The Witcher 3 Next Gen Update: three months on, I’m still not convinced

^ Stay tuned for our full video appraisal of The Witcher 3’s current state, full of glorious ultrawide footage!

The best bit of PC gaming is having the speed and power to be able to whack everything on Ultra and marvel as your rig effortlessly spits out a silky-smooth rendition of whatever game it is, with graphical features activated that would make the latest consoles wave a little white flag and melt into a puddle of liquid convenience.

The worst bit is when you can’t whack everything on ultra, and so have to Fiddle: endlessly tweaking a bewildering array of switches and sliders in order to find the perfect balance between performance and visual fidelity. Incessantly calibrating a piece of software with all the complexity of one that monitors the status of a nuclear reactor, not just for your specific hardware configuration but also for your own tolerances as a human being. Some people don’t mind a bit of screen tearing if it unlocks some performance headroom. Others, like me, abhor it: it’s synonymous with “unplayable” as far as I’m concerned. Some people can take or leave raytracing. Me? If it’s there, I want it turned on, otherwise I’ll be wincing every time a screen space reflection rudely disappears when I dare to tilt the camera.