening ghoul fight in White Orchard, and one admitted that after a dozen deaths he started wondering if he'd booted up Elden Ring. Veterans offer the usual advice: read the bestiary, apply the right oils, drink potions, and get decent gear as early as possible.

The new targeting system sparked the most debate. The old "sticky" soft lock has almost vanished, and without a hard lock, a strike goes wherever the stick or movement keys point, so Geralt easily slashes the air behind him. On PC, the fix lives in the "Gameplay" section, where players can bring back the standard combat system or turn off targeting with movement keys, though the new scheme has its fans too. One put it bluntly:

Now when I miss I know it's because of me, not because of some nebulous target lock.

Geralt has barely changed over the years, but the drowners seem to have taken a few fencing lessons after all.